To dye for

In this day and age when people are obsessing over how to stop the hands of time from advancing, there are ways to enhance one’s appearance without being cut up.

Women have long connected femininity and beauty with their hair. Today, almost 40 percent of women dye their hair. The great advantage of dyeing one’s hair — as opposed to having other parts of their bodies “enhanced” — is that it is an easy and non-invasive way to look better.

Keeping younger-looking is time consuming and that includes coloring my hair. Buying it is another hassle because every dye has its own promises. Hair dye can give us blond streaks, flaming burgundy, red fire or chestnut browns and even purple. So I have three colors of dye in my bathroom to try. Each one I choose gets me nervous about the results. One time I dyed my hair ash and what a disaster it turned out. I had black hair, black eyeglasses, black Kohl, black lashes, black clothes. I looked like Mr. Hyde’s wife.

While I have the ability to humor myself, I fret a lot, too. Those strands on my head can fall or turn to corn hair. Yet I’ve stocked brown dyes in varied tones in my closet like Nice and Easy, Bigen, L’Oreal for quick 10-minute fixes. All I wanted was to drive away the grays. It turned out so did my carpenter, who dyed his hair gold with turpentine!

But sometimes it seems like such a waste of time and money to sit in a salon when you can get the same results at home, right? Well, not exactly. Hair colorists insist they have to start us off in the right direction. In fact, I was told the story of a mother who refused to let the salon touch her hair, saying, “Why should I pay your price when I can buy hair dye from a drugstore for $8?”

For my part, I prefer home remedies. I can watch TV or read a book sitting on a divan, while an existing light streak is being darkened. To lighten a dark shade, I need Cora of L’s. Peroxide? Don’t try that; it’ll strip your whole head of its color. I’ve dyed my hair at the Baguio Country Club and, trust me, Mrs. Meryl’s parlor on the ground floor has two colorists who have the expertise.

Whenever I commit blunders on my hair, I run to my colorist to tell her the whole truth. No one wants a partial truth. They know that L’Oreal’s Feria, for example, has properties that make the color stubborn to fading, or that L’Oreal Natural Match is easier to color over.

Last Sunday, I thought about it real hard — should I have my hair dyed today in a salon or with Emi helping me at home? Being a risk taker who hates indecision, I made up my mind to do it at home. Off to the drug store it was. Reviewing rows and rows of dyes, I kept in mind that I wanted brown tones, instead of ash or red or gold — my nationality couldn’t take it.

I overheard a girl choose her color according to how pretty the model’s pictures were on the box. One chose her color without taking into consideration that she had a perm.

So what is there to do? Check out the shade’s name, review the color chart — from the “before” to the “after” — check the formulation. Is there ammonia? Is it vegetable dye? That’s how I found out how my granddaughter Ina has an eye for the correct shades and a better memory for remembering colors.

The most authentic-looking, non-dyed and predictable result, whether you do it yourself or in the salon, occurs when a new color is just a shade or two away from the natural base. Dark takes you to ash or near black; neutral would be the copper or golden shades. And if you are picking a warm color, always assume it will be a little redder and lighter than in the picture.

What happens when that one perfect color is nowhere to be found? Mix two colors. It neutralizes too dark or too light tones, but stay within the same tonal family and the same line.

Each hair dye box contains two bottles: one with a mixture of colorant, ammonia and fragrance, the other the developer with some sort of hydrogen peroxide. Is there really One that doesn’t fade? The so-called semi permanent dyes like Clairol’s Natural Instinct gradually washes out and contains low levels of peroxide. It causes less damage and has no major effect on the hair’s natural pigment. Great! The right formula for dealing with gray is L’Oreal Excellence Crème Color, which contains pigments to coat gray.

Every hairstylist has a different method of application. I start mine at the front first because my grays are there, in between the top layers of brown. Others start from the back. Whichever way, Vaseline all around the hairline is necessary to avoid dye being stuck on your face. I start the timer after I apply, and my timer is my yaya. 

I’ve learned on my own that virgin roots process at a faster speed. Leaving dye on previously processed hair for a longer period than recommended can result in coarse, damaged hair. When coloring, let it stay on the roots for the prescribed period of time, and with just five or 10 minutes, comb the dye from the roots to the whole head of hair for the same hues as the roots. Now the rest of the hair should look brighter again.

At home, I have learned from my mistakes. I’ve dyed my hair too black, too red, and was a victim of coarse hair for a brief time until Suave and John Frieda came my way.

Men and women alike have used hair dyes for thousands of years. Hair dye is one of the oldest known beauty preparations used by ancient cultures in many parts of the world — Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, Persians, Chinese, and early Hindu peoples. Ancient Babylonian men dyed their long hair and beards black, Persian noblemen stained their beards red, Celts and Vikings bleached theirs using strong lye soap.

In Egypt, graying hair was considered highly unbecoming, so they used the boiled blood of a black cat or bull, blended in oil then rubbed it into their scalp using a magical incantation. The ancient Greek women dyed their hair blue, then dusted it with gold, white or red powder. Roman men and women bleached their hair blonde or wore wigs made from the blonde hair of captive barbarians. Others darkened their hair with a dye made from leeches and vinegar.

Early hair dyes were made from plants, metallic compounds, or a mixture of the two, rock alum, quicklime, wood ash and herbal preparations included mullein, birch bark, saffron, myrrh, and turmeric. Henna, which produces a reddish dye, was known in many parts of the world and is still used until today. Many different plant extracts were used in Europe and Asia before the advent of modern dyes. Indigo, a fabric dye, can be combined with henna to make light brown to black shades of hair dye. Chamomile flower extract was used to lighten hair and even tree bark, leaves, and nutshells were used for hair dyes.

The golden red hair captured by many Renaissance painters was artificially produced by some women. The Italian recipe was to comb a solution of rock alum, black sulfur, and honey through the hair and then let the hair dry in the sunlight. Another early method of coloring hair was to apply powder. Pure white powder for hair or wigs was the mark of aristocratic dress in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. White powder was made from wheat starch or potato starch, sometimes mixed with plaster of Paris, flour, chalk, or burnt alabaster. Colored powders were sometimes used, made by adding natural pigments such as burnt sienna or umber to make brown, and India ink to make black powder. Hydrogen peroxide was discovered in 1818 as an effective hair lightener and was used as the first modern chemical hair colorant.

I am a hair watcher and sometimes I spot women whose ends are one color and their roots a different shade, and I think: this is the best way to know what not to do with my own.