Hair colour and the sun

FredsMom

Hey,

I had blonde highlightd hair until yesterday when I dyed it brown using semi-permanent colour. I had it done at the hairdresser. I am heading to madrid for the weekend this weekend and my mother told me that if I don't cover my hair completely the sun will bleach it out. is this true? I don't want to spend the weekend hiding from the sun or wearing a big headscarve covering my whole head!

Sunlight can degrade the melanins in your hair, causing a "bleached" look. But that's a lot of sunlight, and natural hair colour. The "bleaching" isn't like a peroxide bleach, it's just a lightening of the tone of the hair. From what I've heard it's more like a light lemon rinse (rinsing the hair with water with lemon in it in order to give an almost highlighted look, which they used to do way back when and still is used as a budget way of lightening hair colour). Just like a lemon rinse, the sun can damage hair, causing weakness and split ends.

However, you've got dyed hair, which will probably not be affected by a bit of sun. And even though I understand that you've paid for your colour and wouldn't want it ruined, it's really not worth ruining your trip, worrying about something that probably won't happen. Worse case scenario, your colour lightens a bit, it wont be the exact colour you had it dyed, but it's not going to look bad, just a slightly different tone. And that's worse case scenario. I've heard very few cases of it. A friend of a friend has brown hair and has lived in Madrid for a few years now, and her hair colour hasn't changed at all.

Don't worry about it.

squeakyduck

I used to get this when I was younger. I dunno if it still happens as my hair is a little bit blonde anyway! Little light blonde streaks in my hair. My niece gets it too. It's not mad blonde but lighter than your natural hair colour.

Although my sister did spend a year in Oz and came back with pure blonde hair!