Keeping unnaturally coloured hair happy, healthy and vibrant

I've just come back from the hairdressers after a little trim, and the hairdresser mentioned what lovely condition my hair was in, especially seeing as my hair is bright green! So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about how I keep my hair in this condition, whilst still keeping the colour bright.

Now everybody knows that bleaching your hair is bad for it, and unfortunately if you want bright, unnatural coloured hair then it's something you have to do. This means that you have to take extra special care of your hair to keep it looking good.

Below are my top tips on looking after your hair, and how it keep in vibrant all year round.

1. Cut it off!
Ok, this is the probably the best thing you can do for damaged hair, but it's the thing that I least like to do. Short hair doesn't suit me, and I'm constantly trying to grow my hair, but I have had short hair quite frequently throughout my life, particularly when I first started bleaching my hair. The problem with damaged hair is that you can't really fix it. You can make it look more healthy, but the damage is still there. For example, when I first started bleaching my hair it got very damaged. I spent loads of time on treating with it hair masks and stuff, and it started looking better. Then I did my roots. And my hair snapped off at the root, when the new bleach met the old. My hair had looked healthier, but the damage was still there, and my hair couldn't handle it. The best thing to do is to cut off the badly damaged parts and work on keeping your new hair healthy.

Now my hair is long and healthy, I still make sure to get my hair trimmed every 8 weeks or so. I have hardly any split ends now and my hair looks and feels so much better for it.

2. Use Sulphate free products
This is one of the best tips for keeping coloured hair bright. Sulphates are the things that give your shampoos that foaming action, but it also strips colour out of your hair. L'Oreal have launched a sulphate free range which has had really good reviews, and I am currently using the Naked range which I purchased in Boots.

3. Wash your hair less
Some people may find this gross, but I try and wash my hair as little as possible, just once a week. This has actually helped my hair become less oily, as your hair doesn't overcompensate for the frequent stripping of oils caused by washing. It also makes my hair colour last sooooooo much longer. I simply added a new holy grail item into my hair arsenal, dry shampoo! It keeps grease at bay and adds some (much needed) volume.

4. Add colour to all the things!
The good things about unnatural coloured hair dyes is that they are conditioner based and don't damage the hair. The don't need to be mixed with any chemicals to activate, and you can keep an open pot as long as you need to. You can also mix it with other products, which is where this top tip comes in. I add a small amount of my hair dye to my conditioner, and to my hair masks. This means that every time I wash and condition my hair I get a little boost of colour, which helps fight the fading, and when I do a conditioning mask, not only do I get to treat my hair, but I also get a big boost of colour, which I use as a sort of semi dye job.

5. Bleach only when you need to
Pretty obvious. I don't expect that you're all bleaching your hair just for the hell of it, but what I mean is, be very careful when bleaching your roots, making sure that you don't touch any of the hair that has previously been bleached. Also, when the time comes that you want to change your colour, and you need to get back to your bleached colour, then instead of bleaching out your colour, try using a colour remover to get you back to the blonde underneath. So much better for your hair, and for me, it seems to work better.

6. Less heat, more heat protection
This tip isn't specific to coloured hair, and everyone probably knows this, but I just feel that I have to mention that the less you use heat on your hair, the better. I don't tend to curl my hair using curling irons or heated rollers very often, and I don't need to straighten, but I do blow dry my hair once a week. My hair is so fine and straight that if I leave it to dry naturally I just don't get the volume boost that I do when I blow dry my hair upside down. This is not something I am willing to give up, so I make sure I use a heat protectant everytime I know heat will touch my hair.

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