How to Care for Colour Treated Hair
If you’re one of the many women who love the versatility of colouring their hair, then you know preserving vibrant pigment and silky smooth texture are important parts of aftercare. Whether you’ve had a full process, highlights, ombre, or balayage, follow these styling and maintenance tips in order to keep your hair looking lustrous and salon-fresh.
Protect Hair From Heat
Most of us have more than a few heating tools in our styling repertoire, including blow dryers, hot rollers, and flat irons, to name a few. With all the various ways we expose our precious locks to heat, it can easily take a toll on texture and colour, especially when part of a daily routine. Colour-treated hair is even more vulnerable to the effects of heat styling due to the outer hair cuticle being raised during the colouring process. If you want to maintain vivid colour and soft hair, then don’t skip using a thermal protectant prior to heat styling.
There are other ways hair becomes parched due to dry heat, such as spending time in saunas or in dry, hot weather. You can protect your hair by wrapping it in a damp towel before using a sauna, or spritzing it while spending time in dry weather. Your hair will thank you!
Stay Moisturized
Just as you keep your skin soft and supple, moisturizing is critically important for maintaining a glossy appearance and manageable texture. This is especially true for colour-treated hair, which is often more porous and vulnerable to dryness. There are numerous ways you can boost moisture and quench thirsty hair, but indulging your hair in deep conditioners or luxurious hair masks are some of the most effective treatments you can add to your new routine. The best option would be a professional quality conditioner that will penetrate each hair strand rather than just coating them and leaving a residue. Without adequate moisture, you risk your hair becoming limp, frizzy, or feeling straw-like, which eventually leads to more tangles and breakage.
Use the Right Products
To help prolong the life of newly coloured hair, you’ll want to use only the best products for the job. A harsh shampoo can strip your hair of colour in no time, so look for shampoos made for colour-treated hair or ones that are sulfate-free. Sulfates create the lather that give hair that squeaky clean feeling, but they also pull hair colour faster than other shampoos. Another example of using the right product would be getting the proper pigment toning shampoo for your colour, such as purple shampoo to keep your blonde hair looking fresh and free from brassiness.
Avoid Intense Sunlight and Swimming Pools
Prolonged sunlight and chemicals used in swimming pools (such as chlorine), can both fade hair colour, especially when combined. Thankfully, there are a few options for shielding hair from intense sun exposure or harsh chlorine. For the best protection, try using a swimming cap that’ll keep hair safe from both the sun and pool water. For sun bathing, a broad brimmed hat works well or a UV spray made specifically for hair. As far as swimming goes, you can always pin your hair up and avoid submerging your head underwater, or coat your hair with argan or coconut oil before swimming and promptly rinse and deep condition afterwards.
Be Gentle
Bleached or drastically lightened hair can become more fragile, so you’ll want to make sure to use a detangler or gentle comb to avoid breaking hair or creating more split ends.
You can also treat your hair more gently by turning down the water temperature in your shower. Using super-hot water opens the surface of the hair, which will cause dye to leach out of hair much faster. Regularly exposing hair to hot showers will result in dull colour and dryer hair. Instead, stick to lukewarm or cooler water temperatures when shampooing colour-treated hair.
Get Regular Maintenance
Regular maintenance such as trims and root touch ups will go a long way in keeping your hair looking fresh from the salon. If you have any damaged hair, then periodic trims will keep split ends from traveling up the hair shaft as well as keep your ends looking clean and sleek.
Depending on how different your coloured hair is from your natural hair, root touch-ups should also be a part of regular maintenance. Keeping up with roots will keep your hair colour looking natural and professional.
By incorporating these tips into your haircare routine, you’ll get to enjoy longer lasting colour without having to sacrifice touchability. We make it easy for you to keep your hair looking its best with our new promotion: when you purchase a hair colouring treatment, you’ll receive 10% off any of our coloured hair care products. Book an appointment today to get the hair colour you’ve been dreaming about.
