Bleached Hair Upkeep

I've been using bleach to lighten my hair for the past four or five years. I realized late in life (relatively speaking, I've been highlighting my hair since sixth grade) that my hair doesn't take to normal blonde hair dye. When my current hair stylist told me this, it made my traumatic orangey-blonde hair from eighth grade make so much more sense. Since the only way to lighten my hair is bleach, the texture and state of my hair does get affected (somewhat dramatically, but not too bad in the grand scheme of things) by the chemicals. For a while, my hair would feel somewhat like straw until I deep conditioned enough. It'd be in seemingly rough shape for a little bit before I'd get it under control and back to my normal hair texture.


When it comes to day to day shampooing and conditioning, my go to since I started college has been the L'Oreal line. Typically I use the Total Repair 5 Restoring shampoo (yellow bottle), but from time to time when my hair feels incredibly dehydrated I use the Hydrating shampoo and conditioner set (blue bottle). When it comes to drugstore hair care products, I prefer these L'Oreal ones for a normal duo that do a great job at, you know, the basics of keeping my hair clean and smooth, but also to add strength and shine back to my hair.

Another must have in my haircare arsenal is a heat protectant spray. I refuse to use heat on my hair if I don't have a generous amount of this dispersed through my hair. The last thing I need to do is damage my hair in the early (or even late stages) of a new hair color. Nuh-uh, I don't want those frayed rough dead ends! No thank you! I've been using the TRESemmé one for years and years, but so many brands have their own version.

A new addition to my haircare routine is the Hask Blue Chamomile & Argan Oil collection meant specifically for blondes. I've been dying to try out a purple shampoo for a year or two now. Because I don't live at home and don't really have the expendable income to get my hair done a lot throughout the year (but #goals though, right?), I usually get it colored twice a year. This means that at some point throughout the six months between dye jobs, the color starts to fade and I get plain old sad. Purple shampoos help tone and decrease the brassiness in blonde hair. My hair has the tendency to lean brassy fairly shortly after I get it done because that's just where my natural hair color lies on the spectrum. I've been dying to find a shampoo and conditioning combo that combats the fading of my blonde to a brassy yellow shade.

Not only does this Hask set have deep blue violet coloring to neutralize yellow and orange tones (um hello throwback to that eighth-grade disaster I was talking about), but it's also infused with argan oil. Goodbye, crusty dead ends! The set of shampoo, conditioner, and deep conditioner banish the brassy tones as they start to appear while simultaneously pumping in the extra moisture that bleached blonde hair needs. As far as I'm concerned, this is a fantastic two in one product that keeps the integrity of both the color of my bleached hair and the smooth, shiny state of my hair pre-bleach.

I've been using this set for a week now the same way that I would use my normal shampoo and conditioner. I continued to wash my hair every other day to really test out this product. Since I do apply this conditioner from my roots to the end of my hair, I got really worried that my roots would be greasy beyond repair with dry shampoo on the second day. Wrong! I was so nervous because of the added oil and hair repair benefits that it would over compensate and weigh down my hair, but instead, it had the same effect as any other second-day hair. A few spritzes of dry shampoo and I was good to go for the day.

Even right now, I'm running my fingers through the ends of my ponytail and it just feels so smooth. I got my hair bleached about a month ago, which means the initial bright blonde tones that were apparent have faded by now. I didn't notice it getting brassy per se, but if you've ever bleached your hair or gone blonde, you know how sad it can be when you lose that initial bright blonde stage. Now, as I've said, I've only been using this for a week, which means I've probably washed my hair with it three or four times and I've used the deep conditioner twice. Still, even after only a week, I've noticed that sections of my hair that seemed to be losing their tone are back to normal as if I had a quick stop back into the salon. I'm really excited to see what continued use of this Hask duo will do for my hair, especially since I don't know the next time I'll be getting my hair dyed will be!

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