What are bond builders and why should I care?
What does hair dye do to my hair? - For most of us hair dye is a magical formula that changes our hair from one hue to the next, we rarely investigate how exactly this happens. I’m going to get geeky but let me tell you…
Each strand of your hair is made up of protein called Keratin and the structure is comprised of the medulla (innermost core), cortex (middle ground between the medulla and cuticle) and the cuticle (outer layer). We are most familiar with the cuticle because that is usually the part of our hair that we see as “damaged” or “split”. While the cortex is where your natural color is found.
How does hair color work? - Hair dyes work by lifting up your cuticle layer (with the use of ammonia) and penetrating the cortex to either deposit color (dying) or lift color (bleaching).
You can think of the cuticle much like the hood of a car, when its down you can’t fix the engine, and it is protected. To change anything in the engine you need to lift the hood to access the mechanical elements. The cuticle protects your hair’s health, which is why you need to know how to take care of it.
Bond Builders? What are those?? - Bond builders are important no matter what color hair you have. Our hair consists of many bonds: one you might be familiar with are hydrogen bonds: they are technically “broken” each time our hair interacts with water and repaired once the hair is dry.
Disulfide bonds are the most important bonds to understand when it comes to color talk. These bonds are broken when natural color is lifted and artificial color is then deposited, hence giving you a new shade!
Why do I need bond builders? - Short story: To keep our hair from completely breaking off. Long story: bond builders act as defense mechanisms inside each hair strand. Each time we dye or bleach our hair the cuticle is lifted thus exposing our weak cores and bonds. These bonds need extra immunity boosts to keep bonds healthy, and your hair from breaking off. colorpHlex™ works by using the key ingredient, ColorStrong Complex,TM which is a combination of a hydrolyzed natural vegetable protein and co-polymer specially engineered to penetrate your hair during coloring or bleaching processes to reinforce and protect your strands by locking on to those weak and broken bonds to repair the damage.
Magic right? Now, next time you have a color service you’ll know what to ask for and why!
