From The Straits Times    |

Anyone who’s a regular reader of herworldPLUS will know that I’ve done just about everything you can do, to my hair. Year later I’ve ended up with a super-sensitive scalp that’s not too happy about being dyed, let alone bleached to white blonde.

So, despite the fact that I had very blonde hair for ages – it was a bit of calling card in fact – I’ve had to eschew the blonde for black for the last couple of years.

After a great experience using Original & Mineral (O&M) hair dye to get my signature colour, however, I was given hope that maybe there was a way of getting back into bleaching my hair. Finally I could be blonde again!

pain-free smell-free ammonia-free lighter hair colour from O&M Jodie
pain-free smell-free ammonia-free lighter hair colour from O&M Joan
Two shades of blonde using O&M’s ammonia-free hair bleaching system. Images: O&M

O&M does have an ammonia-free bleaching system. Like the rest of the O&M range of haircare colouring products, the lighter shades – Pearl, Seaweed and Indigo – are devoid of ammonia, sulfates, parabens, MIT (whatever that is), phthalates, triclosan and propylene glycol.

These lighteners do use an “activator” to basically make the product’s chemical reaction begin, so as to lighten your hair. However unlike other brands that use products like peroxide to “activate” the chemical process, the O&M lighteners use avocado oil to retain hair moisture and use stabilised oxygen for the “activation”.

These lighteners can take your hair down at least seven shades; if your hair is very dark this is enough to give you golden blonde or red highlights. The lighter your hair to start with, the lighter blonde you can go.

In my case I’m lucky enough to get down to platinum blonde with one application; although that’s only on my natural hair colour, the dyed black stuff has to either be cut off, or grown out.

While only seven shades doesn’t sound a lot, over a period of time you can bring your hair shade down to a honey brown or ash brown quite easily.

What’s more important is that when you use the O&M lighteners the quality of your hair remains fantastic. There’s no straw-like feel to the stands, they’re as perfectly soft right after the bleaching process as they were before it began.

In fact, the stylist who applied my lightener for me – O&M trainer Chaqa from Fox Salon – didn’t even wear gloves to protect his skin while applying the product. Anyone who knows anything about hair colour will know that this is a major endorsement.

There was absolutely no itchiness, no pain, no bad smell, no burning, no nothing. Using the O&M bleaching process felt like getting a hair treatment.

The process is also quite fast; the colour “came down” as stylists say, within 20 minutes of application and I didn’t even need to sit under a heat machine.

After adding a toner to help keep the brassiness way, the colour was all set to go. O&M also has a fabulous “Silver Shampoo” – a very purple coloured shampoo used to stop lighter hair colours from yellowing – that is as free of ammonia, sulfates, parabens, MIT (whatever that is), phthalates, triclosan and propylene glycol as all its haircare products.

Once again this brand has come up trumps with its “safe” haircare products for people with sensitive scalps. You can still do whatever you want to your hair, but without all the pain.

Original & Mineral hair colours and hair care products are free from ammonia, sulfates, parabens, MIT, phthalates, triclosan and propylene glycol, not tested on animals, use 100 per cent recyclable packaging, are between 90 and 98 per cent naturally based and derived, contain pure active botanicals (natural oils) from plant extracts.

O&M Permanent hair colour is available from Fox Studio in 111 Somerset, Passion Hair Salon in Palais Renaissance and Purity Salon in Pacific Plaza; prices start from $135 depending on the salon and stylist. O&M Watercolour hair dyes and other hair care products are available from Tangs Orchard on Level 2 and Supernature at Park House on Orchard Boulevard. For more information about O&M products, go to: www.originalmineral.com

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