I am not, and never will be, a natural blonde. Everyone knows blondes have more fun and if you know me personally, you know that one of my main priorities in life is having fun at all times.  Thanks to science and bleach, I’ve been having my hair dyed and highlighted blonde for a good 15 years and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever go back to my natural brunette color.  Blonde just suits me.

However, anyone who regularly colors their hair knows that the process can be expensive, time consuming and very harsh on your hair.  Thankfully, there are a few easy tips and products you can use to maintain bleached/dyed blonde hair and stretch out your money and time between trips to the salon:

1. Stay near your natural color

This one kind of goes without saying, but, trying to go platinum blonde if you naturally have jet black hair is going to be a very long, very expensive, and probably physically painful process.  We’re talking about bleach here.  That shit does NOT play around and can sting like a thousand wasps are burrowing into your scalp.

My natural color is a fairly light brown so I stick to a honey-colored blonde dye with a half-head of bleach (platinum) highlights thrown in every 3 or 4 months.  Every six weeks I have only the new growth (roots) touched up with the dye and that helps keep the rest of my hair from being colored/damaged more than it needs to be.  Which brings me to my next point…

2. Condition. Deep condition.

Bleach and dye are incredibly drying and damaging to the hair. That’s just the way it goes.  You can help slow and repair that damage with weekly deep conditioning treatments.  My absolute favorite is the Aussie 3 Minute Miracle Deep Conditioners.  The bottle says to leave it on for three minutes but I’m a “Go big or go home” kind of person so I typically apply this conditioner post-shampoo, throw a raggedy shower cap over it (sexy!) and let it sit for an hour while I rot my brain with the latest episode of Real Housewives of NYC.

Another conditioning product I love and use religiously is the It’s a 10 Blonde Miracle Leave-In Treatment.  This leave-in smells great, protects your hair during heat styling, detangles, enhances shine and helps keep color treated blonde from turning orange and brassy.  This stuff is legit.

3. Use a purple shampoo

Another ally in the fight against brassiness, purple shampoo helps balance the yellow tones in blonde hair to make them brighter.  John Freida makes a good purple shampoo but I’m cheap and buy the generic Clairol Shimmering Lights Shampoo online or from Sally’s.

Photo credit: thethriftygirlsguide.com

As you can see, this shampoo is extremely purple so a little goes a long way.  If you use it too often or leave it on too long it can actually give your hair a purple tinge.  If that’s your thing, rock on.  If not, only use it once or twice a week.

4. Don’t wash your hair so often

Photo credit: berenicebeauty.wordpress.com

This is a tip for really anyone but especially for us bleach blondes.  Unless you’re getting crazy sweaty, there’s no need to wash your hair daily.  Washing every day strips your scalp of its natural oils and when you’re dehydrating your hair with bleach and color, you need all the moisture you can get.  It may take your hair and scalp some time to get used to not being washed every day, but you hair will thank you once it adjusts.  Plus, color won’t fade as fast when you’re not stripping it with shampoo chemicals every day.  Get some dry shampoo (Batiste is my hands-down favorite) and learn to embrace the natural body and shine slightly dirty hair can give you.

Hope this helps all of my other faux-Marilyn Monroe’s out there!