Fiery Red: How Keep Your Tresses Flaming

May 1, 2012

Feeling beautiful? Feeling powerful? Not this week? Well, beautiful, maybe it’s time to get soak your tresses in red. As someone who constantly dyes their hair, I have discovered how amazing it makes me feel. It’s easy to care for, looks fabulous all the time, and there’s no shortage of compliments when I go out. This season why not turn up the vibrancy in your life and go fiery RED.

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Before we go anywhere, consider yourself warned that red is the easiest dye to wash out and is a high maintenance color to sport. Losing that lustrous look as your color dulls can be attributed to numerous things, but the most common cause is simply not taking due care when looking after your treated tresses. However, this problem is easily rectified if you take active control in maintaining your look.

You want to make sure you have a good color treatment on your hair. I would recommend one by a reputable hair product company if you’re home dyeing. (Although my advice is to go to your salon though, they can explain everything to you properly and go through possible side effects). Schwarzkopf and L’Oréal have some excellent treatments and their websites go into full detail of how to properly look after your hair post-treatment. I also highly recommend Garnier. Their Nutrisse and Belle Color collections are fab because they are enriched with various natural oils which work with your hair to get the best looking color and shine. Lush has a really interesting product called Caca Rouge Mama, which is basically a block of henna and naturally adds a red color to your original shade. Their ‘How-To-Use’ section on the website is super helpful as well.

It is also essential to use color preserving shampoos and conditioners. These products are specially formulated to protect hair and not strip the color away. If you’re going to use one of the aforementioned hair coloring treatments, they usually provide a shampoo and conditioner set that helps lock in color. Personally, I use Tresemmé Color Protection revitalizing shampoo and conditioner. It’s really lightweight and leaves my hair feeling soft and nourished. It protects hair for up to forty washes too. Undoubtedly, after time, my red does begin to fade but I think this shampoo does a really great job of maintaining it until I can get to the salon.

Clairol manufactures a particularly neat product called Root Touch-Up. In the six weeks between trips to get your color done, roots will always rear their ugly head. Similar to a dye, but applied just to your roots, this is a beauty lifesaver. With thirteen different shades, you’ll definitely find your match. (They pair with L’Oréal and Garnier colors too). If you’re not due in the salon for another three weeks and you’ve got a lot of showing face to do, this will definitely be the way to go.

All in all, if you want to rock bright red locks a la Rihanna or Florence Welch, make sure you go full force with the upkeep. Red hair is one surefire way to stand out among the crowd, especially in a sea of blondes and brunettes. If you are sick of your color, you will never want to go back once you turn to red!