Ribena- the new hair dye?

Ever wondered what it would be like to dye your hair with Ribena? Nope, us neither. But when we found out that scientists have managed to invent a hair dye out of our favourite childhood fizzy drink, we had to investigate more. You know we love learning about the weird and wonderful grocery items that can do stuff to your hair- we recently looked into using chamomile tea as a hair dye, too- so this is right up our alley.

Apparently, according to Sky News, new technology has allowed scientists at the University of Leeds to be able to do this, by extracting the Ribena blackcurrant pigment, which provides intense red, purple and blue colours on hair. The scientists experimented extracting natural colouring from the waste blackcurrant skins, and over time developed a successful technique.

So, how does the blackcurrant pigment work? Blackcurrant skins contain high concentrations of anthocyanins, which are often used as natural pink, red, purple, violet and blue food colourants. They pass our safety test too- they’re non-toxic and water soluble. They bind strongly with proteins in the hair, which is why they make a useful ingredient in hair dye.

And it’s not just crazy-coloured hair dye that can be produced by Ribena- other, more natural colours can be created, including brown tones, by mixing the blackcurrant pigment with natural yellow.

The only downside is that the dye is sadly only semi-permanent, with the colours expected to last for at least 12 washes, but that does tend to be the case with natural hair dyes.

All this leads to one question: Is Ribena hair dye a thing of the future? We know that there is a huge demand for natural hair dyes these days, with people wanting to dye their hair more safely, with less damage done to the hair. If it’s marketed correctly, we think there could be something in this, especially if more natural colours can be created from the pigment. It’s expected to go on sale by the summer- so watch this space.

And would we try the hair dye out for ourselves? Potentially- but we’d have to do a bit more research first once the product was released. It’s important to know exactly what you’re putting in your hair and whether it’s going to do it good or not, but so far, all the info we’ve read sounds promising.