Possible way to protect hair from conventional peroxide damage

[shadowclaw]

Ktani-

I touched up my roots last week and followed the same oil regimen as before. I heavily oiled my hair before bed (around 11 pm), then dyed with boxed Garnier in the morning (around 10 am). As before, I only did the roots and did not pull the color through the rest of my hair.

I tried a new color this time, called Cream Soda, which is described as a medium golden blonde. I did a henna gloss between my last dye (using Garnier Butternut) and now to help repair old chemical damage, and it really warmed up my color. The new dye matched my hair color perfectly and my roots feel fabulous. They are smooth, shiny, and damage-free. Another success using coconut oil!

[ktani]

Ktani-

I touched up my roots last week and followed the same oil regimen as before. I heavily oiled my hair before bed (around 11 pm), then dyed with boxed Garnier in the morning (around 10 am). As before, I only did the roots and did not pull the color through the rest of my hair.

I tried a new color this time, called Cream Soda, which is described as a medium golden blonde. I did a henna gloss between my last dye (using Garnier Butternut) and now to help repair old chemical damage, and it really warmed up my color. The new dye matched my hair color perfectly and my roots feel fabulous. They are smooth, shiny, and damage-free. Another success using coconut oil!

Wonderful news! Thank you so much for reporting!

I am so pleased for you that you got just the colour that you wanted and that there were no problems whatsoever using the heavy coconut oiling and getting great root coverage, in addition to no damage.

I will add your report to Report Post II.

[tangocurl]

New reports are always welcome.

Here's a personal anecdote. I recently begun using coconut oil on wet hair that had been previously (long before) treated with peroxide processes on the length. I am feeling and seeing improvement in the texture.

I will encourage my mother to use it on her hair for a couple weeks prior to highlighting it (I highlight her hair for her using bleach and foils). I will let you all know what happens. She will be an excellent test subject, because her hair is not in good shape by LHC standards

[ktani]

Here's a personal anecdote. I recently begun using coconut oil on wet hair that had been previously (long before) treated with peroxide processes on the length. I am feeling and seeing improvement in the texture.

I will encourage my mother to use it on her hair for a couple weeks prior to highlighting it (I highlight her hair for her using bleach and foils). I will let you all know what happens. She will be an excellent test subject, because her hair is not in good shape by LHC standards

Thank you for your report! It is very helpful to know that.

Coconut oil can help strengthen hair. It has an "affinity" as it is referred to, for hair protein and can help even damaged hair from hair losing more protein that it already has from being damaged, according to research, and help protect it from mechanical damage.

I think that it is great that you will encourage you mom to use it and I suggest that you carefully assess her hair before hi-lighting it again, in terms of how much more processing and timing you think it can take. I also suggest that she do a heavy coconut oiling the night before you hi-light. Damaged hair is fragile and it can often be difficult to predict how much processing it can handle successfuly, in terms of the condition it will be in afterward.

I am sure that you are used to doing your mom's hair by now but the reason I suggested carefully assessing how fragile it is before hi-lighting it again is that prior damage is sometimes not realized until well after continued lightening. The damage reports strongly indicate that. I would just watch the strength and timing extra closely. She may need less time now and less chemicals to get the same hi-lighting she got earlier, depending on the length of her hair and whether it has been grown out and cut, since the last time you did it for her.

My mom gets perms every so often but her hair is short and much of it has grown out and is cut off before each perm.

Good luck and please do update!

[ktani]

Report Post III

Reports where coconut oil or coconut and argan oils have been used as a pre-treatment before conventionally dyed or lightened hair, and damage has occurred.

1. lundmir, coconut oil on previously dyed, and freshly hennaed hair - initial report, - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1085, damage assessment and the condition of her hair, aside from a few damaged strands - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1127, clarification and confirmation of breakage, the actual amount of damaged hair, and the condition of the rest of her hair - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1129, further clarification of the condition of the strands in question prior to processing, and the processing solutions used, - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1133

2. Kirin, previously dyed and hennaed hair, outline of procedures and details, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1143, update, and details - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1139, clarification - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1147, additional coments -
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1148

3. Themis on behalf of a friend, 4 bleachings on short, virgin hair, initial report, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1146, more details - , http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1150, details on damage and theory - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1152, bleaching 8 times in 3 months - http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1202

4. shadowclaw, 2 successive bleachings on freshly hennaed hair pre-treated twice with coconut oil, then pre-treated a 3rd time before conventional dye, with a heavy SMT in between each processing, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1232, - her thread, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...ad.php?t=42141, update - her new thread, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...ad.php?t=55571

5. Dolly, her thread warning about the risks and damage she has, after having used the new L'Oreal Superior Preference RR04, in spite of having done a heavy coconut oil pre-treatment, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...ad.php?t=51748

[Themis]

Just thought I'd share my recent experience with using coconut oil as a pre-treatment prior to bleaching hair:

I have a friend with very dark brown hair who has wanted to dye it pink for ages, and she finally decided to go for it. She bought the supplies and asked me for my assistance, and I recommended that she pre-treat her hair with extra-virgin coconut oil.

