Hair color fades. It’s a fact of life for people who indulge in haircolor. But how fast should the color fade and to what degree?
Let’s start with frequency of visit and homecare. How often you get your color done plays a huge role in how long the color will last. People who come every 4-6 weeks typically can gloss, glaze or color their ends as needed pretty much every other visit, unless they are among the gloss, glaze loving crowd who loves to do it every visit and can afford to.
What you use at home plays a role as well. Your shampoo and conditioner must be high quality professional product purchased from a salon not a drug store. The product must be color safe and/or color retaining. Conditioners must be the same but must also work to penetrate the hair not just coat it for a quick fix. Heavily silicone conditioners feel great going on and have that slippery comb-ability but tend to be heavy and eat the color. Conditioners that feel a little drier, less lathery tend to penetrate and help the hair better. The more natural the better, the more synthetic the more apt the color is for fading. With that said it is important to understand that a conditioning molecule is larger than a color molecule and can act like Pac-man eating up your color. Product choice is key and it’s ok to not condition every day!
SO, with all that said, your color should normally fade in some tone and up to 1 step lighter in a 4-6 week span but it is also dependent on what color you are.
Are you red, brown, or blonde? Reds are high maintenance colors and they fade more. They require frequent visits and attention in order to retain them. Reds fade towards copper or orange tones.
Copper or Strawberry based colors fade to gold. These too require upkeep however many copper based colors like to flip flop into the golden world as the two colors complement each other whereas the red world doesn’t like the copper orange tones that the color fades to.
Blondes on the other hand, well they always want to be lighter so in most cases fadeage is good, unless you are a darker haired person lightening to blonde. This type of color maintenance requires frequent visits due to the dark nature of the root area and the fact that when these tones break down they get what is called “brassy” and no blonde likes that.
Color itself breaks down due to time, environment, water supply, products, blow drying, flat ironing and frequency of maintenance. It’s important to listen to your salon professional as they know best what will maintain your color and budget.
Many consumers think coming in less often buys them time and money. To their surprise the longer the length between visits the more work it takes to create or recreate the look and that costs. Also there are many who just want the root area done and for the sake of money forsake the ends. They end up with mis-matched color; darker at the root and too light through the rest of the head. Subtle depth at the root in comparison to the rest is fashionable and normal but when there is an obvious line of darker color colliding with a lighter color it creates and unfashionable and unprofessional looking band.
If money is an issue talk to them, work out a plan, options, referral rewards, packages deals etc.
