Posted Monday, February 6, 2012 by Anita Rivas,

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Preserving hair color is one of the many beauty challenges women face, especially if you’re addicted to washing your hair on a daily basis.  Whether you frequently visit your colorist or use boxed dye - your color will fade. The only difference being that professional color is stronger and will last a few days to a week longer then boxed dye.

The question is: How exactly do you preserve your salon color treatment or at home color? First we need to discuss why color fades.  Color fades when the hair cuticle is unhealthy, when the cuticle is exposed to heat from styling tools and other harsh chemicals in our day-to-day haircare products.

Preserving hair color is easier then we think, read below to see what the experts have to say about maintaining salon worthy color after your salon visit.

Skip the habit of frequently washing your hair, as my colorist explained “Your color is like cashmere, you don’t wash your cashmere every day do you?” The answer is no, cashmere gets dry cleaned and not on a daily basis.  What to do? Wet your hair in the shower and deep condition with a mask for color treated hair; this gives you the feeling of washing your hair without stripping away color. If you’re the type to use dry shampoos there are several good ones we recommend: Pronto Dry Shampoo by Oscar Blandi, Meta Revive by Serge Normant or an old tried and true Dry Shampoo by Klorane.

 A few examples of hair masques for color treated hair:

Pureology:  Hydrate Hydra Whip, Essential Repair Masque, or Perfect for Platinum Reconstructing Repair Masque. Rene Furterer:  Okara Radiance Enhancing Conditioner. Leonor Greyl:  Masque Quintessence.

Serge Normant: Meta Morphosis Hair Repair Treatment.

Use haircare for color treated hair – shampoos or conditioners that leave behind color deposits are best, but using a haircare collection specifically for color treated hair works too.

 Color Extend by Redken, is a collection designed to gently cleanse, detangle, hydrate, and deliver superior anti-fade protection to color treated hair.  Another recommendation is Beautiful Color by Oribe, a three step collection that targets damaged areas and delivers intense moisture for gorgeous salon worthy hair.

If you find yourself in-between appointments there are several at-home tricks that you can use to extend the color of your hair. Rinse after you condition with cool water, this helps close the cuticle preventing penetration of heat from styling tools or chemicals from haircare products that are not designed for color treated hair.  If your grey or roots are starting to show a quick fix is the Pronto Root Touch-Up Pen by Oscar Blandi, another amazing Oscar Blandi tool is the Dry Styling Heat Protecting Spray; hair is infused with nourishing oils and stays gorgeous all day.

There are a few at-home glazes we can use to help keep our hair color shiny and bouncy:

Oscar Blandi at-Home Salon Glaze helps by infusing hair with Olive Oil and Vitamin E, protecting hair from damage and leaves tresses silky smooth and shiny.  Another tried and true is John Frieda’s Luminess Glaze – with or without color deposit, hair is left luxuriously shiny and healthy.

We need to remember that the styling tools we use are equally as important.  Blow-dryers are not all created equal, we recommend using tools by Sam Villa, Amika and Olivia Garden because the haircare tools you use make a huge difference in the health of your hair.

 Here’s to Extending the Life of Healthy Color Treated Hair!