She applied the coconut oil about an hour and half before we started. We used Manic Panic's Lightning bleach kit (bleach powder plus 30 volume developer) and applied it three times, leaving it on for 30 minutes to an hour each time. She re-applied the coconut oil in between bleachings, and the oil did not seem to affect the lifting/lightening action of the bleach.

We were able to get her dark brown virgin hair to a light golden color and then applied Manic Panic's "Cotton Candy Pink" color after the third bleach. Her hair is now a delicate pink shade that looks like... well, cotton candy!

A quote from her:

"So, amazingly, bleaching my hair three times did not totally fry it! Amateur colorist Themis did some research and recommended using coconut oil before each bleach--apparently this limits some of the free-radical damage done to the hair. I really think it helped, because although my hair is damaged, it's not nearly as bad as I expected."

Please note that I am NOT recommending this procedure for anyone here (my friend has very short hair and did not care if it was damaged in the process); I just wanted to add to the experiences that are being collected here. As this is a rather extreme case, I thought it spoke well of the damage-prevention properties of coconut oil.

I would never have thought to do this without this thread, so thank you all, especially ktani!

[ktani]

Just thought I'd share my recent experience with using coconut oil as a pre-treatment prior to bleaching hair:

I have a friend with very dark brown hair who has wanted to dye it pink for ages, and she finally decided to go for it. She bought the supplies and asked me for my assistance, and I recommended that she pre-treat her hair with extra-virgin coconut oil.

She applied the coconut oil about an hour and half before we started. We used Manic Panic's Lightning bleach kit (bleach powder plus 30 volume developer) and applied it three times, leaving it on for 30 minutes to an hour each time. She re-applied the coconut oil in between bleachings, and the oil did not seem to affect the lifting/lightening action of the bleach.

We were able to get her dark brown virgin hair to a light golden color and then applied Manic Panic's "Cotton Candy Pink" color after the third bleach. Her hair is now a delicate pink shade that looks like... well, cotton candy!

A quote from her:

"So, amazingly, bleaching my hair three times did not totally fry it! Amateur colorist Themis did some research and recommended using coconut oil before each bleach--apparently this limits some of the free-radical damage done to the hair. I really think it helped, because although my hair is damaged, it's not nearly as bad as I expected."

Please note that I am NOT recommending this procedure for anyone here (my friend has very short hair and did not care if it was damaged in the process); I just wanted to add to the experiences that are being collected here. As this is a rather extreme case, I thought it spoke well of the damage-prevention properties of coconut oil.

I would never have thought to do this without this thread, so thank you all, especially ktani!

Thank you so much for this report! And you are both most welcome!

As extreme as it is, it is an excellent example of testing the damage prevention help of coconut oil pushed to the limit, lol.

No, I would not recommend this either as a procedure.

Can you please tell me how much perceptible damage there is at this point, or do you both need more time to assess that?

I already have one person still in the Pending File. I want you and your friend to be comfortable answering this question.

ETA: I forgot 2 things. First you are most welcome! And second how much coconut oil did your friend use, relatively as in a little, or a heavy oiliing?

For bleaching, even though it may not be strictly necessary, an overnight heavy oiling has been reported to be excellent, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1052

[CurlyGirlCa]

I was very curious about using coconut oil before coloring so I tried it. I rinsed my hair out from product Thursday night and saturated with coconut oil and left it in until Friday afternoon (had the day off) and then colored.

I mix three Miss Clairol Professional colors with Satin 20 Developer. It was much easier to do the roots after oiling (Roots only - color every 3 weeks-not ready to go gray). Color looked like it took well. What was really impressive though was that it was much easier to rinse the color out.

I shampooed twice with sulfate-free shampoo and conditioned. Hair didn't feel like straw like it normally does after coloring.

I normally wouldn't have time to leave the coconut oil on overnight but I can certainly leave it in for a couple of hours before coloring.

