Caring For Your Hair Color At Home
After you’ve received a color service, whether you’ve lightened or darkened your hair, caring for your color at home is so important. Investing in a color service is not cheap, so why wouldn’t you care for it properly at home to maintain your beautiful color? Although hair color and glosses do fade over time and things aren’t as fresh as when you walked out of the salon, you can still do things to keep your hair feeling it’s healthiest at home and looking it’s best! Rinsing your hair in lukewarm to cold water helps keep the cuticle of your hair closed allowing for the gloss to last longer and not slip/wash out of your hair - this goes for any kind of color.
Hair Products For Blondes
I find hair products to be one of the important steps to maintaining your color. There are many products out there that aid in depositing a tone to cancel out brassiness in blonde hair; such as a purple or blue shampoo. It doesn’t lighten your hair, but it neutralizes the warmth that we tend to see after a couple weeks following a fresh gloss. Your stylist should recommend whether you need to be using either a purple or a blue as each do different things for certain levels of blondes. Always listen to your stylist’s recommendations before purchasing any tonal shampoo. Avoid picking a blue shampoo if your hair is a pale yellow (looks like the inside of a banana), you will most likely turn your hair green or teal! You’ll want to use a purple to neutralize any yellow tones. If your hair is on the very warm side leaning towards an orangey tone or VERY brassy, using blue will allow you to neutralize some of that warmth.
If you are experiencing any breakage, dryness or if it’s feeling very limp, your stylist will most likely recommend a bond repairing shampoo and conditioner like Olaplex, K18, Pureology Strength Cure or Pureology Strength Cure Blonde or point you towards a hydrating line such as Pureology Hydrate. These are my favorite lines to recommend clients, as everyone’s hair is different, I like to have a variety of brands people can try so they can find one that helps strengthen and cure their hair. I recommend the Olaplex No. 4C which is a clarifying shampoo, you may use this once a week to clarify any impurities, build up of purple shampoo and cleanse your scalp.
Being blonde, you are more than likely going to experience some breakage, dryness and limp hair as bleach is a very harsh chemical to apply to hair. I do my best to use a very low-level developer while the bleach is processing in foils and a high quality bleach that has a bonder inside which protects the hair while processing.
When styling blonde hair, you ALWAYS want to use a heat protectant and finish with a hair oil to help protect your hair from heat damage. Reduce the use of heat, and try to heat style no more than 2-3 times a week spacing a day or two in between. Any time you are going to heat style, ALWAYS reapply your heat protectant. Blonde hair is the most fragile and if you’re not using a heat protectant, your hair is going to break off over time and become extremely damaged. Most people say “my hair never grows,” but really this is most likely because their home care routine is not benefiting their hair to grow or not getting regular trims. I love using the Olaplex No. 9, Pureology 21 Color Fanatic, Curl Wow Dream Cocktail (they have three; Kale, Coconut & Carb infused), and K18’s mask has a built in heat protectant. Again, I love to give multiple recommendations!
Hair Products For Brunettes & Other Color Services
With brunettes, all over color or a caramel balayage, you want to be using a color-safe shampoo and conditioner to help maintain your color. Most professional shampoo and conditioner is safe on color treated hair as professional brands rarely use any sulphates, parabens and metallic salts which strip color out of the hair. Again, I love recommending Olaplex, Pureology, and K18 shampoos and conditioners to clients. I definitely don’t have anything against other professional brands, these are just product lines that I find are most gentle, hydrate, protect your color and have used myself so I feel confident recommending these to client’s.
With any color treated hair, you still want to use a heat protectant in your hair before heat styling and every time you re-curl your hair after your curls have fallen flat. I recommend the products and heat protectant routine above that I recommended for blondes, any of those work great for any kind of color treated hair.
If you are wanting any other recommendations or have specific questions regarding the products I have recommended, you can always reach out to me!