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Whether you have high-toned bleached hair, balayage, or highlights, if you ever have bleached your hair, we all have experienced the pain of the color-fading as time goes by: Toner color fades over time, and it sometimes results in brassiness. You have the option to add the same/different color toners after the color fades, but ideally, you would wish to keep the hair color as long as possible without fading.
Bleaching also involves significant damage to the hair. The process opens the hair’s protective cuticles, which allows the hair’s interior moistures and proteins to be lost and causes dryness and weakens/thins your hair. To minimize hair damage, proper hair care during and after the bleaching process is essential.
We have many customers coming to our salon for the bleaching process to get high-toned colors, Balayage, and Highlights. In this article, the owner and creative director of Three Degrees Salon, Kei, shares 6 tips to minimize hair damage and preserve the hair color longer for bleached hair.
Who wrote this article?
Kei Hirata
Owner/Creative Director
Three Degrees Salon
Other Popular Article:
Hair Color Guide - Read if you are unsure which menu to book
Balayage 101: The Basics to know and 8 Elegant Balayage Colors
Content:
1: 6 Tips to Minimize Hair Damage and Preserve Hair Color
1 - Add a treatment service specialized for the bleaching process at a hair salon.
2 - Use haircare products suitable for bleached hair
3 - Do not wash your hair with hot water. Always with cold water or lukewarm water.
4 – Wash your hair less often.
5 – Avoid using flat-iron/curling iron or set the temperature low when using.
6 – Protect your hair from salt water and chlorine
2: Summary
1: 6 Tips to Minimize Hair Damage and Preserve Hair Color
1 – Add a treatment Service specialized for the bleaching process during the session at a hair salon.
The first step should start at the hair salon during the bleach coloring session. Hair salon uses better quality bleaching products that are less harmful to your hair while giving the maximum bleaching effects, apart from the general bleaching products sold commercially at drug stores. Most hair salon also offers a treatment service that is specialized for bleaching/chemical-processed hair to minimize damages, and we recommend booking this treatment service when you decide to do a bleach color process.
At Three Degrees Salon (and many other salons), we partner with Olaplex to offer the treatment service for bleach colors, while we occasionally suggest/use a treatment product from a different brand if the stylist thinks that is more appropriate for your hair conditions and coloring process. Olaplex is a multi-step hair treatment system that can repair damaged hair. They offer a line of treatment from home cares to salon treatments to achieve the best result. They have their patented technology for the bond-building which works on a molecular level and restores damaged and compromised hair by repairing from the inside out.
Olaplex Treatment for Hair Salons is the most intensive bond-building treatment care developed specifically to be used by professionals at hair salons. When the bleaching/coloring/perming process is performed with this Olaplex Treatment care, it gives protection to your hair to minimize the damage from the chemical process. Olaplex Treatment service is good for anyone concerned about hair damage, but we strongly suggest adding it if you book any coloring service that involves the bleaching process - such as high-toned colors, Balayage, and Highlights. (Don’t forget to add this when booking online so we can secure enough time to provide you with the treatment without rushing!)
<Reference> *Site view/Prices are subject to change without notice. Please check with the actual site.
2 - Use Haircare Products suitable for bleached hair
Once your hair is bleached, your hair condition has changed – so switching your haircare products with something more suitable for bleached hair is a MUST!
Olaplex's Homecare Line of Products
We recommend using Olaplex's home haircare line of products – they are specifically developed for damaged hair and using a series of their product line maximizes their restoring and rejuvenating effects with bond-building technology.
*Products we are recommending are available for purchase at Three Degrees Salon and our online shop. Click the product images to jump to product pages for more details.
In addition to this, weekly treatment care would give your bleached hair nutrients. Olaplex’s No.3 Perfector is a home-care treatment product that is integrated with the salon’s treatment service. Weekly use of this product reduces breakage, visibly strengthens, and repairs damaged hair.
How to Use:
1: Wet your hair and towel dry.
2: Apply a generous amount of the product to wet towel-dried hair (mostly hair ends and where it’s damaged) and brush thoroughly into the hair by hand or with a comb.
3: Leave on for 10 – 20 minutes. (10 minutes is recommended and may be left on for longer periods for even better results.)
