teerama said:
Okay, I think I am finally succumbing to the raves about Phyto. Problem is that the website says it should not be used on hair that has been bleached. I am hoping to put highlights in my hair this spring (it will be the first time in 3 years) and I do not want my hair to fall out. After all, you ladies have helped me get where I am today after years of struggle.
Do any of you current Phyto users have highlights or some sort of bleached/peroxided strands???
TIA
Well the ladies already hooked you up with the most important parts of the info.....but I just wanted to add that FYI -
every single relaxer says that it should not be used on bleached hair....bleach and relaxers just don't make good bedfellows. (headfellows?
)
You CAN do highlights with color and it's the same exact process that you'd use to do bleached highlights - you just use a mixed permie color instead of bleach is all. If you do use bleach though (and I have with no trouble) it is PROTEIN you need to maintain color. It is not oil, it is not moisture, it is PROTEIN.
Relaxers remove protein from the hair as well as destroy the chemical structure of the protein that is in the hair. Color does the SAME. Hair that is colored AND relaxed gets weak, and mushy, and melts (as Dana notes - particularly when bleach is involved) because it is in dire need of PROTEIN.
People who "saved" their highlights by "oiling" them got lucky if they weren't also using PROTEIN. Oil prvides lubrication so the hair doesn't snap off as easily - but when you do that you're treating a SYMPTOM of the problem (loss of elasticity is due to loss of PROTEIN, not loss of oil or moisture) and not the root.
PROTEIN, PROTEIN, PROTEIN is
THE most important part of a color regime. If you remember nothing else, remember that.