Archive for June 5th, 2006
Tips and hints on how to achieve the desired colour when dyeing your hair. Also, ways to ensure that the colour remains the way you want it.
When deciding to dye your hair you must first consider the colour that you want the end result to be.
If you want to highlight your hair, your natural colour should be either blonde or light to medium brunette. If you have a cool skin tone use ash or beige tones, warmer skin tones should consider using golden or straw hues.
When deciding on the solution that you intend to use, consider the amount of time and upkeep you are willing to put into maintaining your colour. An all over dye will require regular re-dyes to combat different colour roots.
Deep condition your hair a few days before you intend to dye it. Always test the product on a few strands first to ensure that it is the right colour (very rarely are the results exactly the same as the picture on the box!).
Apply the solution to your hair, check every five minutes to ensure that the colour is what you want. Never leave the solution on for longer than 20 minutes. Keep a detailed record of what you did so that you can repeat it if you like the results or if the results are not as wanted you can inform the professional colourist what exactly you have done.
Roots should be done every 3 - 4 weeks with the same colour and brand that you used for the original colour. Part your hair evenly down the center, parting and from ear to ear. Clip each of the four sections seperately. Tend to each section in turn, covering the roots only.
For the last five minutes of the treatment, cover the rest of the hair to merge the colours and brighten up the rest of the hair.
To maintain the colour use a colour safe conditioner and shampoo as your regular hair care products. Use a colour boosting shampoo and conditioner at regular intervals (your stylist should be able to recommend one.) When in the sun use a hair sunscreen as sunlight can seriuosly fade your hair colour. Always test new products on a patch of hair first.
Avoid chlorine and salt water for a few days after dyeing your hair, do not apply hair dye if you have used henna in the last year.
If you are pregnant seek your doctors advice before dyeing.
June 5th, 2006
Make an herbal toner is a nice way to pamper yourself.
To make herbal toners, please use organically grown herbs.
You don’t want to be wearing pesticides! All of the ingredients used for this recipe can be bought from health and specialty stores.
Ingredients:
Equal parts each of:
Fresh rosemary
Fresh mint
dried cinnamon sticks
dried cloves
fresh lemon peel
witch hazel
Tincture of Benzoin
A few drops of essential oil
1. Place all the ingredients in a jar and pour enough witch hazel to cover the herbs.
2. Close the lid on the jar tightly and give it a few shakes. Set aside in a cool place for two weeks to let the herbs steep and shake the jar occasionally.
3. After two weeks, strain the herbs out of the liquid and add 10 drops of tincture of benzoin. For every cup of witch hazel used, add 4 drops of essential oil.
4. Pour into a nice clean bottle and cap. Your herbal toner is ready for use.
You can try using other combinations of herb like fresh mint, lemon balm, lavender and fresh rosemary. Tincture of benzoin helps preserve the toner. If the herbal toner smells strong enough for you, you can omit adding the drops of essential oil. When buying essential oils, read the label carefully and make sure that you are not getting the kind that is already diluted. You want pure essential oils. This herbal toner is a nice way to pamper yourself.
Pour the herbal toner into a nicely decorated bottle and it makes a perfect gift!
June 5th, 2006
A cheap and easy way to dye your hair wild colors with Kool Aid.
So you’ve decided to change your hair color to something a little bolder. Well, good for you.
But before we begin, you need to make sure that’s this is going to be ok. People, especially parents, tend to freak over wild hair color.
So if you have a real nine to five job, or you’re under eighteen or still living with your parents, make sure you have given this some thought. You may just want to buy a wig instead.
Still with me? Great! Now, first of all, you need to determine if bleaching is going to be necessary. Brunettes will need to bleach to achieve any kind of noticeable color, as will redheads. If you do have red hair, please understand that this may not work at all. Red is the hardest color to dye over. If you have darker hair, but all you’re looking for is a tint of color, you don’t need to bleach. Blondes will not need to either.
Do you want streaks or over all color? The basic instructions are the same for both. The difference is that streaks should be separated from the rest of the hair by wrapping in foil.
Bleaching is relatively simple. Buy a bleach kit from the store. You want a kit that specifically states bleaching. A blonding kit will not be enough. Mix the ingredients according to the directions in the box and apply to hair in a well-ventilated room. Put on a shower cap and wait the recommended amount of time. At this point, check the hair to see how much it has bleached out. If not enough, put the cap back on and wait another ten minutes. Keep checking your hair until it had turned a yellowish white color. Then go rise the bleach completely out. Do not use the conditioner that comes with the kit. This will close off your hair to the color.
