Heat opens up the cuticle of the hair and makes the color fade away faster. To prolong your hair color, try to limit how much you use heat on your hair. If you're going to be using hot tools, make sure you're using a heat protectant spray (like our Prime) and when you rinse your hair, try to stick to cool water.
Most gentle would be just heat, even hot oil treatments will fade color a teeny amount, and using strong shampoos, hot showers, and lots of heat styling would also contribute to fading. Add in frequent sunlight and pool water for additional (yet gradual) fading.
Tips for Safely Heat-Styling Colored Hair
Yes—but not right away. For basic blow drying, give your hair at least 72 hours to recover. You can straighten dyed hair, but you should wait a week. For curling or perming colored hair, wait a full 15 days.
``Using heat on your hair won't affect the colour directly,'' Georgina explains, ``but heat causes damage, which leads to colour fading.'' To help prevent this damage, she unsurprisingly recommends the iconic Colour Wow Dream Coat, which enhances shine and shields against humidity and heat styling.
The best place to store your hair dye is in a cool, dark, dry place — not in direct sunlight or near heat — to negate the oxidation and breakdown of the formula. If you do this, you should be able to use it for the next 1 or 2 touch ups.
Excessive heat, whether from styling tools or environmental factors, can accelerate the fading of your hair color.
Not always the best combo. High temps can rough up your hair cuticle, which is bad news for keeping your color vibrant, especially if you dye your hair. Heat can make your gorgeous new color fade faster. Semi-permanent and permanent dyes react differently to heat.
For dyed hair, lower heat is better. Set your flat iron to a temperature between 300°F and 350°F. This is hot enough to straighten your hair but not so hot that it'll cause damage or fade your color. If your hair is fine or damaged, consider going even lower.
Use of Hot Styling Tools: Heat from tools like hair dryers, straighteners, and curling irons can contribute to the fading of hair dye. Chlorinated Water: Swimming in chlorinated pools can cause hair dye to fade more quickly. Quality of Hair Dye: Semi-permanent dyes tend to fade faster than permanent dyes.
Chlorine and Hard-Water Minerals
Hard water minerals, such as iron and magnesium, can also cause hair to look dull or discolored. This is because minerals can build-up on the hair and react with hair color, causing it to fade or change.
When heat is applied, the speed of the chemical reaction involved in the dyeing process is increased. The higher the temperature applied the quicker the chemical reaction which, in turn, minimizes hair damage.
Rinse With Cold Water
“Hot water fades color faster, especially if you have a vivid color,” says Ellis. Washing your hair with cool or cold water can help minimize fading, but it also helps seal the cuticle and retains more moisture on your scalp, strands, and skin.
Heat damage can also cause the pigments of your hair, whether it's natural or dyed, to oxidize. The result is faded coloring, especially when hair has high porosity. If you dye your hair, this might mean that you need to apply color more often, which can cause further damage.
Heat opens up the cuticle of the hair and makes the color fade away faster. To prolong your hair color, try to limit how much you use heat on your hair. If you're going to be using hot tools, make sure you're using a heat protectant spray (like our Prime) and when you rinse your hair, try to stick to cool water.
Applying heat to hair dye that is processing can help to open the cuticle of your hair and allow it to absorb the colour a lot more easily. Use your hairdryer to apply heat and this will help to penetrate the cuticle. Once you're happy with the amount of time you've had your colour in, get ready to wash it out.
Hard minerals can fade your hair dye and cause other issues. Those minerals also build up over time — so the longer you wash with hard water, the more pronounced your hair struggles can become. The challenge is that hard water hair problems often look like other issues, such as hair damage or natural dryness.
Hot water will lift the outer cuticle layer, and since this is the layer that holds your colour in, your hair is then defenceless against losing the colour you paid big bucks to have put in there. The hotter the water, and the more often you rinse with hot water, the faster your colour will fade.
Heat styling is one of the biggest enemies of color treated hair. It can cause fading and damage, so it's best to avoid it whenever possible. If you must heat style, use a protectant spray beforehand, and make sure not to use too much heat.
“Adding heat to your styling routine — whether that's from using a blow-dryer, curling iron, flat iron and even washing your hair with extra hot water — can cause your hair to appear a little dull and lackluster over time.” says Anderson. “These things can unfortunately cause your hair color to fade much faster, too.”
To make dark hair dye fade faster, you can use clarifying shampoo or a dandruff shampoo, which helps strip away the color. Washing your hair frequently with hot water can also help speed up the fading process. Additionally, exposing your hair to sunlight can naturally lighten the dye.
It's important to note that the pigment in purple shampoo isn't a lightener or hair dye but a gentle toner that works overtime. So it can't darken your hair or make it any lighter. For this reason, if your hair tone is too dark, it won't make it any brighter.