Science Questions

Can you change your hair colour without chemicals?

I'd like to know whether it's possible to change your hair colour without chemicals, such as with gene modification. It would save me a fortune! Are there any catalysts on the market that would catalyse a platinum blond colour?! Karen in Bamford

The chemical that you usually dye or bleach your hair with is hydrogen peroxide. Now interestingly, that's a typical reaction that you do in school. Hydrogen peroxide decomposes into oxygen very very slowly, but if you add something like potassium iodide you can make this happen a lot more quickly. There's a fantastic experiment you can do where you put some hydrogen peroxide (also found in contact lens fluid) and add a little bit of potassium iodide and bubbles. The whole thing comes sweeping out of the top in this big fountain of bubbles. As for trying to dye your hair without a catalyst, I'd go for the catalyst way myself!

September 2006