Out & About July 2017

If you want to look beach blonde or costa del copper for the summer holidays, VICTORIA LEE says it’s ok to use hair dye, as long as you take sensible precautions to protect your locks from the sun’s rays and the effects of swimming pool chemicals

C olour and sunshine – what happens to your hair and best ways to avoid damage. A much repeated question clients ask us is whether it is wise to colour your hair prior to going on holiday. If we do colour before we go on holiday, the depth and tone fades quite rapidly and noticeably quicker than usual, because the sun photochemically produces a reaction within the hair shaft, enabling colour pigments to oxidise and change the hair’s colour. This process works on the same idea as fruit going off and changing colour. If the skin of the fruit stays intact, then no oxygen can reach the fruit beneath the protective layer of the skin, therefore keeping it fresher and not allowing any discoloration. When hair is damaged, the cuticles (skin) on the hair shaft allow the sun to penetrate through, causing the colour to fade. Applying conditioner to protect from UV rays is a myth, just as wearing moisturiser on our body will not offer protection from the sun. However, if you care for your hair regularly with good quality products that contain high quantities of nourishing ingredients, you will limit the damage to your hair cuticles and thus allow less sun penetration and colour fade. Another issue that can occur when in the sunshine, especially on naturally fair or bleached hair, is the hair picking up a tinge of green, particularly from swimming pool water. The blame is often put on the chlorine in the water, when actually it could be due to the metal copper in the pool water or algaecides. When the metals in the water come into contact with ‘blondes’ and are then left to dry, this is when the hair turns green or ‘khaki’. Despite the name copper you may wonder why the hair is not dyed this colour from the water, but as the hair dries, copper is precipitated out as a copper sulphide.

With copper’s positive electrical charge and hair and skin possessing a negative charge, water will evaporate from the hair when you get out of the pool, but the copper does not, which, with the cationic charge, remains in the hair and turns it green by an oxidisation process. To avoid this, we would recommend rinsing your hair in fresh water as soon as you leave the pool. Covering your hair and scalp with a hat prior to going into the sun proves beneficial, failing that a high sun factor applied every two hours to the exposed hair will help protect it. Hopefully, this will give you some quick and simple answers as to how to keep your hair looking it’s best. If you need any advice with your skin or hair give us a call at Diverse Beauty, as we are here to help.

Victoria Lee from Diverse Beauty www.diversebeauty.co.uk T: 01635 728023

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