Your Guide to Properly Maintaining Colour-Treated Hair at Home
Wanting to keep your colour looking salon-fresh? Then it's important to give your hair the unique care it needs! Read on for our tips and tricks for caring for your colour-treated hair at home, and keep your locks looking vibrant between salon visits.
Don’t Overwash Your Hair.
Washing your hair too often can cause colour to fade prematurely. It can also strip moisture from your hair, making it appear duller and less vibrant. Though it depends on your individual scalp needs, most people do not need to shampoo daily. Try extending the time between washes 2-3 days. Some people find they can go even longer between washing, cutting down on any dryness or fading caused by shampooing. In between washes, make sure you’re brushing regularly to distribute oils through the length of your hair. To combat oily hair between washes, try using a dry shampoo. This is a great way to extend the life of your colour.
Avoid hot water.
Hot water can cause colour to fade much quicker than lukewarm or cold water. Try using lukewarm water when washing your hair, and if you can stand it, rinse with cold. Rinsing with cold flattens the cuticles of your hair, making it appear shinier and smoother. Cold water will also help maintain the longevity of your coloured hair. If you can’t stand the cold, don’t worry! Rinse with lukewarm water instead. They key for keeping your colour fresh is to avoid overly hot water on your hair.
Always use sulfate-free shampoo.
Sulfates are mineral salts that are sometimes added to shampoos. They work as a detergent, stripping away residue. Because they tend to be quite harsh on hair, it’s best to use a shampoo that is free of sulfates. Because sulfates will strip hair of its natural oils, your hair will lose moisture and appear dull. The intense cleaning can also cause colour to fade. Look for shampoos that are labeled sulfate-free (and bonus if it’s formulated for colour-treated hair).
Use a colour protecting shampoo and conditioner.
Shampoos and conditioners that are formulated to protect your colour treated hair are excellent for extending your colour between salon visits. These products can help seal the hair cuticle, protect your locks from environmental damage, and lock in colour. They are generally more gentle on your hair, which also helps avoid fading of your hair colour. Some of our favourite colour-protecting lines are below.
Featured line: Everlasting Colour by Kevin Murphy
Kevin Murphy - Everlasting Colour
50ml, 250ml, 1000ml
Colour protect shampoo with pH sealing technology
A sulphate-free pH balanced shampoo gently cleanses and closes the cuticle for a shine that helps to lock colour in while protecting hair strands from hard water mineral accumulation to guarantee brilliance.
Everlasting Colour by Kevin Murphy includes a shampoo, conditioner, leave-in conditioner, and treatment which protect against colour fading while enhancing shine, vibrancy and radiance.
Kevin Murphy - Everlasting Colour
50ml, 250ml, 1000ml
Colour protect conditioner with pH sealing technology.
A colour-locking conditioner forms a protective layer to guard against colour loss and environmental stressors, while pH balancers help create shine and improve hair’s condition, softness, and hydration while reducing damage and never weighing down the hair.
Kevin Murphy - Everlasting Colour
150ml
Bond-building colour protective treatment.
Lightweight leave-in spray treats hair from the inside, strengthening hairs resistance for improved, more robust and healthier hair. Preserves colour vibrancy and protects hair from environmental stressors while nourishing, hydrating and repairing.
Kevin Murphy-Everlasting Colour
A bond-building treatment to nourish and restore hair.
A shot of treatment that protects against colour fading and enhances shine, vibrancy and radiance by building strength from within to boost colour protection and resilience.
The EVERLASTING.COLOUR TREATMENT Homekit contains 3x12ml vials and 1 EVERLASTING.COLOUR TREATMENT sprayer.
** At KEVIN.MURPHY we are committed to the environment.
More tips for maintaining your colour-treated hair at home ⤵️
Invest in a quality heat protectant.
Using hot tools on your coloured hair can lead to dryness, damage, and fading of colour-treated hair. Luckily, there are heat protecting products that can minimize the damage from heat tools. These products will help keep your hair soft and healthy and your colour fresh while allowing you to style your hair how you like. Many heat protectant products include added benefits such as UV filters which help protect your colour from fading due to sun exposure.
Davines - Essential Haircare - Melu
250ml
Anti-breakage spray for damaged hair.
