3 Products That'll Make Your Bleached Hair Look Like You Just Left The Salon

Brassiness, be gone!

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So, you did it: You sat in a beauty salon for half a day and bleached your hair into an ethereal shade that's sure to make all your exes melt in lust and regret.

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1. You probably want this perfect shade of blonde to stay its day-one color for as long as humanly possible, right? Well then, let me introduce you to Shimmer Lights Shampoo, the cult-favorite product recommended by all proper colorists and the one that I personally swear by. 🌈

Amazon / Via amazon.com

I was first introduced to this shampoo by my NYC-based colorist gawd, Jonathan Lin. After many painstaking hours bleaching my hair (see below for the fab results ✨), he suggested that I use purple shampoo to maintain its new white-blonde color and keep it from turning dark yellow.

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While I'm usually wary of beauty salon product recommendations, I was sold by the fact that 1) Jonathan recommended I go to a beauty store across the street, so I knew he wasn't just trying to make commission off a product, and 2) at $10 per large bottle, the shampoo was relatively cheap.

I'm a broke cynic, what can I say?!

One year and two bottles later and I'm HOOKED on the stuff — to the point where I feel anxious when I use any other shampoo (for fear that my color will start fading).

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My hair is naturally dark-colored and doesn't usually hold color well. (See above for how my hair looked before I bleached it. 😑)

But this extra-strength shampoo kept my color intact through my first bleach right until my touch-up six months later. I use it almost every day by simply massaging a generous squirt of it into my hair, concentrating on the middle and end parts of my strands. I usually do something else like shower or shave while the shampoo works its white magic. Then I rinse it off! And while it works well when I leave it on for less than a minute, I find that it works best — turning my hair a dazzling ashy blonde — when I leave it on for up to five minutes.

The shampoo is pretty thick and comes in a sparkling shade of deep purple — I almost feel like I'm painting my hair every time I use it. My coworker Jesse, who has thicker and naturally lighter hair, is also a fan.

Get Shimmer Lights from Amazon for $9.99, Jet for $9.54, or Walmart for $9.54.

2. As we all know, the downside to bleaching your hair is how dry it'll inevitably get. And the only thing I've found to effectively restore sparkle to bleached hair is this Bumble & Bumble Invisible Oil.

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It's pricier than the drugstore stuff for sure, but a single pump (sometimes two, if I'm feeling fancy) each day goes a long way for my long hair. Also, one bottle lasts me more than a year!

TRUST when I say I've tried a ton of high-end AND drugstore hair serums alike.

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And this is the only hair oil I've found that keeps my hair glossy, without making it greasy or going on sticky. I love that the oil feels like liquid silk in my hands, and that it transforms both frizzy and dry, heat-styled strands into soft, shiny hair that I don't have trouble running my hands through.

If you don't believe me, check out the 1,400+ reviews with an average of 4.5 stars on Sephora.

Also, if you have coarser or curlier hair, one of my friends swears by jojoba oil. It kind of worked for me too, in that it made my hair glossy for the whole day, but it also clumped my wimpy thin strands together and gave them an overly greasy look. I'd recommend it as a comparable alternative for anyone with thicker hair.☝️

Get a 0.85 oz. bottle of Bumble & Bumble Invisible Oil from Sephora for $22. You can also get a larger 3.4 oz. bottle (the one that usually lasts me over a year) from Sephora for $40 or Ulta for $40. Get jojoba oil from Amazon for $9.95.

3. Oh, and my last secret weapon in my arsenal of blonde-optimizing tools? THIS hair wand.

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The thing is, I usually suck at doing my hair. I remember when I first got my hair colored and styled into loose beach waves, I cried inwardly knowing that that would be the first and last time I'd see my blonde hair so perfect. But this wand was a game-changer. 😍

While other curlers I've bought gave me old-fashioned curls that made me look like a prom queen, this wand lets me style my entire head into natural waves in under 15 minutes.

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You don't need to watch a single video on how to do it, either. In case you're curious though, the way I do it is as so:

1) I tie my hair into two sections — top and bottom.

2) Starting from the back of my head, I take strands of hair and wrap them around my wand (which I usually set to 360°F).

3) I do the same with the second section, sometimes alternating the direction in which I wrap my hair for a lil' textural variety.

And that's it!

Get the hair wand from Amazon for $24.94, Jet for $23.39, or Walmart for $30.99.

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Alison Krausman / BuzzFeed