How to Care for Color Treated Hair

Coloring your hair can be fun and is one of the best ways to completely change your look in a matter of minutes. Whether you get your hair colored at a salon or do it yourself with at-home haircolor from a box, your freshly colored hair needs special care to keep your color vibrant, rich and bright. Not only that, but because coloring your hair causes damage it is important to properly care for your hair after coloring to keep it from becoming dull and frizzy.

Much of how you care for your hair after coloring it has to do with protecting the color and keeping it from washing out. Reds have the least staying power and wash out more easily than other colors so if you decide to become a redhead it is especially important to follow these tips.

First, you shouldn't shampoo your hair as frequently after coloring it since shampoo can wash out your color. Instead of shampooing everyday (which you shouldn't do anyway even on non-color-treated hair), try shampooing every few days. Use a shampoo that is designed to be used on color treated hair since they will strip the least amount of color. Avoid any shampoos that are labeled as "clarifying" since they will strip the color from your hair the fastest.

Because coloring your hair can cause it to dry out, it is important to use a good conditioner. Conditioners that are made for color treated hair will help to restore shine and moisture to hair while helping to lock in the color.

You should also use a deep condition about once a week or so to really help boost the overall condition of your hair. Hot oil treatments are a nice option as are any of the deep conditioning creams designed for damaged hair. To get deeper conditioning you can apply the conditioner to your hair and then wrap it in a warm towel to allow the conditioner to penetrate deeper into the hair.