Lightweight anti-breakage spray for long or damaged hair. This leave-in spray reinforces hair fibers and shields strands from environmental pollutants, preventing dullness. With regenerative black chickpea extract, it has polysaccharides that helps prevent breakage and antioxidants to preserve hair’s structure. Get healthier-looking, more manageable hair with improved shine. Reduces breakage by up to 33.7%* during brushing and protects from heat damage up 230°C (446°F), from styling with hot tools.
Turn down your heat tools.
In addition to using a heat protectant product on your hair, try turning down the heat of your tools. It’s best to use good quality heat tools that allow for temperature adjustments so that you can tailor your temperature to your personal hair type. If you have fine or damaged hair, try setting your iron at 250° F. If that doesn’t work for achieving a curl that lasts, you can go up to 300° F. If you have medium hair, try experimenting with a range in temperature between 300° F and 350° F. If your hair has texture, you may need to adjust the temperature slightly hotter. If you have thick and textured hair, you will probably find a good setting for your hair around 400° F. You can go slightly lower if your hair is damaged, or slightly higher if you’re not achieving the lasting results you want. Other ways that you can cut down damage and fading is using a diffuser attachment while blow drying, and avoiding direct heat sources such as sunlight.
Hairstylists designed this lightweight professional flat iron to keep your hair in pristine condition when straightening or curling. Gentle, deep-penetrating infrared heat never damages hair and ensures endless shine and softness, while negative ions clean hair and reduce static, frizz. This hair straightener is is recommended for any hair type.
Featured line: Alchemic by Davines
Alchemic is Davines’ line designed to intensify and brighten colour on both natural and coloured hair. These shampoos and conditioners are highly biodegradable and natural formulas, with a high concentration of pure pigments. Shop six colour ranges composed of a shampoo and a conditioner each, including Silver, Copper, Red, Chocolate, Golden, and Tobacco. Feeling more creative? Davines’ Alchemic Creative line lets you tone and gently colour lightened hair at home. This range lets you experiment with Lavender, Pink, Teal, Marine Blue, and Coral.
Davines - Alchemic
280ml
SILVER: a colour-enhancing shampoo for platinum and cool blonde tones. Alchemic Shampoo Silver intensifies and illuminates natural or coloured blonde shades. This shampoo both maintains the clarity and tone of blonde and platinum hair and protects against the yellowing effects of sun exposure.
CHOCOLATE: a shampoo for natural or coloured dark brown and black hair. Alchemic Chocolate Shampoo maintains and enhances brunette tones. Winner of Glam Magazine’s Products of 2014 and Nylon Magazine’s Products of 2014.
COPPER: for copper and cool red hair. Alchemic Copper Shampoo maintains and enhances these red tones.
RED: for natural or coloured warm red hair. Alchemic Red maintains and enhances warm red tones.
GOLDEN: for golden-blonde to honey-blonde hair. Alchemic Golden Shampoo maintains and enhances these blonde tones.
TOBACCO: for medium-to-light brown natural or coloured hair. Alchemic Tobacco Shampoo maintains and enhances lighter brunette tones.
Davines - Alchemic
250ml
SILVER: for platinum and cool blonde hair. Davines educator Naomi Knights says, “Alchemic Silver is hands-down my favourite maintenance care for cool blondes, as it tones evenly and does not leave any funky residue! It also is a go-to for natural silver foxes.”
CHOCOLATE: for natural or coloured dark brown and black hair. Alchemic Chocolate maintains and enhances brunette tones.
COPPER: for copper and cool red hair. Alchemic Copper maintains and enhances these red tones.
RED: for natural or coloured warm red hair. Alchemic Red maintains and enhances warm red tones.
GOLDEN: for golden-blonde to honey-blonde hair. Alchemic Golden Conditioner maintains and enhances these blonde tones.
TOBACCO: for medium-to-light brown natural or coloured hair. Alchemic Tobacco Conditioner maintains and enhances lighter brunette tones.
What else can you do to help maintain coloured hair at home? Deep condition regularly for extra nourishment.
Regularly treating your hair to a deep conditioner is important for adding moisture, and keeps coloured strands looking vibrant. Try using a deep conditioner every one or two weeks after shampooing to give added nourishment. Below are some of our favourite deep conditioners and hair masks that are safe for colour treated hair.
Davines-Essential Haircare-NOUNOU
75ml, 250ml, 1000ml
NOUNOU Hair Mask is made for bleached, permed or relaxed hair. It provides deep nourishment and hydration, and the result is soft, silky hair that’s not weighed down.
