How to Keep Your Hair Color Fresh

I have been coloring my hair for about thirty years, through all the health scares about color being absorbed into the skin through the scalp, traveling through the body and being detoxified by the liver. Hair dyes have gotten less toxic, but they aren't exactly healthy, either. So if you don't have to color your hair as often, that's a good thing, right?

Short of going gray, which I am not ready to do, one way to make your hair color last is to shampoo less often. As a child, we shampooed once a week, and our mother went to the salon to be shampooed once a weeek.  She had a standing appointment, and I can never remember her washing her own hair.

My generation, wasteful of water and seeking the ultimate in looks, began the trend to the every day shampoo.  Or maybe it was the blow dryer, which simplified the process of drying wet hair before leaving the house.  Anyway, for about the same amount of time that I've been coloring my hair, I've been washing it and blowing it every day.

It's never been truly unhealthy, but it has never been truly "ruly" either. So I was ready to accept the advice of my hairdresser: don't put shampoo on your hair every day, because ANY shampoo, even the ones especially for color-treated hair, strips the hair. The first thing I did was give up shampoo except for twice a week (I live in a warm climate and I sweat).

That made things a little better.  But then I read that even water strips color. And now I am not even rinsing and conditioning my hair between shampoos, as I used to. I'm down to twice a week shampoo and condition, with no blowing in between either. And no product on my hair.

So I was interested to hear that at Sephora, Betsy Olum, a well-respected cosmetics industry expert, is down to once a week hair washing

She is using a product called.Oscar Blandi Dry Shampoo Spray. It might be my new BFF.

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