Tree is troubled…I am not sure if this was just my imagination but I swear I got red highlights from using ACV as a conditioner. My hair is light brown, some people call it dark blond but I don’t think it’s blond. Anyway, I hated the red highlights and I started using rice vinegar (it’s yellow). I think my hair got some blond highlights from it and many people actually commented on my hair colour. Do you think vinegar can change highlights on light hair? Of course, the ends of my hair are light than the roots (I don’t apply vinegar to the roots) but that’s normal for all people with light hair I’ve seen. And do you think it can make hair more wavy? Sorry if that’s a stupid question, I just wonder if it’s worth continuing with the vinegar rinse or it’s all in my head.
The Beauty Brains respond:
The active component of both Apple Cider Vinegar and Rice Vinegar is acetic acid. We don’t see any reason that ACV would give you red highlights and Rice Vinegar would give you blonde highlights. (Unless the Rice Vinegar was REALLY REALLY REALLY yellow and you were getting some staining. (But that’s probably not that’s the case.) Where you using any other products at the time? If you applied another product to your hair while it was still saturated with vinegar, perhaps the low pH could have interacted with another ingredient and caused some staining.
Also, acetic acid is a weak acid and will not disrupt the bonds in your hair so it can’t make your hair wavy. Changing the structure of your hair like that would require a high pH material that could disrupt the di-sulfide bonds that give hair its shape. (That’s essentially how permanent wave products work.)
Vinegar may help remove some mineral build up from hard water but that’s about the extent of the benefits it will provide.