VAIN Blog

Well, hello, VAIN Downtown!

I hope you all remember me; I know it’s been a minute. You haven’t seen me at VAIN in a bit, but the beauty world is on my mind all the time. Right up there next to my own hair, how to care for it, and how to make it look lovely.

Flipping through a magazine the other day, I saw an advertisement from a big brand shampoo company. It had a ‘helpful’ Q+A regarding beauty myths - except that it didn’t answer questions for me, only raised them. One of the statements they contradicted was something I had told clients every day - don’t wash your hair before a color service. The advertisement stated you should wash your hair, so that your colorist could properly identify the existing color. Confused [and thinking about my roots] I emailed VAIN owner, founder, and styledriver Victoria Gentry. Here’s what Vic had to say on the matter:

“Unless you ran a marathon your hair could not possibly have enough oil built up to effect how the color appears to your stylist on the 2nd day after shampooing.”

Aha! I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any marathons in my future. Though, it would be awesome if we did! So, we know that second day hair won’t mystify colorists. So what are the reasons why we would be sure to skip the shampoo the day of our services?

“The main point of not washing your hair is to have some oil in your skin to protect you from the effects of the peroxide and/or ammonia. It also helps to buffer staining from the pigment and would give added protection if someone had a mild allergy to the pigment and still insists on getting hair color. When you shampoo, you also rough up your scalp. Vigorous washings or brushing could create tiny abrasions on your scalp adding to the irritating effect of hair color.”

The moral of the story?

Keep your home grown protection and don’t wash or brush your scalp the day of your hair color appointment.

And, for your next color touchup, visit us Downtown [206.441.3441] or Ballard [206.706.2707] - we know the real answers to your Q+A.

More sudsy news, soon.

xo,

Sarah Jo, VAIN’s far-flung shampoo-skipping beauty correspondent

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Hair color, Hair tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.