Davines - Oi
75ml, 250ml, 1000ml
An antioxidant, nourishing hair butter with a sensory scent. This butter has an anti-frizz effect, giving extraordinary softness and brightness to the hair. You’ll see an immediate difference!
KEVIN MURPHY - Angel
Give blonde hair some TLC with Kevin Murphy’s colour enhancing conditioning treatment. BLONDE ANGEL Treatment takes the brassiness out of bland blonde tones and restores lustre and shine. A nourishing blend of Sunflower Seed and Olive Oil Extracts, Lavender and Jojoba Seed Oil deeply moisturizes and conditions to protect colour treated hair and maintain the beauty and brilliance of your blonde.
Davines-The Circle Chronicles
50ml
From Davines The Circle Chronicles, a set of scalp and hair masks for every need. The Renaissance Circle is a repairing mask that gives new life to very damaged hair. It restores the healthy look of hair, giving it shine, nourishment, and softness. The perfect hair mask for people who use hot tools.
Featured line: Keep My Colour by Eleven Australia
Keep My Colour is Eleven Australia’s line specifically formulated for blondes, natural or not! This shampoo, conditioner, and treatment all fight brassiness with a blue base and ext Violet 2. In addition to boosting blonde tones, soy proteins and natural extracts strengthen hair and add volume.
Eleven Australia - Keep My Colour
Keep My Colour Blonde Shampoo is a specifically formulated shampoo perfect for any blonde- natural or not! To fight brassiness, the shampoo uses a blue base with ext. Violet 2. While boosting blonde tones, soy proteins and natural extracts strengthen hair and add volume. This nutrient-rich shampoo is essential for anyone after the cool tones of the iconic Aussie blonde.
Eleven Australia - Keep my Colour
Keep My Colour Treatment Blonde boosts tones while adding shine to achieve the iconic Australian blonde. The blue based treatment enhances cool, blonde tones to reduce brassiness. It also promotes a healthy shine, treats and conditions the hair with Macadamia Seed Oil.
Eleven Australia - Keep my Colour
50ml, 300ml 960ml
A toning conditioner for coloured and natural blondes. Perfect for all hair types. With EXT. violet 2 you get a beautiful boost to all blonde tones. Green tea extract adds shine and antioxidants. Hydrolysed Quinoa helps to protect and nourish the hair.
Featured line: Oligo Blacklight Shampoo and Conditioner
Oligo’s Blacklight line offers technology for maintaining blonde hair while keeping it shiny, healthy and hydrated hair. Blue shampoo and conditioners offset orange tones, while violet shampoos and conditioners offset yellow tones. The Blacklights line restores faded highlights, leaving hair looking cleaner and brighter.
Oligo-Blacklight
Blacklight’s Blue Shampoo is specifically formulated to keep your highlighted, bleached, white and natural blonde hair perfectly toned. This shampoo eliminates brassiness and refreshes faded highlights, leaving hair looking cleaner and brighter. Oligo’s unique formula, enriched with 11 amino acids and argan oil, moisturizes and strengthens hair structure. It also repairs surface damage, while increasing shine and colour retention.
Oligo - Blacklight
Blacklight Blue Conditioner is specifically formulated for highlighted, bleached, white and natural blonde hair. It eliminates brassiness and refreshes faded highlights leaving hair looking cleaner and brighter. Its unique formula, enriched with 11 amino acids and argan oil, moisturizes, strengthens hair structure and repairs surface damage while increasing shine and colour retention.
Oligo - Blacklight
Blacklight’s Violet Shampoo is specifically formulated to keep your highlighted, bleached, white and natural blonde hair perfectly toned. This shampoo eliminates brassiness and refreshes faded highlights, leaving hair looking cleaner and brighter. Oligo’s unique formula, enriched with 11 amino acids and argan oil, moisturizes and strengthens hair structure. It also repairs surface damage, while increasing shine and colour retention.
Oligo - Blacklight
Blacklight Anti-Yellow Violet Conditioner is specifically formulated for highlighted, bleached, white and natural blonde hair. It eliminates brassiness and refreshes faded highlights leaving hair looking cleaner and brighter. Its unique formula, enriched with 11 amino acids and argan oil, moisturizes, strengthens hair structure and repairs surface damage while increasing shine and colour retention.