Maintain Your Cut and Color Long After You Leave the Salon

In an ideal world, we’d be able to work a salon cut and color until we were ready to hit up our hairstylist for the same again, but life happens, hair gets brassy, and heat styling takes its toll. There are times we feel our hair doesn’t grow enough for another trim in a few weeks, and let’s be honest — some days, we just don’t feel like spending hours in a salon when we could spend that same amount of time in bed. That’s exactly why we compiled a list of five products that will help you stretch out the lifespan of your cut and color. Keep reading to find out what you need to keep your style intact until you fully feel like dealing with it.

1. Seal Your Split Ends

Sure, the most obvious way to rid your hair of split ends would be to lop them off, but in the case that you or your stylist happens to be fully booked for the next few weeks in the foreseeable future, the GHD Advanced Split End Therapy serves as a solution that effectively mends even the most frayed strands. Coat your ends in a layer while damp, blow-dry the product in, then use your flat iron to seal everything into place. Unlike most split end-menders, GHD’s is activated by heat, so your styling tool does more good than harm to glue things back together.

GHD | $28

2. Refresh Your Color

Bottle blondes, brunettes, redheads, etc., take note: each time you lather up, a few color molecules slip out of your hair shaft, causing your shade to look a little less-than-fresh as time passes. Once a week (or whenever you deem necessary), incorporate a color-depositing conditioner like Evo’s Fabuloso into your regime to increase the lifespan of your initial hue. Each formula is infused with color pigments, designed to hit the refresh button on your well-toned highlights. Simply apply a thick layer after shampooing, then allow your hair to soak it in for three minutes.

Available at Evo Hair | $40

3. Cover Your Roots

Unless you’re into that retro Madonna aesthetic—which, by the way, is forever iconic—grown-out roots can be a complete pain to deal with, especially if the point is to conceal stray grey hairs. Rita Hazan’s Root Concealer Touch-Up Pencil allows you to pinpoint the exact strands in question, and blend them with the rest of your layers in roughly two seconds. Another added plus? The product doubles as a chubby brow pencil.

Rita Hazan | $25

4. Neutralize Brassiness

Even the coolest toned dye jobs eventually take on a warmer tint once water starts to oxidize within the hair shaft and cause that ash blonde to turn orange or yellow. Consider a hair gloss like John Frieda’s to be your new best friend. The slight blue and purple pigments used in the formula help to neutralize any existing brassiness, while preventing any new hues from taking shape.

John Frieda | $13

5. Repair Damage

Especially if you heat style in excess, that formerly-glossy lob can start to look dull very quickly, which is why a two-step system like Rita Hazan’s Weekly Remedy Treatment is a must for keeping your strands in their salon-fresh glory. The first bottle preps your strands, opening the cuticle ever-so-slightly, while the second infuses your hair shaft with hydrating oils and reparative proteins before resealing it.

Rita Hazan | $42

This article originally appeared on InStyle.com

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