Top 10 At-Home Hair Mishaps
Your hair color looks great not only because it turned out beautiful at the salon, but because you take great care of it at home. Maintaining your hair conscientiously can make a dramatic effect in the way your color lasts between appointments. I’ve come up with 10 fairly common faux pas that happen at home when it comes to hair color upkeep. Here we go…
Incorrectly Layering Products
In general, I like to layer styling products in the hair rather than cocktail them in my hands and apply them all at once. It’s important to layer in the correct order though, and much like skincare, you typically want to apply lightest to heaviest. Oils usually go last. Oils are lubricants and they will seal the other products in the hair. They also help protect against humidity. If you have a heavier oil and you apply it first, it can prevent the absorption of other products and make your hair feel gross or not style properly.
Misusing Clarifying Shampoos
If you use a lot of styling products or go days without shampooing, it might benefit you to use a clarifying shampoo every now and then. They’re designed to deep clean your hair from product build-up, oil, and dirt, but they’re too harsh to use all the time. They can fade color if used too often, so don’t use this as your primary cleanser.
Bad Sleeping Habits
I know this sounds crazy, but sleeping with your hair not tied up and using rough fabrics causes friction on the hair and can lead to hair fadage and frizz. If you have curly or textured hair, it only makes this worse. (This is partly why silk bonnets are a thing.) Fairly often, I can even guess what side my blonde clients sleep on because there is more damage on one side of their head. Try a silk pillowcase! And don’t go to sleep with damp hair because your hair is much more fragile and elastic when wet. You can also get color transfer more easily from damp hair.
Misusing Hair Oil
This goes along with point #1. We now know to apply oil last, but if you’re using hot tools like curling or flat irons, don’t apply oil to your dry hair just before styling. You’ll be french-frying your hair!
Aggressive Towel Drying
Another friction issue. Think of your hair like a fabric—now, imagine how fabric pills when it’s rubbed together. This is kind of like what happens to your hair, but in the form of rough cuticle and frizz. Be gentle with your hair! Don’t wring the water out or scrub it too hard with your towel.
Showering Too Hot
Not only is this not great for your skin, but water that is too hot will open the cuticle more than necessary allowing some of the color molecules to escape faster. Very hot water can also lead to scalp issues and dryness.
Hard Water Buildup
If you live in an area with hard water (most of us do), consider buying a shower filter. Minerals can build up on your hair which affects the vibrancy and longevity of your haircolor. Periodically it’s beneficial to do a mineral removing treatment in the salon as well. Chemicals in hair color can mix with the excess minerals in your hair and potentially create damage.
Heat Damage
Did you know that hot tools can fade color? Not only do thermal irons create (sometimes) irreversible damage on your hair, high heat can break down dye molecules and leave you with faded color. It’s so important to use a heat protectant before using styling tools.
Shampooing Too Soon
I’ll probably get a lot of pushback on this because I don’t think this is scientifically backed lol, but STILL.. I think you should wait a couple of days after getting your hair colored before you shampoo. I know the color is technically done processing after it’s shampooed in the salon, but my 17 years doing this says hold off for 48 hours 😂
And the most common faux pas is…
Misusing Purple Shampoo!
Purple shampoo is a one-size-fits-all tone in a bottle. Generally it is light enough to not turn most blondes violet, but not pigmented enough to counteract gold tones darker than a medium blonde. (You can't really tone out orangey-gold blondes successfully anyway, especially at home..)
If you look at the picture, the way I like my highlights to look is with gradation built into the highlight. This means that along the hair strand there will be brightness and lightness building into the ends. So imagine you use a purple shampoo that successfully cools down the tone of the lightest parts of the hair... by contrast, the rest of the hair will now be perceived warmer, and boom! All of a sudden there's an imbalance with the tone.
Purple shampoo can work for some people for sure, but in my experience it's hit or miss. When in doubt, schedule a gloss in the salon where I can custom formulate a color and be able to apply it strategically where you need it.
