Experiments & Explainations

So, I've had my study materials for just about a week now, maybe two. The latest batch of supplies came this week, and I've been playing!! First on the list was to make the required swatches, which I did. Then, next was to do the porosity examples. The last part of that one is developing right now. I've got swatches prepared for permanent color examples (the lower half of the swatch is bleached to gold, the upper half is natural), which I will be taking into work and taking care of them there. Now, I'm also creating porosity examples with lighter hair. The first batch was done on level 3 (dark brown) hair, the newest batch is on "Soft Brown" hair...level 7, blonde hair. What are porosity examples? Well, it's like this. Porosity refers to the condition of the hair, whether it's from the sun, heated appliances, chemical services. A child's hair, which hasn't been exposed to as much life as an adults, has excellent porosity in reference to the overall health of the hair. Hair has a cuticle, just like your fingernails do. When it's "virgin" hair (no chemical services, no sun damage, no heated appliance damage) the cuticle is compact and tight. It helps their hair to dry relatively quickly, because the water wasn't absorbed into the hair shaft, but remained on the surface. It's also what makes it hard for a child's hair to take to a curl (when you set their hair on rollers, in a curling iron) or to accept a chemical service, like a perm. A perm, on a child, won't "take" because the waving lotion spends all it's developing time trying to break through that tight cuticle. By the time the perm timer is done, the chemical has only just broken through. And, even with the help of the neutralizer, and not washing the hair for the required 48 hours, the perm "falls out", because the chemical couldn't do it's job properly. In my world, that's BAD porosity, because it doesn't work with the chemicals, it works against the chemicals. GOOD porosity, in my world, is slightly roughed up hair, either by sun, heated appliances, or a few chemical services, but not an overload of any of these circumstances. When the porosity gets bad again is when the hair is TRASHED. You've seen these people...usually walking around in a discount department store, or on your main street....orange root area (regrowth), white white ends (this is if they're trying to be blonde), fuzzy like cotton candy, edges looking frayed like a pair of cut off shorts. OR, if they are never happy with the color of their hair, it's lighter on top, and BLACK on the ends. Porosity has to do with ALL of that. Here's how it works with the chemicals, specifically, permanent color: When you apply color for the first time, and your hair is maybe a level 2 for porosity (roughed up slightly, but not trashed), the ammonia in the permanent color swells the cuticle to allow the developer inside to break up your natural pigment to allow the strands to accept the artificial pigment properly. You get to do this maybe once or twice before the hair starts to protest. The ideal way to handle this is: once the initial color is on the hair, and the client comes in to get their regrowth dealt with, permanent color is only used on the regrowth, not down through the entire strand of hair. What you do with the now "old" color is create a demi permanent color to match the original formula and apply that to the ends to "refresh" the color. However, most of the time, this does not happen this way. Whether the color is done in the salon or in the kitchen, the ammonia based color is applied all the way through the hair to "freshen up" the color, which it does, temporarily. What's happening to the hair is this: The ammonia will still swell the cuticle and the developer will still go in and break up the pigment located inside to allow the strand to accept the artificial pigment. However, the developer doesn't work as well on artificial pigment, so it winds up depositing the color more that it lifts or lightens the existing pigment. So, the cuticle is pushed open (envision a partially open rose bud filling with water from the rains) some more, which gives the color a little more room to deposit, which helps keep that cuticle open. So, now, when your hair is wet, it gets kind of clumpy and a bit more difficult to run a comb or brush through, so you heap on the conditioner, thinking that will help. And, when you come into the salon, your complaint is that you hair is dry. Your hair isn't actually dry...it's starting to fray like a pair of cut off shorts. Invariably, the stylist, not understanding the job that the components of artificial color performs, questions you about your water (well water or town water), about your shampoo & conditioner (professional or over the counter), readily placing blame on those things, instead of squarely on themselves. So, the damage continues. Your stylist sells you a ton of product, convincing you it will help your hair. Eventually, you complain that your ends seem really dark, and your top seems really light. And your stylist really can't explain this phenomenon. Now, one of two things will happen: A) a lightener solution(lightening powder, shampoo & developer, equal amounts) will be applied to your hair, lifting out/lightening the hair, but still compromising the integrity of the hair, because lightening powder does the same thing as hair color because it also contains ammonia. Then, your stylist will again apply the permanent color to your entire hair strand, to match the color again, adding yet more ammonia to the hair to swell the cuticle some more. OR, your stylist will highlight your hair, using lightening powder and probably 40 volume developer (like using high performance gasoline in a beat up car) to lighten up those pesky ends, still swelling the hair shaft. Let's go back to that rose for a minute. Adding all that permanent color to the hair shaft is like the rose being subjected to a torrential down pour. The rose keeps opening and opening under the pressure of the rain and the weight of the water, until it eventually is open all the way and the petals start falling off. This is what happens to your hair. Except instead of your hair falling out, it's actually breaking off...what we call a "chemical haircut". Now, let's go back to the nice lady with the hair color. We're going to fix this hot mess. She doesn't like the dark ends, but wants to keep the original color we started with. You, as the stylist/colorist, have no choice but to lighten up those ends using the lightener solution, because permanent hair color uses 20 volume developer, the equivalent of unleaded gas. It doesn't have enough "oomph" to get the job done. You let the nice lady know what you're doing to her hair, that it's necessary. You apply this solution to her hair,making sure to not apply to the regrowth, watching it closely, waiting for it to lighten. NEVER put this corrective color client (because that's now what she is) under the dryer for any of these procedures. The heat from the dryer also opens up the cuticle, which will only make things worse. Once the hair has reached an acceptable level of warm orangey color, rinse the stuff out, shampoo, condition, trim, and dry the hair. Since she's decided to keep the color she had, you apply the permanent color formula to her regrowth ONLY, paying attention to where the other color is, careful to not overlap them. When you are done applying that color, mix up the formula you created in demi permanent, and apply to the lightened ends of the hair. What will you have when you're all done?? Seamless color, the ends of the hair will feel MUCH better. Why, after all those chemicals?? Because the demi color is acidic and the permanent color/lightener is alkaline. Alkaline opens the cuticle, acid closes it down. For take home product, she needs shampoo and conditioner meant to smooth the hair. It's not a cure, by any means, just a band aid, depending on how much damage is done. You'll also need to explain to the client how much it will cost to just do her regrowth, how much it will cost to have to refresh the ends (properly) and that, depending on the shade used, you may not have to refresh every time. What do you have when all this is done?? A happy client who will keep coming back because you saved their hair, or because you never damaged it in the first place. This is why understanding how permanent color works and how porosity plays into all of this is so important to my job.