Hair Dye 101

I was thirteen years old when I dyed my hair for the first time. Actually, I only got highlights. At thirteen, it didn’t matter so much what was going into my hair as did the fact that I had fashionable hair. By the time I turned fifteen, I had tried every possible and imaginable shade of brown. At that point in time, I decided brown was dull and common; I decided to try something more unique.

As far back as I can recall, my favorite color has always been purple, more precisely the darker shades hitting plum rather than the lighter pastels hitting lilac. There isn’t much of a reason why I am so fascinated by the color purple other than the fact that I associate myself with the color. The color purple often reminds people close to me about me. It’s interesting how it happens. I see it as I am purple and purple is me. Where I start and purple ends, or vice-versa, has been lost, and it is like a loop that continuously goes from one to the other and then back.

One day I went up to my mom and told her I wanted to dye my hair purple. As I had expected, my mom went over the roof when she heard my rather bizarre request. As the days passed, I would randomly bring up the purple hair dye topic simply to observe my mom’s reaction. One day, however, I arrived home, and my mother told me she had bought me something. I saw a black plastic bag lying on the dinner table, and I curiously approached it. As I opened it, I recognized a tub in a familiar shade of purple. I jumped up and down and ran through the house after I realized it was purple hair dye.

It didn’t take me long to read the instructions and apply the dye. The tub of Jerome Russell™ Punky Colour Plum hair dye read :

“Shampoo hair & dry. Use petroleum jelly or baby oil around hairline and on ears. Use rubber gloves. Apply dye evenly from roots to ends with a Jerome Russell tint brush. Comb through. Leave on hair approximately 15-30 minutes, then rinse out. Color will fade out with each shampoo and may last for 5 - 40 washes. For best results, apply to dry hair, bleach hair first and do not condition.”

My hair was clean, check. I applied petroleum jelly as instructed, and put on the rubber gloves. However, I wasn’t going to bleach my hair. I had no intention of doing so because my hair was too long for me to risk frying it. So I applied the hair dye and waited out the thirty minutes. Now, my mother has always believed that if you get your head wet and the rest of your body remains dry, you can catch a cold. After my mother denied me from rinsing my hair in the sink, I jumped into the shower-bathtub to rinse out the dye. As I stood in the shower, I noticed something odd I had never experienced with hair dye before. As the hair dye ran with the water, it left markings on my skin as well as blotches of purple on the tub. I had never before come across hair dye that would stain anything other than my hair; I didn’t quite well know how to remove these peculiar stains. I tried a large variety of household chemicals to remove the bathtub stains which included Simple Green™, bleach, Ajax™, and all the other cleaning chemicals I found in my mom’s cleaning closet. After discovering, that letting Ajax™ sit in the bathtub with some water and scrubbing it with a broom did the trick, I proceeded to finding a solution to the next predicament. My face and body were still pretty purple, because regular soap didn’t completely take it off. After several unsuccessful attempts with various facial cleansers, my face and skin were irritated, and I had to stop and remain satisfied with the fact that my hair was at last purple. After several days of washing regularly with normal body products, my face, hands, scalp, ears, forehead, and every other part that was purple, except for my hair, ‘depurplized.’ I became more than intrigued in the chemical composition of the hair dye.

My interest and knowledge in hair dye chemistry quickly expanded. After realizing that the semi-permanent hair was vegetable based, I realized that it could be left for periods longer than thirty minutes, and the longer it remained on the hair, the longer it would actually last. I found out that many people do indeed leave the dye longer than the proposed time, often overnight. For example, the owner of the Antimony & Lace website states that his method to achieve longer lasting hair dye is to either leave it overnight or for a minimum of six hours. Throughout my research, I also learned that the reason bleaching was recommended was because bleach increased the porosity of hair and increased porosity led to greater absorption of hair dye. I also realized through my quest for knowledge that unlike semi-permanent hair dye, permanent hair dye can be very damaging. Cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Harold Gunatillake, stated in his article on hair loss that permanent hair dyes contain hydrogen peroxide, which “chemically changes the hair pigment melanin.” He also said that vegetable based hair dyes “do not penetrate the outer layers of the hair shaft and hence less damaging to the hair.” In other words, regular hair dye damages your hair because it goes into the actual shaft, kills the pigment, and inserts a new pigment, occasionally leaving your hair fragile. My purple hair dye, however, does not damage hair. The color pigment of most unnatural color semi-permanent hair dye only adheres to the surface of the shaft. This means that it only conditions your hair because it acts as a sealer for all the pores in the hair shaft.

After researching different hair dyes in search of a hair dye that would last longer, I became my own guinea pig; I was experimenting on my own hair. Because my hair used to be very long when I started my purple experiments, I was hesitant to try bleach, which would make the color more vivid, on the full length of my hair. Instead, I chose to go for the next best option, perm solution. There are two steps in a perm. First you must relax your hair with one solution. What this means is that your hair is forcibly shaped into what you would like your hair to be shaped into through the use of rods or braids. A relaxing solution is applied. What this solution does is that it opens up the pores in the hair shaft and allows the hair to accept the new shape. Then the neutralizer, which stops the relaxer from continuing to open the pores more, is applied. Therefore, because perms increase the porosity of the hair shaft and allow the dye to last longer without much damage, I started perming my hair before dying it. Of course, since I was applying perm solution I decided to take advantage of it and tried multiple styles with purple hair that ranged from straight hair to wild tossed curly hair.

At the beginning of this year, however, I decided to cut my hair rather short in order to look like a manga character of which I am huge fan. Since my hair was short now, I decided to try bleach because the purple dye would look more vivid on bleached hair. When I first bleached my hair, I had someone professional bleach it for me. Sure I had done plenty of experiments on my hair before, but somehow I got the feeling that bleach would not be as simple as applying perm solution or hair dye. I had never bleached my hair before, so I was not very familiar with the procedure. My first mistake was that I washed my hair really clean right before I got the bleach. Now I know better, because of the burning and itching sensations I went through at that time. Hair should preferably be dirty, three days dirty work best, before bleaching it. Why? Hair should be dirty because that means that the pores in your scalp are really closed and protected by natural oils that the scalp releases. Because the pores are closed, the chemicals in the bleach do not give you those burning and itching sensations. By the way, your hair being dirty does not interfere with the effects of the bleach because the chemistry is designed to bleach the hair.

Since that last time I bleached my hair, I have only bleached it once again. I am currently letting my hair grow long again; I realized that I enjoyed my long hair more. Through my hair dye experiences, I have learned that appreciation for science often comes in unexpected and peculiar ways. The path that led to my interest in chemistry was a little less than obvious, because I never expected to become fascinated by the chemistry of hair and dye to this extent through the color I love.

Works Cited

“Dye Your Hair.” Antimony & Lace. 6 Oct. 2004 <http://gothfashion.info/x.php?stuff=hairdye>.

Gunatillake, Harold. “Losing Hair.” OZlanka.com Medical Files. OZlanka.com Medical Web. 8 Oct. 2004 <http://www.ozlanka.com/health/hairloss.htm>.

Welcome to Jerome Russell™ Online. Jerome Russell™. 5 Oct. 2004 <http://www.jeromerussell.com/>.