 Bromide & Hair Color Dealing with detoxing the bromide is a pain the ass but avoiding new sources of bromide seems to be even harder. It is just everywhere. The hair color I’ve been using for years, colorsilk, has bromide as most hair colors do, not to mention a host of other nasty chemicals. While there is no way to color your hair completely chemically free except body art quality henna and indigo which is an art unto itself, I decided to research a little into the “natural” hair colors at the health food store. My intent at this point really was to stop putting more fricken bromide on my head every month. I considered just going gray and to hell with it. My hair is probably 50% gray its hard to tell at this point when the roots grow out. They are actually silver like my dads but while he has a whole head of lovely silver hair I seem to be following more in the salt and pepper pattern of my mom. She was still salt and pepper well into her late 60s. The problem is other than shaving your head or having long horrid roots for a long time there is not way to really transition to gray. It is easier if you started out blond then you can get some color magic at a salon to blend highlights and lowlights while it grows and it is less noticeable. But when your hair is dark brown / bright silver that just isn’t going to happen. While I have been using the same color a long time, it has kept getting darker. They have made color gentler over the years, but if you get a color you like, it fades and if you go darker it inevitably turns so dark it looks black. So I had a lot of color build up and I figured there was no chance of a natural alternative helping this. I had used a product called color fix to remove build up many years back but it was very drying. With a lot of research i found people preferred color oops extra strength and they have it at walgreens so I wouldn’t have to order online. I decided to do my mom too so we would both go to a more natural product. Her hair was not as dark and much shorter so we got one box for her and I got two for myself. I figured as long as I have been coloring the ends would likely need a second go round. After looking through all the natural colors I was thinking herbatint but neither of the health food store in Durango had that so I decided to go with naturcolor. We got a very light color because the color oops leaves your hair very porous and I didn’t want it black again. We both got two colors to mix, the darkest natural blond, and the darkest golden blond (which are both really light brown shades as far as I can tell). I have red highlight naturally, that is what is now silver, but if I use a red it gets really red and the natural alone is usually too bland so I decided to go 50 /50 with a golden tone.
I did the first color oops application before bed and it took out the majority of the color and I applied the second box to the ends the next day. My hair then was at a base color, kind of a medium brown/reddish, not a bad color actually, it went well with my eyes(except for those roots that were showing LOL). My mom did her color oops and then colored later the same day. Her hair came out a light – medium brown with the blondes we mixed, and it was the most natural color she has has for MANY years. In fact I would say it likely was her natural color. I waited a day to color. I was going to wait a week or so, so that the porous issue would be less of an issue, but seeing my mom’s hair made me to decide to just go for it. The color process is really gentle and there is no smell at all. Because of the color opps I only left the color on 10 minutes. . When I got out of the shower my hair was my natural color! It was a bit amazing, the color I had at 20, lovely dark brown with mild red highlights in the sun. It was not flat and it was the most natural color, I was really impressed. Because the roots had been exposed to the color opps (the color of them wasn’t changed by it though) I assume they were more porous and took more color than they would normally. They almost covered in the ten minutes even with the blonde colors. So now the trick is going to be finding out how dark to go with this company to match the roots just right. I’ll go ahead and use the other half of the blonde mix I got next time for the full 40 minutes just to see what happens. Then I’ll get two darker shades of natural and golden next time, and if necessary go to the two darker after that. I would rather not quite have root coverage temporarily, than choose a color too dark, so I guess it’s going to be a gradual process. My hair came out much darker than my moms using the same colors so I attribute that to the color opps removing all the artificial color, then each of our hair took the new pigment and used it differently. Well mine was darker after the color opps too because my base color is darker. I am very happy with the naturcolor and so is my mom, my hair is really soft & shinny and the color is so natural. I guess they named their product well! My hair was not damaged by the color oops either even with two applications. The color oops smells horrible but it felt good to get all that old color out it was like a purification. Many people who have reviewed the color oops obviously can’t read. They think it is like bleach and you will see your hair lightening. It is not bleach though, it shrinks the color molecules so they can be washed out and the most important part of the process is the washing and rinsing. It is all chemicals LOL but I don’t think I will ever need to use it again. So goodbye gray, goodbye too blackish and hello dark brown with lovely red highlights with no damn bromide exposure! The naturcolor box has no photos which is a little odd not that the colors ever turn out true to the box on any hair colors anyway.
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