Pregnancy is a new thing for me. With it has come all kinds of more or less surprising and not always pleasant symptoms – I’m still waiting for that pregnancy glow!
What I really didn’t expect was ending up with GREEN hair! Ok, in fairness, it’s not a direct result of my pregnancy. But indirectly it definitely is because the cause is… swimming!
I started swimming weekly since becoming pregnant, which is a new form of (regular) exercise for me. What I should have remembered from my childhood summers is that my very blonde hair turns green very easily when I swim a lot. I haven’t been swimming that much, but now my hair is colour treated (my hairdresser uses high lift to make the natural blonde brighter) and also dry from pregnancy and so more prone to damage. I’m not one of the lucky ones who’s hair improves during pregnancy but instead I have more breakage than before! (sob sob)
What turns the hair green is copper, which can be found in some pools. The chlorine in the water oxidises the copper which then binds to the proteins of hair strands – according to Google.
Oh why didn’t I wear a swim cap!? (Other than not wanting to look like I pulled a condom over my head, obviously)
So not only is my hair dry, frizzy and breaking, it’s now also greenish.
Luckily I’m not the only blonde swimmer in the world and there are plenty of clarifying “swimmers’ shampoos”. I ordered one from Paul Mitchell (Shampoo Three) but while I wait, I wanted to try some quick home remedies.
Another google and ta-dah!
It turns out that tomato sauce is very acidic and it removes copper oxides naturally. I should have tried this before spending on a salon product! One 5-minute ketchup treatment helped already a lot. I’ll repeat it tomorrow 🙂
I’ll also add a weekly hair mask to my beauty routine. I’m going through enough physical changes to start worrying about my hair falling out too!
And yes, I have started to wear a swim cap.
Oddly enough, my nails on the other hand have never been growing this quickly!
Otherwise the baby and I are doing just fine and our pregnancy is 17 weeks along. More about that in the next post!
xoxoxo,
Sini