So far I'm sold. Color took very well - gray resistant hair took and it seemed to be much easier to massage into the roots.

I'm washing it today and I'll see how it looks and feels then. I wouldn't have even thought of oiling before a color without reading this thread.

Anything that seems to help my hair recover since I do color every three weeks seems like a good idea to me. Oh, I oiled it again today for pre-shampooing with the Africa's Best Oil (kinda mixed on that-not sure I like the baby powder smell)

I'm really glad I found this site - I've been a member on NaturallyCurly for years and had adopted practices that worked for me and with this site, I hope to learn more.

Update from August 16th Last Hair Dye

It's been four weeks since last root dye and if I didn't have the half inch of gray root hair - I could easily have let it go. My hair before I tried the coconut oil last hair dye, would have been faded and brassy looking by now. It actually still looked nice and shiny (except for the gray monsters).

Anyway I oiled last night and had today off so dyed just the roots around 1:00 p.m. today. The hair takes the dye really easily, and washes out really easily as well. I used the sulfate free shampoo - two washes, conditioned and it feels great and looks great. All gray covered, ends feel soft and conditioned.

As far as I'm concerned, the coconut oiling is a keeper since my hair grows so fast and have to do the roots so often - this will be the way to minimize the damage and four weeks later, the hair still looks great. Except for the gray.
I'm going to try and find argan oil so that I can combine the two and see if that helps any more.

[ktani]

Update from August 16th Last Hair Dye

It's been four weeks since last root dye and if I didn't have the half inch of gray root hair - I could easily have let it go. My hair before I tried the coconut oil last hair dye, would have been faded and brassy looking by now. It actually still looked nice and shiny (except for the gray monsters).

Anyway I oiled last night and had today off so dyed just the roots around 1:00 p.m. today. The hair takes the dye really easily, and washes out really easily as well. I used the sulfate free shampoo - two washes, conditioned and it feels great and looks great. All gray covered, ends feel soft and conditioned.

As far as I'm concerned, the coconut oiling is a keeper since my hair grows so fast and have to do the roots so often - this will be the way to minimize the damage and four weeks later, the hair still looks great. Except for the gray.
I'm going to try and find argan oil so that I can combine the two and see if that helps any more.

Thank you so much for the update!

Great news about your results and your hair growth being so good, in spite of the grey, lol.

I will add your report to the no damage Report Post II. You can get argan oil here, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...&postcount=407, at a very good price.

[Themis]

Thank you so much for this report! And you are both most welcome!

As extreme as it is, it is an excellent example of testing the damage prevention help of coconut oil pushed to the limit, lol.

No, I would not recommend this either as a procedure.

Can you please tell me how much perceptible damage there is at this point, or do you both need more time to assess that?

I already have one person still in the Pending File. I want you and your friend to be comfortable answering this question.

ETA: I forgot 2 things. First you are most welcome! And second how much coconut oil did your friend use, relatively as in a little, or a heavy oiliing?

For bleaching, even though it may not be strictly necessary, an overnight heavy oiling has been reported to be excellent, http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...postcount=1052

I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner; I must have forgotten to subscribe to the thread and I just saw this message.

I had recommended overnight oiling to my friend, but it wasn't an option this time. As for how much she used, it was probably a "medium" amount - enough so that the hair looked greasy, but not so much that I would consider it heavily oiled. Basically, she placed a small amount between her palms, rubbed them together, and then worked it through her hair.

I should note that she allowed the coconut oil to soak in for an hour and half only for the first bleaching; we did not let the coconut oil really soak in for the subsequent bleachings - just reapplied after rinsing the previous bleach batch out and then immediately applying the next (freshly mixed) batch of bleach.

My friend has bleached her hair one more time since then, and this is what she had to say:

"By the way, tonight is the first time I've let my hair dry without putting any product in it, and because of that I never really had a sense of what the post-bleach/color texture was like. I mean, I knew the coconut oil had helped; I could tell it wasn't totally fried, which is what I expected. Mind you, before I applied the brighter pink dye, I (using coconut oil again, of course) bleached it once more with a 40 volume developer. I felt like it was still too golden and that took a lot of the rest of it out. And even with THAT, 4 bleachings total, I was shocked when I felt my hair without product. It's SOFT AND SILKY. I had no idea it felt as good as it does. I'm not kidding when I say it may actually feel BETTER than before I bleached it. O.o

That sh*t WORKS!"

So, a strong endorsement for coconut oil! Thanks again!