All about coloured hair

Ever had a henna surprise? Natural colorants can be quite unpredictable, because it’s hard to control the doses and strength of their active ingredients. Some contain pigments or natural bleaching agents that change the colour of your hair. Natural pigments usually envelop the shafts of your hair with colour. They may last through a couple of washing and styling cycles – or longer, if you use Braun’s Satin Hair™ Colour styling tools with Colour Saver Technology and pigment-friendly heat settings. Despite their name, natural colorants aren’t necessarily gentler than chemical hair colour, so be sure to avoid added stress to your hair.

Temporary hair colours either deposit dyes onto the outer layer of your hair shaft, or consist of molecules so tiny that they can permeate the cuticle without opening it. Most temporary hair colours contain very little, if any, peroxide. Each time you shampoo your hair, you’ll remove some of the colour – that’s why it’s called temporary ... You can extend the lifetime of your temp colour by washing your hair less frequently and using Braun’s Satin Hair™ Colour styling tools, which have been developed especially to suit the needs of coloured hair. They are ultra-gentle on your hair and let you enjoy your gorgeous colour for longer.

All lightening processes are based on the same chemical reaction. The bleach – usually peroxide – in the lightener oxidizes the melanin in your hair. This causes the melanin to lose its colour, and your hair gets lighter. To permit the peroxide to enter the hair shaft, most bleaching and colouring products contain ammonia, which opens up the cuticle. Bleaching thus changes the structure and chemical makeup of your hair – which is why it is so important to use styling tools like Satin Hair™ Colour that are suited to the particular needs of coloured hair.

Unlike temporary hair colour, permanent hair colour delivers the pigment molecules into the inner layers of your hair shaft. To be able to do that, it has to open the cuticula first. The dye then reacts with the inner layer of your hair, the cortex. Most permanent hair colours consist of two steps: the original colour is removed from the hair (see “Lightening” on how this works) and the new colour is deposited. The result: long-lasting colour. And if you want to let your colour shine on and on for even longer, use Satin Hair™ Colour styling tools – they are gentle to your hair and to the colorant molecules, causing up to 70%* less colour fadeout! 

*Colour Saver Technology at medium setting (normal hair) vs. 230°C straightener at highest setting; after 5 treatments