Why the importance of restoring the proper pH level after hair color, highlights, bleach, and balayage.

Colure® Blog Post

The potential of Hydrogen, or pH, is the measurement of how acidic or alkaline a substance is. It’s on a scale between 0 and 14. A substance between the pH level 0 and 6.9 is acidic, neutral is 7, and anything between 7.1 and 14 is alkaline. Human hair, skin, and sebum have a pH balance between 4.5 and 5.5. This natural hair acidity protects, preserves the health of the hair, scalp, and this includes hair color while keeping the cuticle closed, smooth, vibrant and youthful looking. Many of the hair products that people use disrupt the pH of the hair. A substance that is alkaline will cause the hair cuticle to open and cause hair color to fade, while a substance that is acidic will cause the cuticle to contract.

If you have highlights, balayage, bleached and or color treated hair, likely the hair came into contact with a high alkali substance to change the hair’s cuticle, and then, it was “neutralized” with an acidic substance to flatten the cuticle again. This chemical process will cause damage to the hair shaft, after this process the proper acidic hair products are needed to rebuild protein bonds, hydrate, close the hair cuticle, protect and preserve hair color, highlights, bleach and or balayage.

A closed cuticle not only protects the layers of the hair shaft themselves, yet it also locks in moisture and protects the cortex which in return protects the strand from breakage.

Here are tips to keeping your color, highlighted, bleach and balayage hair color looking vibrant, healthy with a youthful appearance. Before your next color and or chemical service, use COLURE’s Reparative Spray Plus (pH 4.5-5.5) to strengthen and protect the hair to prevent damage and or breakage. Immediately after the color and or chemical service use COLURE’s Regenerative Hair Masque (pH 4.0-5.0) to rebuild the protein bonds, restore and hydrate. Then use COLURE’s Leave In Spray Plus (pH 3.5-4.5) to close the cuticle and protect the hair.