Most color treatments require touch-ups every four to six weeks, but is there anything you can do to preserve hair color and extend the time between salon visits? In the weeks following a bleach or dye treatment, your new color will fade and your natural hair color will slowly return around the roots. While you can’t keep hair color from fading forever, you can help it last longer with proper maintenance and care so you don't have to go to the salon as often. Rather than recoloring every couple weeks, try these simple tips and practices to help extend the life of your hair color.
Skip wash day
In the first 24 hours following a color treatment, it’s essential you resist the urge to wash your hair so the new color has time to settle in. Beyond the first day, you should also avoid washing your hair daily, as doing so strips your hair of the new color and the natural oils that help keep it healthy. Instead, try to wash your hair every two to three days and use dry shampoo in between to keep hair looking fresh. Make sure to use a dry shampoo that matches your hair color — blondes, greys and other light colors should use a purple-hued option such as Dry Shampoo Light. On the other hand, brunettes, redheads and other dark-haired folks should opt for Dry Shampoo Dark.
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Rinse hair with cold water
If you’re a dedicated follower of our blog, you may recall our post on how to prevent brassy hair where we discuss how heat opens up hair cuticles and contributes to color fading. To keep your hair color from fading, we advise rinsing your hair with cool water to seal the cuticle and lock in moisture. Moisture is essential for making your hair color last longer so consider using our Hydrating Shampoo and Hydrating Conditioner to ensure your hair gets what it needs.
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Use hot tools sparingly
Beyond the heat from hot water, you should also be careful when using hot tools.. We know these are sometimes crucial for styling, but you should try to limit their use if possible. When straightening, aim to get the job done in one pass instead of going back in to retouch. To help with heat-free styling, consider putting more emphasis on products that can help you with everything from adding texture to defining curls.
Avoid chlorine
Chlorine is a bleaching agent so it should definitely be avoided if possible if you want to preserve your hair color. At an extreme level, it can turn light-colored locks a greenish hue. However, it’s more likely that a dip in the pool will simply dull the color and cause excessive dryness. To prevent color-fading when swimming in a pool, avoid getting your hair wet or use a deep conditioning treatment such as our Hydrating Mask before and after swimming to better protect strands.
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Trim overly porous ends
If you’ve colored your hair multiple times, the repeated lifting treatments will likely make your hair more porous. Hair porosity refers to your hair’s ability to absorb moisture and your hair gets more porous each time you lift it, making the ends typically more porous than the rest. So why are overly-porous ends a problem for color-treated hair? Hair color from a dye penetrates highly porous hair more easily and the ends tend to absorb too much of the new pigment. These ends are already slightly damaged from the previous color treatment and can’t retain the new color well so they start leaking the pigment molecules and you’ll notice your ends start to fade at a much higher rate. To keep your hair color consistent from root to tips, it’s recommended to trim your ends every couple weeks or as you notice discoloration.
Dry gently
We all have those days where we wake up a few minutes late, rush into the shower, then vigorously dry our hair with a towel as we’re getting dressed. Unfortunately, drying too roughly can damage your ends and fade your color. Instead, try gently blotting your hair with a towel or letting it air dry. If you have time to spare, you could even try plopping it (where you wrap wet hair with a t-shirt or microfiber towel to absorb excess moisture).
Use Purple Mask instead of a purple shampoo
You may have heard about using a purple shampoo to help preserve blonde and other light hair colors but think of Purple Mask as a more nourishing alternative. Both products work in a similar way — both depositing a small amount of violet pigment onto strands to cancel out warm brassy hues — the key difference is in the other ways they affect your hair.
A lot of purple shampoos contain harmful sulfates that can strip the color from your hair. Additionally, purple shampoo tends to further dry out hair that may already be lacking moisture from the color-treatment process. By comparison, our sulfate-free Purple Mask hydrates strands so they stay healthy and hair color lasts longer. The added moisture also leaves your hair soft, shiny, and easy to manage. So while both help to tone light hair and preserve color, Purple Mask packs some additional benefits your hair will appreciate.
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Keep your hair color from fading
Cut down your trips to the salon and help make your hair color last longer by following these preservation tips. Remember, moisture is key for protecting color so make sure your hair is properly hydrated and use products formulated for color-treated hair such as our purple-hued Purple Mask or Purple Shampoo and Dry Shampoo Light designed for blonde, grey, and silver hair.
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purple-tinted formula
keeps blondies fresh,
toned and oil-free
Have more questions about color hair care? DM us on Instagram @verbproducts and we’ll answer all your hair care concerns.
