We all want celeb-worthy color, but we don’t want to sacrifice our hair health in the process. Ahead, the pros decode exactly how to get the color of your dreams while minimizing damage.
Featured Experts
- Nikki Lee is a celebrity hairstylist and cofounder of Nine Zero One Salon
- Chad Kenyon is a celebrity colorist
- Shab Caspara is a trichologist and hairstylist
- Lauren Paglionico is a master colorist and founder of LRN Beauty
Fresh Start: The Consultation
As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.” And as celebrity hairstylist and cofounder of Nine Zero One Salon Nikki Lee explains, focusing on hair health is the cornerstone of a pre-coloring consult that ensures great results with minimal damage. “The first thing I look at before coloring anyone’s hair is the health of their hair,” she says. “If it isn’t healthy, it’s always going to be more difficult to color.”
“The consultation is the most important part of coloring your hair,” celebrity colorist Rita Hazan adds. “The colorist must understand exactly what you want by asking the right questions about your hair history, texture and current color.” Celebrity colorist Chad Kenyon agrees: “Every client’s hair is their own universe and should be approached as such—something special and unique. The same goes with hair-color sessions. I start each visit with an extremely detailed consultation, and I also ask clients if they’ve used box color or henna. This is because the ingredients within those formulas can interact negatively with lightener, and the ensuing chemical reactions can wreak havoc on hair integrity.”
Scheduling Must: The Appointment
One of the best ways to ensure you leave the salon with the color of your dreams and healthy hair is to know exactly what service to book. But, as Lee explains, navigating hair-color treatments can be tricky. “A single process is typically applied only to the roots as a touch-up, with the color refreshed through the ends toward the end of processing,” says trichologist and hairstylist Shab Caspara. Like a single process, “a gloss is a semipermanent color that lays on top of the hair rather than penetrating the cuticle,” adds Lauren Paglionico, master colorist and founder of LRN Beauty. “It is used to refresh color or tone highlights.”
Moving to the lighter side of things, “a traditional foil highlight uses foils to separate the hair being lightened from the hair that is being left out,” Paglionico says. “It is a very precise application that gives the colorist a high level of control over where the highlights are placed.” Balayage is a type of highlighting, and is inspired by the French word meaning “to sweep.” This refers to the sweeping way the bleach and color is applied. “It is the most natural-looking and low maintenance highlighting technique,” adds Paglionico.
To protect the health of your hair while coloring it, there are several things to look out for to ensure you avoid scalp and strand damage. “Hair color should never burn or sting,” Caspara says. “If that occurs, opt for gentler formulas with lower ammonia levels or alternative ingredients. A strong chemical smell can also be a sign that a formula is too harsh.”
Next Steps: Your Touch-Up Timeline
Though there are tons of options to touch up hair color at home, none of them can refresh strands as effectively as a professional. As Kenyon explains, paying close attention to the necessary touch-up timeline is crucial for maintaining hair health while coloring. “For example, any sort of bleach and tone treatment needs to be touched up every four to six weeks,” he says. “Otherwise, it can turn into a color correction.” Waiting too long between visits can result in what Kenyon calls the “candy corn effect,” where banding occurs across the hair. “Essentially, the parts of the hair closer to the scalp lighten quicker than the parts further away from the scalp,” he explains. “The chemical reaction of the color process occurs at a faster rate closest to the scalp because it contains more of the hair’s natural keratin. This impacts both the color outcome and the integrity of your strands.”
If you experience soreness or itchiness after coloring your hair, a soothing scalp serum can help calm irritation.
Shab Caspara
Gray coverage touchups are similar to a bleach and tone, but other color treatments require less-frequent maintenance, Kenyon says. Balayage treatments, for example, typically only require touchups twice a year.
Lee transitioned this client’s color from bright-blonde balayage to rich, chocolatey brunette using Wella Color Touch Demi-Permanent Hair Color. “It’s super conditioning and doesn’t damage the hair like a permanent color could,” says the colorist.
Color-Safe Products That Prioritize Hair Repair
