Nightmare at the Hair Salon

Have you used anything that gradually builds colour in your hair? Hair colour restorers or henna products? It sounds like a reaction with metallic salts.

No haven't used anything like that in a couple years.  The last colour I had done was at this same salon a couple months ago.  I wonder if the Avon hair mask I used could've had salts in it? 

I walked past a different salon today and could see a woman getting highlights, but they were just using what looked like paper instead of foil and they were left open instead of folded over like foils.  I think I need to change salons :(. Actually maybe my hair looked better when I did my colour myself..... So frustrating.

Has the hair been cut off that you used it on previously? I think it's something that has to grow out rather than it wearing off. I guess it could have been just still in part of your hair and that part didn't get touched with the bleach the first time?

I'm not sure what the metallic salts would be called as an ingredient, but it might be worth you researching the mask.

I would think it was unlikely that it was the fault of the foils themselves as they are usually aluminium so that shouldn't react with the dyes.

I used to use henna on my hair but it's been two years, and I only used pure body-quality henna powder which doesn't have any salts in it.  After that I have used a couple different permanent dyes using box dyes, and then the last 5 months have had it dyed at the salon.

I found an ingredient list for the Avon hair mask I used last - it contains a lot of things that are appalling I know, but do any of the ingredients stand out as reacting to bleach badly?

Ingredients: Aqua, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behentrimonium Chloride, Dimethicone, Parfum, Phenoxyethanol, Ceteareth-20, Methylparaben, Panthenol, Disodium EDTA, Hydrogenated Castor Oil/Sebacic Acid Copolymer, Vinyl Dimethicone/Lauryl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Wheat Amino Acids, Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil, Panthenyl Ethyl Ether, Phytantriol, Glycolic Acid, Tocopheryl Acetate, Amyl Cinnamal, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene

You know I just thought of something, I used some bath salts in my bath about a month ago and put my head under the water - could it be from that? 

If you used the body art quality henna it's unlikely to be that then, that would have just stained at worst I would have thought.

I'm not really sure what the names would be for the metallic salts in ingredients, it seems weird that they'd be in a conditioning treatment though. I really don't think it could be the bath salts, I don't think they would have stayed in your hair so long.

I've just been doing some googling on hairdressers forums and the like and other suggestions I've seen are that it could be caused by certain medications or if people are washing their hair in water drawn from a well that contains traces of certain things.

I've not been on any medications other than some Sudafed and ibuprofen, and the water is regular city tap water.  So I'm really stumped and scared to get foils again till I know what caused them to start smoking!    I'm actually kind of liking the blonde streaks (that weren't totally fried and didn't break off) they are much blonder than planned but liking it 🙂

I'm wondering how I can get my roots done now though, usually that's done while your highlights are still in foils so you don't double process. 

It's not the foil, it's the bleach/hair colour itself reacting. If you do have metallic salts in your hair somehow any form of bleach could cause the same heat reaction. If you cut off a test strand of hair and test it, you should see the same thing happen that did on your head. I think that could be a good idea before you get *any* other product put on your head so you know it's safe. They will probably do this for the incompatibility test and try out the bleach again on your real hair.

They will probably blame the bath salts if they can't find anything else. There's a product called Malibu Crystal Gel that can be used to remove metallic salts before colouring.

I agree, strand test anything else you are going to try to colour your hair with from now. (my only concern about this is if it is something that is only on parts of your hair/ has partially grown out you might not get the right strand to test! I have been thinking more about it and I guess it could have been the mask or the bath salts, the only thing you could do is google the ingredients of both and see what it says about them.

Personally if your hair is melted and breaking in parts I wouldn't be doing anything colour wise to it for the moment, you need to baby it for a while, trim off any frazzled bits so the damage doesn't travel up the hair shaft and let your scalp fully heal and allow your hair to show the full extent of the damage before you decide what to do next.

I'm not saying this is the case in your situation but I just wanted to add that when I was researching this online I found a post on a forum by a hairdresser saying that she knows you're not supposed to use 40 vol developer on scalp, or with heat but she does it anyway because it means she can get it done faster - I doubt any hairdresser would ever admit to doing something like that if it did go wrong, but it is one of the reasons I prefer to educate myself and do my own colour!

I do remember a tale someone told here a while back. Something about a panic with Pantene products reacting with bleach in that kind of way. So maybe whatever was in pantene back then, maybe is in the shampoo/conditioner you're using now. I mean, I've never been 100% convinced by the story as it's difficult to really know for sure if it's was Pantene that was causing the reaction or something else...

My hairdresser has the last hair products I used and is going to test them on a hair extension with the same bleach she used on my hair to see if she gets a reaction.  I'll let you know what happens.  I should be getting a compatibility test this week too.  I wonder if it was something as stupid as putting my head in my salted bath water, I never thought it would affect anything.  People swim in salt water all the time. My salts were supposedly made with Dead Sea salts, don't know if that's any different from any other salt. But I won't be putting my hair in salt again!  In the meantime I'm using a lot of coconut oil and letting my hair rest.  The salon also gave me some detox shampoo to use (Kevin Murphy Maxi Wash).

Well, salt is generally mostly sodium chloride. But different salts do have some different other minerals etc depending where they come from. If that's enough to react with bleach, it's hard to say. I mean, it's possible the salts in your bath products aren't actually Dead Sea salt at all. Without getting a detailed analysis I think it'd be hard to say. It's more likely to be something you've used several times I would think.

I'm a bit confused by the maxi wash they've given you. It sounds like a clarifying wash from the description on the website and possibly from the ingredients. It seems intended to remove oils and dirt prior to using dyes. Stripping natural oil isn't really an ideal situation right now.

I wasn't sure what to think of the maxi wash either - I am thinking they wanted to try and strip my hair of whatever is causing it to react. 

I was thinking about that Pantene thing too Janine, but I never was really convinced that story was true - I would have thought with the popularity of Pantene there would have been a lot more stories coming out.

Yeah it's all very well trying to remove whatever is causing your hair to react, but if some of your hair is melted and some broke off I really think your priority is the condition at the moment rather than thinking about getting it ready to try to colour again, like Janine says losing any moisture at the moment doesn't sound like a great plan!