Copper in water

[waterbear]

Great info Waterbear. I was a salon owner for years and I never knew this was how to remove the green. I'm not in the business anymore but I do have some hairdresser friends that might find this helpful.

My question though is does chlorine in the water damage the hair.. raise the cuticle, dry it out, etc. ? I know when I used to cut hair and people were on the swim team their hair would feel "coated" with something. I always thought it was the chlorine.. but now I'm pretty sure I was wrong. I always told them to make sure they washed and conditioned the hair immediately after swimming.

Chlorine will cause the same type of oxidation and denaturization of the keratin that exposure to UV in the sun will. Hair becomes brittle and 'glass like'. If you were a hairdresser you know what I'm talking about. I am soure that there are some other chemical effects but I don't really know the chemisty that might be happening between the protein structure of the hair and the halogens.

BTW, I cannot take credit for this procedure....it really belongs to the cosmetic chemist Jheri Redding, now deceased, founder of Jheri Redding Products Company, Redken, Jherimack, and Nexxus.
http://web.mit.edu/Invent/iow/redding.html