Is It Better To Dye Clean Hair Or Dirty Hair

I of the best and easiest ways to show off your unique sense of style is by coloring your hair. Or, mayhap you're like me and merely diameter hands with your dazzler choices. Either fashion, it'southward the kind of pick-me-up that is initially exhilarating but can easily get stressful AF if you aren't prepared for the maintenance that comes after. Between highlights, dyes, single procedure, and double process color, at that place are so many options out there for getting your hair but the mode you lot desire it. But even once you decide on what you want, you still don't always know what you're getting yourself into, whether information technology be at the salon or at home.

For example, should you wash your pilus before you dye it? Should you warn your friends and family that your advent is nigh to change dramatically? (For the record, the answer to both is no.) Here are x things no 1 will ever tell yous about coloring your pilus—simply should know.

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1. When to Go a Keratin Treatment

Emerge Beauty.

If yous're getting a keratin treatment, information technology's best to get it when you colour your pilus. Whether it'southward directly after or within a couple of days, an at-abode keratin treatment helps to seal in the color and foreclose excess impairment from bleach and other dye irritants.

2. Tricky, Catchy Multidimensional Colour

Sally Beauty.

Multidimensional color can trick the center into thinking there'south more volume, and so don't be agape to accept fun with unlike tones; specially if you lot accept finer strands. If you wait closely at photos of most celebrities, their hair isn't simply 1 shade: Universal hair-crushes like Miranda Kerr and Julianne Hough have multi-tonal dye jobs, which highlight their faces and requite the illusion of more than motility and trunk. For an at-domicile color selection, cheque out the formula above (note: for blonde and platinum hair, we recommended seeing a professional for a consultation.)

3. Y'all Need More Than Just Shampoo

Rahua.

Shampoo isn't the but thing you need to purchase to protect your color. Yes, yous should be using color-treated shampoo and conditioner formulated specifically for your hair colour, but you lot should also be using a colour-protecting styling spray and a UV spray . Harmful UV rays can fade the colour of your hair, making salon trips more than and more than necessary.

4. Use At-Home Encompass Upwards

Color Wow.

Whether you get a kit for root impact-ups or simply use a touch-up pen, stretch the amount of time betwixt salon visits with a quick gear up of your own. This best-selling powder brushes into roots to camouflage growth–and is fifty-fifty sweat-proof.

5. Use Moisturizer and Petroleum Jelly

Vaseline.

Dripping dye onto your skin is a good look for no one. Apply your regular moisturizer on your face, then apply a thin layer of petroleum jelly effectually your hairline before coloring—this mode, your skin is protected, and you'll be able to wipe off the color immediately once you're done.

6. Information technology's OK to Mess Upwardly

Color Oops.

Non that nosotros recommend messing up, just it's comforting to know that with products like Color Oops, your hair colour catastrophe can exist washed out completely if admittedly necessary.

7. No Ammonia, Coal Tar, and Lead Acetate

Revlon.

There is a slew of gnarly ingredients that tin hide in at-dwelling pilus color products, then you should keep an centre out for all of them. Ingredients like ammonia (which can completely dry and fry your hair) and atomic number 82 acetate (uh, lead poisoning?) should be avoided like the plague. If possible, try to utilise the most natural hair colour you lot can find, and talk with your colorist nearly which products they're using.

viii. Unmarried vs. Double-Process Color

L'Oreal.

A single process is exactly like what it sounds like: applying 1 color to the pilus at once. A double process requires bleaching out the hair—the first process—and so toning the color—the second process—to get the desired result. Double processing takes longer and is harsher on your pilus, so you should exist enlightened of that going into it.

9. Going Darker Is Less Dissentious

Clairol.

Going lighter means stripping hair of some colour and moisture while going darker means depositing color into your hair. It'south the bones laws of subtraction and addition: Adding color is less damaging; removing your color is more than damaging.

x. Leave Your Pilus Dirty Before You Start

pH Plex.

Color not only holds better to dirty hair—clean pilus tin can be besides slippery—only if you launder your pilus before coloring, the dye or bleach may burn down your scalp considering it won't have the natural oils to protect information technology. If yous take to arrive with clean pilus, try adding a petty hair oil to your scalp to help create a barrier confronting bleach irritation or a scalp-protecting formula .

A version of this article was originally published in May 2015.