4: Rinse, Shampoo, and Condition.
*This is NOT a conditioning treatment to be left on the hair and should be shampooed out of the hair at the end.
If you are tight on a budget, the priority goes as 1: Olaplex Treatment at the salon during the bleaching process, → 2: Weekly Treatment care with No.3 Perfector → 3: Use Olaplex No4 Shampoo and No5 Conditioner.
Color-depositing Shampoo
These are the ways to focus on the restoration of damaged hair, which would keep your hair color looking nice and shiny. But you can also preserve your hair color by using color-depositing shampoo. Color-depositing shampoo contains various pigments, so it adds subtle temporary color or eliminates unwanted undertones.
There are various color tones of shampoos, and each has different characteristics to serve. Here are some examples:
Purple shampoo – It’s the most standard color-depositing shampoo and is recommended for blonde, light-toned, and grey hair to neutralize the yellow and brassiness and boost brightness. Olaplex also has this in its product line.
Pink shampoo – It intensifies red/pink tones of hair color.
Green shampoo – It neutralizes red tones in dark hair/brunette hair.
Color depositing shampoo seems like an easy trick to add colors without damaging hair, but its excessive use could leave subtle unnecessary color tones on your hair and may affect the future coloring process. (So let your stylists know before coloring after its use) Generally, you would want to incorporate it into your daily haircare routine once (or twice) a week and use your regular shampoo for the rest of the week.
3 - Do not wash your hair with hot water. Always with cold water or lukewarm water.
Taking a hot shower may feel great, but not so much for your hair and scalp. The high heat damages the hair’s cuticle and makes your roots weak due to dryness of the scalp, which turns your hair frizzy. Bleached hair is already damaged so hot water only causes further negative issues. The hair condition is very fragile, especially during the first week after coloring, so make sure to wash your hair with cold water or lukewarm water (38C/100F) to avoid further damage and color fade.
4 – Shampoo your hair less often.
The main 4 factors to cause the fade of hair color are heat, friction, wash, and sun exposure. Shampooing may involve three of these factors, not to mention the cleansing ingredients that it contains. In other words, reducing the frequency of shampooing helps to prevent color fade.
We suggest not shampooing for the first 48 hours after the bleaching process. If needed, gently rinse with lukewarm water without using shampoo.
5 – Avoid using flat-iron/curling iron or set the temperature low when using.
If you have read this article until here, you already know that heat is a big no-no for hair. Flat iron/curling iron gives hair direct heat so make sure to set the temperature low when using if you use. Applying a heat-protection treatment to the hair before the use of a hair iron is also helpful.
Here are some products that we are recommending at our hair salon.
6 – Protect your hair from salt water and chlorine
Have you experienced that your hair color gets lighter after going to a pool/beach, whether you have bleached your hair or not? Sunlight might be partially responsible for it, but the main reason is the salted sea water and the chlorine in the pool. They cause hair damage and color fade – so make sure to follow the below steps and treat your hair well after enjoying yourself in the water.
Instruction to treat hair after the sea or pool:
1: Rinse well to wash away the salted water/chlorine using shampoo
2: Apply treatment to your hair to give sufficient oils
Recommended product:
3: Dry your hair thoroughly – do not leave your hair wet.
4: Apply hair oil for extra moisturizing
Recommended product:
2: Summary
It has gotten a bit overwhelming so we will make it simple for you – here are the 3 important keys you should always keep in your mind when treating your bleached hair ;
1: Add a treatment service specialized for the bleach/chemical process during the bleaching session.
2: Reduce the frequency of shampooing, and exposure to heat, sun, and salted water/chlorine as much as possible.
3: Use haircare products suitable for bleached hair.
I hope you find these tips helpful and enjoy your fabulous bleached/balayage hair without stress!
At Three Degrees Salon, we have skillful colorists/stylists who are specialized in bleached color and Highlights/Balayage. If you have any concerns with your hair, don’t hesitate to contact us for online consultation!
Hair Color Guide – Read if you are unsure which menu to book
Balayage 101 : Basics to know and 8 Elegant Colors
Three Degrees Salon
204 E6th Street
New York NY 10003
Instagram ＠Threedegreessalon
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