A Guide On How To Make Hair Colour Last Longer

There’s nothing quite like finally getting the perfect hair colour. Whether you’ve been working on getting from darker tones to a bright blonde or simply finding the right shade of brown that just works - it’s a great feeling. But it’s not so great when that hard earned - and probably expensive - colour starts fading. So we thought we’d compile a few tips on how to make hair colour last longer.

If you’re a dedicated colour fiend, you might know some of what we’re about to tell you already. But we promise that if you follow the steps and add some great hair products to your line up, you’ll start finding your colour lasts longer - and maybe even be able to wait between salon visits.

Overview:

Make your hair last longer with the right shampoo
Stop colour fade by washing your hair less
Use hair treatments
Use a good heat protectant
Keep your colour fresh by staying out of the sun & pool

How To Make Hair Colour Last Longer in 5 Simple Steps

1. Get yourself the right shampoo

To get straight to the point, you’ll need to get yourself a sulfate free shampoo. While sulfates don’t do long term damage to your hair, it is a surfactant so it can definitely strip your colour. To be on the safe side, get yourself a good sulfate free shampoo that’s been designed specifically with coloured hair in mind but will also gently cleanse your hair when you need it.

We love the Matrix Total Results Keep Me Vivid Shampoo, which is sulfate free but still has that milky high-foam leather to help your hair feel nice and clean. The technology that Matrix uses in this Keep Me Vivid system will also help maintain all those high maintenance colours and will help your hair last for up to 21 washes. Use it in conjunction with the Total Results Keep Me Vivid Conditioner - a lightweight, glazing conditioner which will add shine and tame any flyaways and frizz.

In between the gentle cleansing colour care shampoo and conditioner, you should use a color depositing shampoo once a week. For example, the Fanola No Yellow Shampoo is our go-to choice purple shampoo for blonde hair and the De Lorenzo Novafusion Colour Care range has a wide variety of colours that can help maintain your hair.

Other shampoos that will help your hair colour last longer:

2. Wash your hair less

If you’ve been dying your hair for a while now, you probably already do this. Shampooing your hair can strip hair of its natural oils and that expensive colour you just paid for - especially if you’re not using a sulfate free shampoo like we suggested above. And while we’re very much of the belief that you do you when it comes to hair washing - if you need to wash it everyday, go ahead - but if you have a high maintenance hair colour you’re trying to keep fresh, we’d probably go with a hair wash every 2-3 days or even up to 4 days if you can.

This tip is also especially important directly after your dye your hair. Hair stylists often recommend waiting at least 24-48 hours before you wash your hair.

To keep your hair and scalp clean in between washes, invest in a good dry shampoo. Not only will it remove the oil from your roots, extending the time you need between wash, it should also texturise and refresh your hair as well. Evo Water Killer Dry Shampoo is one of our all time favourites for its amazing styling abilities on top of the usual dry shampoo benefits.

Dry shampoos to help you wash your hair less:

3. Add some hair treatments to your routine

One of the biggest culprits when it comes to your color fading is when your hair becomes dry. So when we’re asked how to make hair colour last longer, we’ll often straight up recommend a hair treatment. We like to mix it up between a leave-in treatment as well as a more deep conditioning treatment.

It would be remiss of us to talk about treatments but not mention our bestseller, crowd-favourite and personal holy grail: Olaplex No. 3 Hair Perfector. Designed specifically for chemically treated hair, it locates the broken bonds in your hair and actually repairs them. So, consider it a post-treatment hair strengthening treatment and also a pre-treatment to improve your hair before your next chemical service.

On the quest to find out how to make hair colour last longer, one of our handiest tips is adding colour-specific treatments to your routine. This is more of a once-a-week,-treatment to use in conjunction with a general treatment to help revive your hair. So for example, if you’re blonde, use the Fanola No-Yellow Mask on the same day you use your purple shampoo. We also live for the Evo Fabuloso range of colour boosting treatments that come in eight handy shades.

Any hair type - coloured, damaged or not - can also benefit from a gentle leave-in treatment to your everyday hair care line up, like the Nak Replends Creme Leave-In Moisturiser that will add shine, hydration and condition.

Hair Masks and Leave-In Treatments to try:

4. Use heat protection before styling

Look, the real key to healthy hair is no hot tools because like we said earlier, it’s when your hair starts drying out that your colour will start fading right with it as well. But we do understand that it’s not always possible to give your blow dryers, hair straighteners and the rest of those hot tools a break. So if you’re going to put your hair through those searing 200 degrees plus heat then you better use a heat protection spray!

A good one should coat your hair to protect it from the heat and also provide a little treatment or styling as well. The De Lorenzo Defence Extinguish is infused with argan oil to help condition your hair as well as beating the heat.

Don’t forget to read our guide to finding the best heat protectant spray for your hair.

5. Stay out of the sun - and pool!

Pretty sure we’ve mentioned this one before but the sun can strip your hair colour as well. So when you’re thinking about slip, slop, slapping to protect your skin from those harmful UV rays, don’t forget to add a hat into that as well. A lot of heat protection sprays will also cover you on the UV ray front as well so that’s another big tick for adding one to your lineup if you haven’t already.

As for the pool, we explained in our guide on how to protect your hair from chlorine, the chemicals and minerals can also strip your natural oils and as a result, your hard earned hair colour too! So before you jump in, coat your color treated hair with some coconut oil - or wear a swimming cap - and remember to wash afterwards!

Keep your hair colour fresh with these 5 steps

Now you know how to make hair colour last longer, remember to actually take these steps! Otherwise you’ll find that your hair colour will just fade away - and no one wants that.

Shop hair care designed specifically to maintain hair colour plus all the styling products and treatments to go with it on Oz Hair & Beauty with Afterpay or Zippay today.

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(Image via @danae_edwardsandco)

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