Colouring our hair isn’t exactly a 5-minute job, so you want to make it worthwhile. In fact, we spend a good few hours of our lives sitting in a salon chair - do you even colour your hair if your hairdresser doesn’t know every single detail of your life? And as much fun as it is giving her the hot goss, you want to leave some time in between salon visits to have some juicy updates. Oh, and to save time and money, of course. To get the most out of your salon visits, here’s how to make coloured hair last longer, so you can spend less time sitting and more time living.

1. Choose A Colour-Friendly Shampoo and Conditioner 

The biggest mistake when maintaining coloured hair is not using colour-friendly shampoo and conditioner. So easy, yet so vital. Regular formulas typically contain harsh ingredients that can strip the colour from your hair, putting you right back in the salon chair before you know it. Whereas formulas specifically made for coloured hair contain milder ingredients to keep hair colour from fading.

2. Put Off Washing Your Hair For 2-3 Days After Your Salon Visit

We all avoid washing our hair after we get home to hold onto that just-left-the-salon look for as long as possible, but if you’ve just had your hair coloured, you’ll want to delay hair wash day for at least 2-3 days. This will help to preserve hair colour as it’ll give it more time to settle into the hair strands, making it less likely to budge. And if you really need a touch-up in between, just slap on some dry shampoo.

3. Always Wash Your Hair with Lukewarm Water

Lukewarm water gently raises the hair cuticles (the outer layer of hair), which is exactly what we want to do when washing our hair to release any trapped dirt, oil, and bacteria. But if the water is too hot, the hair cuticles will lift a little too much and give hair colour an escape route. Now imagine how much hair colour you’re losing if you’re washing your hair with hot water a few times a week… You don’t need to be good at math to know it’s a lotta hair colour.

4. Use A Microfiber Towel

Okay, so now we know that open hair cuticles give hair colour a way out, it’s time to switch to a microfiber towel that’ll help to keep them flat and maintain coloured hair for longer. Cotton towels are rough on hair cuticles and can cause them to be pulled in all sorts of directions, giving hair colour more ways to escape, whereas microfiber towels are seriously soft and won’t disturb hair cuticles.

Microfiber Towel - €9.00

Curls N’ Clouds Microfiber Towel will keep your hair colour from fading as it’s super-duper soft on hair cuticles. With approximately 200,000 fibres in just one square inch of a microfiber towel, they’re also able to soak up water more efficiently than cotton and close hair cuticles quicker before the swelling becomes permanent. The result? Preserved hair colour with less frizz.

5. Spritz On UV Protection Before You Step Outside

UV rays from the sun break down the chemical bonds in hair colour, so to maintain coloured hair, you need to be applying UV protection every day. Even on cloudy days as UV rays are always present whether you can see the sun or not. So, the next time you step outside, make sure to spritz UV protection over your entire head of hair.