How to Care Your Colored Hair

     Your natural hair needs all the care it can get, your colored (light or dark) hair needs all the care it can get and some extra. Why did we add some extra? Well, unlike your natural hair, if not taking real care of, colored hair can fade within weeks.

     It needs a lot of attention and lots of TLC to keep it looking perfect. It is going to be a hard task, but with our specially prepared tips, we guarantee you that it will be less tasking.

     We've carefully put together this list of tips to help you care for your colored hair. All you have to do is follow closely and keep on reading.

1. Start Early: The key to care is to prepare in advance for it. If you want to get colored hair, start preparing early for it. Ensure your hair is well nourished, moisturized, hydrated, and healthy. Pamper your hair with scalp massages and hair masks, oil it and trim it regularly, resist heat styling and go heatless, before bleaching, apply coconut oil to lessen the risk of damage to the hair.
2. Choose Right: Choosing the right dye for your hair goes a long way. When choosing the right dye for dark coloring, choose the ones free from a harsh chemical like ammonia. When choosing the right bleach for light coloring, choose the ones with protecting products to minimize damages that might occur when you're stripping your hair of colors.
3. Shampoo: If you've already gone ahead past the first two tips, there's no need to panic, you can start the care treatment from here. After coloring your hair, always wait for 72 hours before shampooing it. Don't go rushing to shampoo it, let the dye rest in first. When coloring your hair, the cuticle layers open up to absorb the dye into the hair shafts, washing too early will wash off the dye as the cuticles need at least three days to fully close. Shampooing after 72 hours will make your hair last longer.
4. Trimming: Trimming off and cutting off the damaged hair right after you've colored it will keep it growing healthy and keep the damage from spreading to the parts that are still healthy.
5. Avoid Shampoos with Sulfate: Freshly colored hair is vulnerable to damages and is susceptible to bleeding, so to prevent and protect your hair from more damages it is important to use color-protecting sulfate-free shampoo. Color-protecting sulfate-free shampoo helps to wash your hair and at the same time retain the color and natural oil of your hair.
6. Condition and Dye: Whenever you wash your hair add a little dye (the same color as the one on your head) to your conditioner, this will slightly re-dye your hair every time you wash your hair. This keeps it looking fresh and new each time until the roots have grown out.
7. Cold Rinse: After washing your hair with sulfate-free shampoo, always rinse thoroughly with cold water. Rinsing with hot water causes the hair cuticles on the outer layer to open up and lose moisture, it also increases the risk of damage to your hair. Rinsing with cold water closes your cuticles, helping it retain color and moisture to keep it looking as great as ever. It helps prevent the color from fading faster. If you can't stand a cold shower, you could always opt for the warm water, cold water technique. This technique sees you shampooing with warm water first and then rinsing with cold water after you've conditioned the hair, the slightly warm water will help the conditioner and shampoo to seep in and cleanse, while the cold rinse will close the pores in to soak the moisture.
8. Limit Your Wash and Opt For Dry Shampoo: It is important to limit the number of times you wash your hair to just 2 - 3 days. Washing often makes the colors bleed, so make it last longer, limit the washing cycle. Instead of washing often go for color-protecting dry shampoo on your off-washing days. You could also try out color tinted dry shampoos to keep the colors looking refreshed and revamped.
9. Protect With Leave-in Treatments: Remember when we said: "and some extra?" This was what we meant, colored hair needs to be protected from the sun to prevent loss of nutrients and damages to the hair. Leave-in treatments contain silicon which forms protective layers to minimize the damage from the sun, leaving your hair smooth, hydrated and protected.
10. Use Heat Protectant Spray: If you must go for heat styling, always make sure that you use heat protectant spray to protect and prevent your hair from the damage of using heat tools. Heat strips away the color and damages your hair. They help protect your hair from humidity, keep the colors, smoothen the hair, and reduce moisture loss.

     There you have it, tips to give your colored hair some TLC to keep it looking great, shiny, smooth, healthy, and long-lasting.