At first glance, the term "silver shampoo" sounds like a kind of temporary tint. In principle, you can use it just like that, but its actual purpose lies elsewhere: after bleaching dark hair, it often happens that the new hair color has not yet achieved the desired shade of blonde, but a slightly yellowish tint remains. This is precisely what the silver shampoo eliminates when used, thus ensuring the optimal color result without having to bleach the hair a second time.
THE POWER OF SILVER SHAMPOO - HOW DOES IT WORK?
The shampoo makes use of its slightly violet coloring during the exposure time. In terms of color theory, complementary colors - that is, colors that are exactly opposite each other on the color wheel - balance each other out. In concrete terms, this means: you can combat a yellow tint in your hair with violet-colored shampoos or tints. To get rid of a red tint that is too intense, you use: GREEN!
The challenge with tinting is not to put too much of the artificial pigments into the hair; otherwise the opposite extreme will happen: the yellow or reddish tint will be gone, but you will now have a silvery to violet or green touch - depending on what you used. The advantage of silver shampoo is that although it looks very color-intensive, the pigments themselves are rather weak, so an "overdose" is avoided.
ARTIFICIAL COLOR PIGMENTS IN SHAMPOO - HOW THEY WORK
The reason why the silver shampoo works well and intensively is that your hair has been damaged by bleaching. The outermost layer of your hair consists of a cuticle layer, which looks like a pine cone when viewed under a microscope. If the individual scales lie close together, the hair is healthy; the surface feels smooth and reflects light better, which makes it shine beautifully. However, if the scales stick out towards the outside, the hair is damaged. The bumps mean that it doesn't shine and it feels rough. This is exactly what happens after bleaching.
When you massage the silver shampoo in, you are not just moving the pigments "on" your hair, but "in" it, under the small scales that protrude outwards. A conditioner that evens out the unevenness of the hair (by filling in the gaps created by the open scales) then seals the pigments in the hair, reducing or even eliminating the yellow tint. The surface then also appears smoother again; the conditioner ensures that the silver shampoo has a long-lasting effect and also provides more shine.
SILVER SHAMPOO APPLICATION
The effect shampoo is used in exactly the same way as you would with moisturizing and anti-dandruff shampoos: You wet your hair and massage the shampoo well into your hair. Then let it work for a few minutes; depending on the intensity of your yellow tint, two minutes may be enough. If the shade is very yellow, you should leave it in for a little longer. Then rinse the shampoo out thoroughly.
It is recommended to use silver shampoo two to three times a week, but only after washing your hair for the second time and not immediately after visiting the hairdresser. Wait one to two weeks first - when the pigment gradually evaporates, you can use silver shampoo for the first time. However, you should still use a conventional shampoo suitable for daily use for the first wash, as this is used for the cleaning process. Only in the second wash does the shampoo take care of either the care or the effect. The shampoos can of course also be combined: if your hair color becomes a little too cool after the second application of silver shampoo, then use a normal shampoo without artificial pigments the next time.
IN GENERAL, THE SILVER SHAMPOO IS VERY UNPROBLEMATIC TO USE.
However, if you know that you are allergic to certain ingredients in cosmetic, hair and skin care products, you should check whether these substances are included when you buy them. The recipes vary depending on the manufacturer, which means that certain brands of silver shampoo are better tolerated than others. But don't worry: even if you have an allergic reaction to a shampoo, all your hair won't fall out immediately - in most cases, the skin only reacts to shampoo with redness and slight itching. Cooling helps.
Some people have already used silver shampoo on naturally blonde hair. In such cases, it simply acts as a type of tint that gives your hair a silvery shimmer. But: For silver shampoo to work on natural hair, the hair has to be naturally VERY light, as the shampoo is just a shampoo and not an intensive tint. The pigments are therefore correspondingly weak. If your hair is also healthy - in other words, it has a completely closed cuticle layer - the pigments only settle around the hair and disappear again with environmental influences (for example, if your long hair rubs against the backrest when you sit down). It can happen that the great shimmer disappears again after just one or two days.
SILVER SHAMPOO OR SILVER CONDITIONER - WHICH IS BETTER?
For stronger yellow tones, you should use both products in combination. The conditioner can then be left on overnight; however, it is strongly recommended to use a moisturizer the next morning (without shampoo - you simply rinse out the silver care product with cool water.
Why cool water? Because warm water stimulates the skin's cell function. The skin cells expand, and your hair reacts in exactly the same way. If you want the cuticle to remain closed and your hair to feel smooth, you must always rinse out any conditioner with cool water. The warm water (before shampooing) opens the scales and ensures that the pigments from the shampoo and care products can penetrate the hair better. The care product should ultimately keep it closed so that the pigments cannot escape so quickly.
CHALLENGES OF USING SILVER SHAMPOO
When you use silver shampoo, always remember that a chemical reaction is taking place in your hair. This chemical reaction is more or less pronounced depending on the original hair color. So if your hair has several different shades of yellow after bleaching, then the shampoo will also produce an uneven result. In order to achieve a uniform color result, at least the original hair color - after bleaching and before shampooing - must already be uniform. Otherwise, your hair will remain yellow in some places, turn silvery or fluffy in others, and in between there will be individual strands that are the right color.
You should also know what kind of silver shampoo you are using. Pay attention to the color of the substance: if the shampoo is dark blue-violet, it will remove a particularly intense yellow-orange tint. If it is only light violet, however, then your hair should already be very light; light violet shampoo is too weak for an orange tint, but in the worst case, the wrong silver shampoo will make your hair look mossy green! A chemical reaction will still take place in the hair when you use it, regardless of whether the shampoo is strong enough to remove the yellow tint.
Silver shampoos can be a real help, but you shouldn't use them "just like that" and without background knowledge. As already mentioned, the original hair color is crucial when using them. If it is uniform and even, the shampoo will also give you an even result. The problem that arises from green coloring caused by the wrong silver shampoo is:
At some point, your hair will be so chemically stressed that no more color pigments will stick to it. Any corrective coloring or tinting will be completely pointless, as your hair color will look exactly the same after the correction as it did before: green.
