Taking care of hair care products

   Each time you apply permanent and semi-permanent hair color, you subject your mane to a chemical process. By their very nature, chemicals are damaging to the hair cuticle, the outer covering of the individual hair strands. The cuticle covers the cortex, or inner area of the hair shaft. Hair is porous, so each chemical treatment adds a little more damage to the cuticle and penetrates the cuticle to reach the cortex.

 If you examine a strand of color-treated hair under a microscope, you will see at least three distinct images. At the top of the hair strand, the new growth resembles a new shingle roof on a house, where the smooth shingles overlap slightly. Toward the middle of the hair strand, the shingles begin to fray at the bottom edge. The ends often resemble badly split straw.

   You might find similar damage in hair not subjected to repeated chemical processes. Hair is vulnerable to drying and breakage from brushing, the elements, heat from blow dryers and curling irons, even from the individual strands rubbing against one another. Chemical processes just add insult to injury.

The Hair Color Chemical Cocktail

In a perfect world, you wouldn't apply any chemicals to your hair and you'd walk around perfectly coiffed at all times. While that's just not possible in the modern world, it is possible to find a few hair colors without peroxide, ammonia and alcohol, the offending chemicals. These gentler products are just beginning to hit the market. Several brands available on the Internet contain formulations free from peroxide, ammonia and alcohol, and L'Oreal has introduced a new product without these chemicals. Using these products is your best defense against damage from hair color.

Caring for Color-treated Hair

The absolute worst thing that you can do to color-treated hair is to straighten it or perm it. An occasional chemical process will not usually result in severe damage. Damage results from the cumulative abuse you inflict upon your hair. If you must perm or straighten your hair in addition to coloring it, wait at least two weeks before coloring it. Perms and straightening solutions tend to lighten hair and add a brassy look to dark hair, so it's best to perm or straighten two weeks before coloring hair. Dual processing your hair, applying two chemical processes in rapid succession, whether it's color or perm is going to damage your hair. You'll find your hair breaks much easier when you perm and color it, and styling will be more difficult.   http://www.ultraimports.com.au/