Colour is a temperamental mistress. How many of you have a beautiful colour? How many of you find that it doesn’t quite last the distance, or for the blondes, goes brassy? Lets start with the non-blondes.
When your colour fades it can be due to any number of factors: resistant hair, environmental factors (wind, sun, salt water), hard water and (God forbid) cheap colour products or bad colouring techniques. The answer? Let’s now look at blondes.
Your beautiful blonde hilites look great, then they start to go brassy and look flat, why? Again it can be envirnoment but add in chlorine from the water, water going through old pipes which can contain any number of nasty things and of course build up from product. This is where a clarifying shampoo comes in handy as it draws out all the impurities. Now let’s look at the solution.
Coloured Mousse. My preference: Goldwell Color Soft. It’s so easy to use and lasts for upto 10 shampoos. A coloured mousse can add tone and depth to fading hair or tone down unwanted brassiness. Why do I love it? It extends the life of a colour so that clients get a lot more value for money and need not get their colour done more than necessary.
But here’s the warning; don’t try and pick it out yourself, get professional advice on which one is best for you, if you pick the wrong one you may end up with a grey blonde, ewww.
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What is a good one for us brunettes?
[...] So when you have your hair tinted, make sure it’s only the regrowth that is tinted,this is especially important for blondes. If the mid lengths and ends need to be freshened up they should be colour balanced with a semi permanent. A semi permanent has no ammonia in it and sits on the outter layer of the hair and so does no further chemical damage to the hair. Often they contain such things as beeswax or avocado oil which moisturise and add shine to the hair. Colour balancing on blondes will usually be done with a very light blonde toning semi, I use a violet tone to get rid of brassieness not ash. It is the most basic colour theory that so many Hairdressers get wrong. Violet will counteract gold, ash will just give it a slight greeny/grey tone. Beware the ash toner! [...]
[...] Even if your hilites do fade a bit, a good hairdresser should recommend a product that you can safely use at home to “top up” your colour and keep it looking good during salon visits, though this will only work if all the hilites are of a similar tone and colour. Most professional brands have back up products (colour mousses, shampoos etc) that correspond to the in salon range of colours. [...]