How do you do a coconut oil pre-treatment for coloring hair?

[musicallberrii]

I'm thinking about coloring my hair but want to minimize the damage. I've heard a few people on here talking about using coconut-oil to pre-treat hair during coloring. How does this work? Do you put the coconut oil in and then the color over it? Or just treat it the day before and rinse it before coloring? Is there any noticeable color change or difference in results? It seems if there are weaker results then it would be better to just dye and then baby the hair till its healthy again, versus dying again to get desired results. Any info on this topic would be really appreciated!

[DTsgirl]

I am interested in this topic as well. I pre-treated with oil before bleaching and it did lift near as much as I expected it to, based on past experience. There was less damage, but not as much product payoff.

[musicallberrii]

Thanks for replying, DTsgirl. I might just forget the pre-treatment then and baby my hair. Seems like no one else has any info about this anyway, so maybe it hasn't actually been done before lol

[Sweet_Decadence]

I just put a dollop, about the size of a 10 pence piece, thoughout the entire length and roots of my hair and leave it for an hour or so before I bleach (blue bleach and 30vol peroxide) it. My hair is usually already a little dirty beforehand too.

I don't use it if I'm just touching up the colour, with is a (not so) semi pernament.

[musicallberrii]

Sweet Decadence, thanks for the reply! I will try it if I decide to dye my hair afterall!

[Chetanlaiho]

I'll be watching this thread as I'm planning to do this myself ^_^

[celebriangel]

There is already a long and extensive thread on this here:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...light=peroxide

This technique has been well-researched in the theoretical stages by our wonderful Ktani, and there are many, many reports of people who have tried this with no ill effects and a complete lack of damage.

The benefits of this are really not to be overestimated, particularly for F hair. You cannot repair damage, and even babied hair, if repeatedly dyed, will eventually just break when it gets old. You are really *much* better off protecting it in the first place.

DTsgirl, which oil did you pretreat with? Coconut oil (perhaps with a light application of Argan, too) is the only one proven to prevent damage, and shown not to prevent the dye from working. Pre-oilings with other things have been tried, e.g. EVOO, and have not worked as well. Can you tell us exactly what you did?

But yeah. This is a tried and true method; if I were still dyeing, you can bet your bottom dollar I'd be using it. (I used to dye red, and can achieve the results I want with henna, so there is no point in continuing with a conventional dye)

To summarise the thread for you: You do a medium oiling at least an hour before colouring. You then colour as normal over dry (but oiled) hair, without removing the oil. Then, do everything else as normal. You want a really good, even distribution of oil, so I'd do it in lots of light layers until your hair feels coated, but not saturated.

Coconut oil in particular works because it contains gallic acid, which chelates copper and iron. It is the copper and iron free radicals which cause damage during the dyeing process much more than the actual lightening process.

[mistik]

I will say that if you do NOT want to damage your hair, be VERY careful of using commercial hair dyes. For the first time in TWELVE years, I used Feria hair-color, instead of henna and my hair has now shown split ends! I did a coconut treatment the day before and then dyed it. Split ends have commenced. It is tearing me up as I haven't had obvious split ends in years. If at all possible, steer clear of commercial dyes and utilize henna, or another natural way of changing your hair color. I am so sad that my hair is no longer as soft and beautiful it once was.

[celebriangel]

I will say that if you do NOT want to damage your hair, be VERY careful of using commercial hair dyes. For the first time in TWELVE years, I used Feria hair-color, instead of henna and my hair has now shown split ends! I did a coconut treatment the day before and then dyed it. Split ends have commenced. It is tearing me up as I haven't had obvious split ends in years. If at all possible, steer clear of commercial dyes and utilize henna, or another natural way of changing your hair color. I am so sad that my hair is no longer as soft and beautiful it once was.

I'm sorry to hear that. Feria is known to be one of the harshest, most damaging colours there are. Also, I think if you do an overnight oiling it needs to be very heavy, as if your hair has soaked up the oil it won't be able to do its job. OP, I think that chosing as low-peroxide a formula is possible. And making sure your hair is coated thoroughly with coconut oil will prevent most of the damage. I am not an expert, though, and the above is making some aasumptions.

Obviously some people's hair is more robust than others; doing a strand test will allow you to assess how well your hair will handle this less damaging colouring method.

[Roscata]

celebriangel already posted the link to the LHC thread, it's a great link!

If you're looking for a shorter version of the information you can go to ktani's blog:
http://ktanihairsense.blogspot.com/2...nnovative.html