Next you need to mix up the Kool Aid. Choose a color you like, the brighter the better. Mix two packets of unsweetened mix with a double quarter sized amount of conditioner. I cannot stress enough that this must be unsweetened Kool Aid. If you use the sugar-added type, your hair will be a mess. If you haven’t bleached your hair first, go wet it. Put on a pair of gloves and apply the Kool Aid to your hair. If this is not enough to thickly coat the hair, mix up some more and continue. Wrap your head in plastic wrap and leave it. Leave it as long as you can stand it, all day if you can. The longer you leave it, the better the color will adhere to the hair.
Over time, the color will fade out. If you want it out quicker, toothpaste will speed up this process, but if you bleached the hair or you have really light hair normally, it will not remove the color totally.
June 5th, 2006
Hair that has been lightened has had the outer layer lifted and removed. That’s how blonde shades, and double process lighteners accomplish their jobs.
The hair that remains is weaker, dryer, and much more porous than before. To accomplish a corrective color successfully, a professional MUST be consulted!!
A good stylist would follow these steps:
1. Evaluate the texture and condition of the lightened hair, and suggest trimming off the most damaged part. That hair will never hold a new color, so to maximize success, the worst HAS TO GO!
2.Apply a product called a FILLER to the blonde part. This step “fills in” (hence the name) the lightened hair shaft with some pigment, giving the hair color something to “grab” onto.
3. Now a color is applied, to match your shade.
4. Your stylist should recommend a color preserving shampoo and conditioner formulated for colored hair, and must be used FAITHFULLY!
Even after all of that, some fading will inevitably occur. Return trips for trims and color treatments every 4-6 weeks will be necessary until you grow and cut off all the lighter hair.
Following these steps, you’ll be in great shape for the Holidays!!
June 5th, 2006
By Simon Pitman
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The global hair care market enjoyed steady growth, thanks mainly to robust conditions in developing countries like Russia and Brazil, backed up by sustained growth in buoyant developed markets such as Spain and the UK. But increasing product diversity could spell future trouble.
Currently the market is valued at $4.7 billion and in 2004 grew by 9.7 per cent, according to the latest market report by Euromonitor.
But the mature state of the market means that many manufacturers are having to stretch themselves in order to remain competitive.
As well as the size and maturity of the market, the report authors also point out that high penetration has continued to drive down prices, making conditions even tougher. As a consequence manufacturers have had to be extremely proactive, which has led to a constant stream of increasingly sophisticated product launches.
In Europe, where the retail market has been greatly slowed by challenging conditions in two of the largest economies – France and Germany – the picture has been contrasted by a rosier economic climate in the UK and Spain.
The resulting increased spending power in these two countries has helped to boost sales of hair care products considerably, encouraging people to spend far more on their outward appearance.
In the UK the fastest growing subsector in 2004 was salon hair care, which, was not even subject to any heavy discounting. In Spain this was matched by a plethora of new launches with value-added benefits, such as conditioners to fight sun damage.
In Brazil, Euromonitor points out that a greater stratification of the hair care category has encouraged greater growth. This has led to a series of products aimed at key demographic groups – namely men, women and children – or else key hair types such as Afro or chemically treated and specific hair treatments.
In Russia salon hair care has been a key driver of growth – a category that was until recently negligible in size. This has been driven by the increasing number of upmarket hair salons cropping up in key urban regions.
But it has not all been such a rosy story for the industry. The world’s largest market for haircare, the US, has undergone a prolonged period of uncertainty. This has been exacerbated by intense competition and low levels of brand loyalty, leading manufacturers to lower prices, thus cutting margins.
The Japanese market has also been suffering from fierce competition, although Euromonitor points out that there has been a slight recovery in hair sales during 2004. Here hair care sales greatly benefited from a proliferation of value products coupled with an economic recovery.
Moving on to individual hair care categories, not surprisingly it is shampoo that remains the most valuable. Valued at $13.2 billion, growth in this category has been held back due to high levels of penetration world-wide. Tough competition in this category means that innovation is key to survival.
Sales of colourants, the second most valuable area, reached $9 billion, boosted by the development of less harsh formulation. In the UK and Australia, sales were said to be boosted by a continuing interest in youth orientated product launches.
Growth in styling agents slowed significantly, registering a 2 per cent increase. With fashion dictating an increasingly natural look and shampoos containing formulas that aim to give styling characteristics, Euromonitor believes that the future of this category looks bleak.
Meanwhile conditioner sales have been boosted by 2-in-1 products in developing markets, though this effect is said to be ebbing off now due to consumer awareness over the effectiveness of such products. This has been further boosted by significant marketing campaigns by all the major players to boost conditioner sales by informing consumers of product benefits.
With products in this category growing ever-more diverse, Euromonitor believes that the hair care category could be in danger over segmenting itself. Already the US market – probably the most mature – is suffering from a lack of brand loyalty. More choice could make this problem all the greater world-wide.
June 5th, 2006