Temporary hair color lasts only until the next time you wash your hair. This process does not contain any peroxides. Temporary color works by coating your cuticles with a pigment composed of large molecules. This forms a film or a stain on your hair. The coloring is slightly acidic, so when the stain is applied, the cuticles snap shut in response to this acidic environment.
Keeping the cuticles tightly shut ensures that the large molecules of the stain can't get inside, to the cortex. The color molecules sit on the cuticle with nothing to anchor them, like sticky jellybeans on a fence. They wash away easily with the next shampooing. Due to the coating on your hair, temporary hair coloring may be drying to your hair.
Semipermanent treatments can last from six to twelve weeks. These don't use any peroxides to work but are slightly alkaline. Applying a semipermanent color causes your hair shaft to swell slightly in response to the alkaline environment, and this causes the cuticles to open slightly, like millions of drawbridges. The color molecules used are small, so they pass easily inside the raised cuticles. A slightly neutral-to-acidic rinse is applied to close the cuticles again, trapping the color molecules between the shingles.
When your hair is washed, the cuticles open slightly. This allows the tiny dye molecules to slip out. Over time and with repeated washings, these molecules are washed away. Because of this, semipermanent colors can't change the color of your hair, only stain it. Depending on how alkaline the formula is, semipermanent hair coloring may cause minor damage to your cuticles, as well as cause some dryness to your hair.
Permanent dyes are alkaline, often using a highly basic compound such as ammonium hydroxide, or ethanolamine, to cause the hair shaft to swell and open the cuticles. The pH needed in order for the dye to work is very high enough to cause damage to your hair with this pH alone. The coloring molecules of permanent dyes start out innocently enough: tiny and colorless. Immediately before the dye is applied to your hair, it's mixed with hydrogen peroxide to activate the color. Because of the small size of the dye molecules, they easily pass between the scales of the opened cuticles, into the cortex.
The added hydrogen peroxide reacts with these molecules, making them expand and turn colored. These swollen molecules are now too plump to pass back through the cuticle, so they remain permanently lodged in place. No matter how moisturizing or natural the box of dye tells you that it is, the high alkalinity needed to swell your hair in order to open your cuticles for the dye to work will damage your hair.
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