Giveaway: Wella SP Silver Blond shampoo

As someone who has played the blonde field on and off quite a few times over the years I know that brass is most definitely the enemy. It’s an enemy that sneaks up on you when you least it expect it, and it can turn a glossy mane into a dulled mess before you know it.

The brassy tones that arrive after lightening hair are caused by the chemicals ‘processing’ the hair and removing its natural pigment, taking it through a number of colour changes before reaching the desired blonde shade. Depending on the darkness of your hair to start with, bleaching will first turn the hair red, orange and then yellow, before reaching blonde and platinum tones. If the bleach is not left on the hair long enough to process all the way to a light blonde (which in most cases is not recommended as this can damage and dry out the hair), the hair may be left with some orange or yellow deposits, known as brassiness.

But help is at hand - in the form of clever technique known as colour neutralisation. To neutralise something means to ‘cancel it out’. Hair colour neutralization works by incorporating colours opposite to one another on the colour wheel to cancel out that colour in the hair.

Red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange and yellow are all warm and brassy tones that are left in the hair as a result of bleaching. Opposite these colours on the colour wheel are green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet and violet. These are all classed as cool tones and will neutralise or ‘cancel out’ the warm tones in the hair. Got it?

As well as toning your hair in salon you can get some great products that will help enormously at home such as Wella SP Silver Blond. Using this just a few times will dull down brassiness in the hair significantly and used on a regular basis, once or twice a week, will continuously freshen up your blonde shade and stop brassiness from reoccurring. It also works a treat on grey/white hair, leaving strands gently cleansed and with brilliant shine.

Luckily I have two bottles of Wella SP Silver Blond (RRP $34.00) to giveaway to some blonde friends out there. Just email me helene@mshelene.com with your name and courier address before Thursday, September 26 at 5:00pm and you’re in the draw… say bye bye to brass!