How does permanent hair dye work

Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph. Chemistry Expert. Helmenstine holds a Ph. She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph. The Science of Hair Coloring.

Sulfuric Acid and Sugar Demonstration. Your Privacy Rights. If you go in the opposite direction -- from black or brown to blonde -- the hair goes through an additional step.

First, bleach is used to strip the color from the hair. Then the ammonia-peroxide reaction creates the new color and deposits it in the hair shaft. If you use a semi-permanent color, the hair is coated with color, rather than deposited into the hair shaft. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close.

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Everyday Innovations. Here are basic descriptions of the three major hair coloring product levels used by Clairol, L'oreal and others: Advertisement. The acid will close the cuticles and make the hair smoother. Thanks for telling me that using semi-permanent dye on my hair means that it can fade after a few washes. It might be a good idea to look up salons in our area and see if they offer this service.

Hi Michelle, I know that this is an old post and hopefully You can shed some light to this as I struggle to find an answer to it. Thank you very much. Thanks for your reply. I am elated. I am imagining that the color is like a raincoat, instead of wearing a cotton clothes. My hair has been bleached for years now, and the struggle to keep the cuticles down aka make it look shiny is hard.

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I should write about that too — thanks for the suggestion! Same here! Thank you so much! Great explanation, thanks! To make color easier to describe accurately, we say it has two characteristics: level and tone.

Level simply refers to how light or dark—the lower the number, the darker the hair. This number ranges from , with 1 being darkest black, and 10 lightest blonde. Tone refers to the underlying color of the hair, commonly referred to as either "cool" or "warm. A predominance of black and brown pigments creates cool-toned hair, while a predominance of red and yellow pigments creates warm-toned hair. We call cool-toned hair "ash", while warm-toned hair has visible gold, copper or reddish tints and is called chestnut, auburn, or golden.

To describe tone more accurately and to differentiate it from level, we use letters. Natural tones are G for Gold and C for copper, so chestnut brown hair is more accurately described as a Level 5 with gold and copper tones, or a 5GC. Describing colors added to hair follows the same principle as describing natural color. The levels are the same numbers, from 1 to 10, and the tones have letters.