- It’s not a good idea to dye your hair after swimming because the chlorine left in it will prevent the dye from depositing the pigments inside the hair fiber.
- Also, chlorine is a fairly aggressive chemical. If you add it to the ammonia and peroxide in the dye, you will cause severe damage to the hair, which may be irreversible.
- Therefore, the dye will not work in a hair with chlorine and you will only damage the hair fiber.
If you’ve been swimming in a chlorine pool, DON’T DYE YOUR HAIR. I repeat, do not dye your hair.
Have you been swimming and now you want to dye your hair?
I’m sorry to say that dyeing your hair after swimming in a chlorinated pool is a terrible idea. Also, it’s not my idea.
It’s simply a matter of chemistry. Do you know why?
Chlorine is a chemical that will not allow the dye to work properly on the hair fiber. That is, it won’t allow the peroxide to open up the cuticles for the dye to deposit the color.
Do you think I’m exaggerating?
Let me tell you about Julieta, one of my clients. She trains for synchronized swimming. Every time she shows me a video of her competitions on her cell phone, I go speechless.
I can’t believe there’s so much art in that artistic sport!
Synchronized swimming is like water ballet, where six or eight swimmers dance in absolute synchronicity.
Can you imagine the training level of demand?
Just thinking about it, makes my bones hurt.
Going back to the chlorine and the dye, one day after training, Julieta arrived home so tired that she didn’t even have the strength to watch a series on Netflix. But, when she looked in the bathroom mirror, she noticed that her hair was urgently asking for a dye retouch because the color was already faded and dull.
So, she came up with what seemed like a brilliant idea. She would dye her hair immediately and start relaxing and resting her muscles while the dye did its work.
After the indicated thirty minutes and rinsing her hair, all her muscles came to life instantly. Her heart was beating a thousand times, and she couldn’t believe what she saw in her hair.
What was once a honey blonde was now a mixture of golden, greenish, and yellowish shades. She called me desperately, asking to see me quickly.
What had happened to the dye in Julieta’s hair?
She had colored her hair without having first removed the chlorine from the pool. Therefore, the pigments in the dye had not penetrated her hair evenly.
Do you still want to dye your hair even if you have chlorine in your hair?
Unbelievable! However, I’m even tougher and I’ll do everything I can to protect your hair.
So stick with me, because I’ll tell you:
- Why you shouldn’t dye your hair if you swam and still have chlorine in it
- How to correctly remove chlorine from hair to apply hair color
Tabla de Contenidos
Why you shouldn’t dye your hair if you swam and still have chlorine in it
The answer is simple.
If you want to end up with multi-color hair or with a very different color than what you wanted, go ahead. Apply the color with all your hair soaked in chlorine.
If you do it, the chlorine will form a kind of barrier, which won’t allow the peroxide to completely open up the hair cuticles to deposit the pigments.
Then, the color will deposit unevenly on the hair fiber. So, for example, if your hair color is dark brown, you’ll run the risk to stain some locks, to have other dark brown and others will be an indescribable brown.
For the color to penetrate and set in the hair fiber, your hair must be clean and dry.
Besides, when I say clean I don’t mean freshly washed. I mean free of any other type of product.
It’s like applying a hair mask and, then, applying the dye on top of it. The pigments won’t be able to change the color of your hair. The same thing happens with chlorine.
However, if you color your hair without removing it firstly, the dangers of chlorine don’t end there.
Chlorine is a chemical. If your hair is very dry or brittle and you combine chlorine with the chemicals in the dye, even more, serious weakening of the health of the hair fiber may be caused. Further weakening leads to partial hair loss.
You are not looking forward to weakening your hair, are you?
Then, you should completely remove chlorine to color your hair. I’ll show you how to do it.
How to properly remove chlorine before coloring
The right way to remove chlorine from hair is to wash it. However, not once, but twice. In what way?
- Wet your hair with plenty of warm water and apply your usual shampoo.
- Gently rub your hair and rinse.
- Apply the shampoo again, massaging your hair for a few minutes for lather.
- Rinse with warm water and apply conditioner to the middle and ends.
- Finally rinse, dry your hair, and apply the color.
Do you want one last piece of advice?
If you can wait two days after you’ve completely removed the chlorine from your hair to apply the hair dye, that’s much better.
That is, wash your hair and, two days later, apply the dye. At that time, your scalp will produce natural oils that will protect your hair even more.
Conclusions
You should never dye your hair after swimming or with traces of chlorine in it.
You must make sure you completely remove the chlorine, to make sure the color pigments are properly deposited by the dye.
This way, you will get the best out of the dye and won’t damage your hair.
