Hair dyes: history and modernity

About women's caprices write a lot and often. Trying to unravel the mysterious female soul, men fantasize on this subject endlessly. Oscar Wilde, who said that "Women are created to be loved, not to be understood," echoed the poet Sumbatov "Female caprice - a convincing victory of female logic over common sense". However, no matter how much they verbiage, discussing women, but women's caprice can rightly be called one of the engines of progress. Take at least the history of hair coloring.

Before professional hair dye came along, the process of changing hair color had its roots in the distant past. Over the centuries, women used nothing but herbs, lye, silver and even soda as hair dyes. The most famous ancient hair dyes that have survived in their original form to this day are henna and basma. However, if women continued to dye their hair with henna, we would hardly ever know what dyed blondes look like. Henna and basma can dye hair exclusively red, copper, brown or black. This monotony would probably make our lives dull. Apparently, this understanding is what drove women when they persisted in finding more and more ways to color their hair.

There are many things women have done to turn blonde. In ancient Babylon, women sprinkled sand on their heads to make their hair lighter. Ancient Egyptian women put their hair under the rays of the burning sun, achieving their complete discoloration. Ancient Greek and Roman women washed their hair with chamomile decoction.

However, as time passed, hair color fashions changed. The Gauls and Saxons dyed their hair poisonously bright colors to panic their enemies. In the 16th century in England red hair color became fashionable. That's when henna came to mind. Soon, thanks to the same feminine whims, white hair became popular. Potassium lye was used, which turned the luxurious black hair of Italian women into white rags.

God only knows how all these experiments would have ended if men had not taken matters into their own hands. Male chemists began to actively create hair dyes. And in the early 19th century, the first hair dye appeared. However, it was very irritating to the skin, so few people used it. The situation was saved by the invention of hydrogen peroxide. However, this product was too expensive to be widely used.

Accident came to the rescue. In 1898, a young chemist, founder of the famous German company Schwarzkopf, opened a store selling paints, medicines and cosmetics. One day, a woman walked in there and asked him to make a small bag of hair wash. She promised that if she liked it, she would be his regular customer. This request was due to the fact that in those days the women of Europe washed their hair with ash and soap, which left a white residue on their hair. This is how the progenitor of shampoo was invented in the form of a powder with a violet scent.

Since then, Schwarzkopf has never ceased to amaze with its innovations. It was the first company to release a shampoo and conditioner, which we still use today. And in the 60s of the last century, when the fashion for playing with hair color returned, the first professional hair dye "Igora Royal", capable of coloring hair in almost all colors of the rainbow, appeared on the market. Schwarzkopf allowed women not only to be whimsical, but also to make their whims come true. Apply moisturizer