Coloring your hair can add lots of pizazz to your look, but it needs to be done carefully to avoid too much damage to your hair – during and after dying. Here are some of the essential things you should think about when you’re dying your hair.
First, look into the chemicals you’re using to dye your hair, especially if you’re dying it at home. New hair dyes without peroxide and ammonia are starting to go on the market, which means you can dye your hair with gentler chemicals that won’tdo as much damage or cause as many split ends.
It’s not a good idea to chemically straighten or perm your hair when it’s colored, or to color it right after perming or straightening it. The interaction between the chemicals can not only damage your hair, but may also change the color you get, making some colors look brassy. Piling on all of the chemicals will almost certainly result in more fragile hair that breaks easily and is hard to style.
It’s important to trim your hair often to get rid of split ends and keep your hair looking healthy. This is especially true when your hair is treated with chemicals, as it will likely break more often.
Make sure that you use a gentle shampoo made for color-treated hair, and that you rinse it thoroughly to get rid of any film that will attract dirt and minimize shine.
You may consider using a micro-fiber towel, which will absorb more water so that you don’t have to put as much heat on the hair to dry it.
Use a wide-tooth comb to deal with tangles, which will minimize breakage from brushes.
Whenever you can, avoid curlers and curling irons. Instead try to style your hair with a round brush and a blow dryer. Curled hair is more sensitive to heat and will become more fragile if it is subjected to heat every day.
When you’re freshening up your color, don’t recolor all of your hair. Apply color to the roots and pull it out to the ends, but don’t subject all of your hair to the full strength of the chemicals every time you color it.
Colored hair can look great, but it will look better if you pay the price of taking special care of your colored hair to make sure it doesn’t self-destruct.