Redheads Keep the World on Fire and Men's Hearts Ablaze. - Kaliana Dietrich-
March 20, 2022
I was not born a red head but I will die a redhead if I can help it. My Grandmother was a box color redhead for most of her life. All those old and formal family photos (Olan Mills) have faded in such a way that I have tons of childhood photos where my hair is very red so as far as I’m concerned this. is. natural. Whether I’m going to keep believing that lie is up to me but any of you that get red hair color know it can be so hard keeping your color fresh.
I’m almost 48 so at this point I’m also fighting gray hair as well as typical fading. I thought I might give a list of my tips for keeping red hair bright & vivid.
Personally, I try to wait at least two days or more to wash my fresh color because I want to make sure my strands are saturated.
Make sure you’re washing with products for color treated hair. IT MATTERS! I remind clients that good hair color isn’t cheap and you don’t want to just wash your money down the drain with products that contain alcohol or sulfates. Products like this aren’t gentle on your hair and can strip your color. It’s not something that I do but there is a technique called co-washing where you only wash with conditioner. If this seems like something of interest you may want to research this approach.
Sometimes in the winter I can be slack with this but make sure to wash your red locks with water as cool as you can handle. Cool water seals the cuticle and locks in moisture. Not only does cool water help to preserve your hair color it can make it so much shinier.
The more often you wash your hair, the faster your color will fade. If possible try to limit washing your hair to once or twice a week. Use dry shampoo if your roots get oily in between washes.
In the summertime be as careful as possible when in chlorinated pools, out in the sun or in saltwater. Chlorine can bleach out your hair, UV rays can damage your hair and dull your color while saltwater is extremely drying. I suggest swim caps if you do a lot of swimming in chlorinated pools and I suggest a hat if you’re in the sun a lot but there are also UV hair protectant sprays as well.
I’m sure there are many other things I could be doing to save my color but these are the things I’m careful of. I will say however I was doing a little research and found two suggestions for things that I’m not currently doing but they make sense. I read that a deep conditioning treatment will keep my color the most vibrant and that I should consider a heat protectant for blowing my hair dry. I currently only use a heat protectant when I’m curling or flat ironing my hair but I’m literally blasting it with heat to dry it so I think I’m going to add that to my routine as well.
You may or may not already be doing some of these things but it’s not a bad idea to review your hair routine once in a while to make sure you’re doing all you can to keep your color looking as good as you can for as long as you can.
