Low Maintenance Hair Color – Everything You Need To Know

Especially since the pandemic, low maintenance hair color has been particularly on trend. In all honesty, no one actually wants to be high maintenance. If we could have beautiful hair AND it’s low maintenance, isn’t that like a little slice of heaven? In this post I’m going to discuss everything you need to know about low maintenance hair color.

To learn about high maintenance hair colors, see my post here.

What is low maintenance hair color?

When it comes to hair color, low maintenance means that it won’t be much effort to keep up with. This includes the frequency of costly appointments, as well as the at-home routines you need to do to keep it in its’ best condition.

Lived-in is another common term used to describe this type of hair color, so if you see that a stylist specializes in “lived-in color” then they should be your go-to! I will use these terms interchangeably in this post.

How is low maintenance hair color achieved?

We achieve the lived-in hair color look by coloring the hair so that it grows out seamlessly. This can be done with a variety of techniques including: balayage, foilayage, teasy lites, and root shadows. Your stylist may prefer one technique over another, or may use a mixture of them all. There is not one right way to get lived-in results.

Typically they’ll apply some form of highlighting, with the ends of the hair being predominantly lighter than the root area. The color begins to blend together as it gets to the top of the head without any harsh lines.

A root shadow is commonly used to marry the highlights with your natural color near the root, and a toner will give it all a similar and blended tone. This way when the color grows out, it blends beautifully with your natural color at your base.

To learn more about balayage, see my post here. And to learn more about root shadows and toners, see my post here.

How often do I need to come in to maintain lived-in hair color?

Lived-in hair color lasts much longer than other hair coloring techniques. This is because of what we mentioned earlier about marrying the colors together.

The majority of my lived-in color clients come in every 3-6 months, with some of them pushing it out an entire year!

That being said, the amount of time you go between visits depends on how much brightness and blonde you like to see, particularly towards the root of your hair. If you like brightness all the way up to the top and still want to “be” a blonde, than you’ll need to come in much sooner than a brunette looking for a few pops of blonde towards their mids and ends.

Generally every 3-6 months

How to take care of low maintenance hair color in-between visits

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The at-home care for low maintenance hair color does vary from client to client. Typically the more blonde you have in your look, the more you’ll need to come in to the salon as well as the more you’ll need to do at home.

Blonde and bleached hair typically requires purple shampoo and conditioner, extra conditioning treatments, more protection, and more frequent haircuts than brunette hair. You can see my post here on how to maintain blonde hair for a full description if you have a lot of blonde.

If you don’t have a ton of blonde, there isn’t really that much you need to do aside from using professional products, heat protection, and regular haircuts. For my best tips on how to maintain and grow healthy hair, see my post here.

Is low maintenance hair color more expensive?

Unfortunately, low maintenance and lived-in hair color typically is more expensive to have done. There are several extra steps necessary to get that perfectly blended look. This means that it takes longer in the salon as well as more product is used on our end. So these looks are usually more expensive.

That being said if you aren’t coming in nearly as frequently, it will even out or could cost you less in the long run.

What hair color is the easiest to maintain?

For a simple answer, I would say that bronde and brunette are the easiest hair colors to maintain.

Bronde hair is brunette hair that has some blonde added to it, but not enough to take over the color. It’s essentially a mixture of blonde and brown hair. This color is easy to maintain because the brightness is typically towards the ends, so you can let it grow out for quite a while. There isn’t enough blonde to make it high maintenance.

Brunettes are also easy to maintain unless you have a lot of gray present. If a lot of gray is present, then going brunette actually becomes high maintenance. Typically I suggest adding highlights into the look when a brunette starts going gray. This blends the grays in and makes it all look intentional without creating a harsh root line from an all over gray coverage color application.

Conclusion

“Lived-in” or low maintenance hair colors are super easy to maintain. They grow out seamlessly, requiring minimal trips to the salon as well as low at home up-keep.

These looks are achieved through a variety of highlighting and toning techniques. There are many ways to get these type of results and there is not one proper way to apply the color.

Lived-in hair color is characterized by hair that grows out well without any harsh lines at the root when the hair begins to grow out. This dimensional hair color all blends together nicely.

Generally, you’ll only need to come in to the salon every 3-6 months to maintain this color, but I’ve seen some clients go over a year without needing any touch-ups. The more blonde present in the resulted look, the higher maintenance it will become.

If there is a lot of blonde present, you’ll want to follow a blonde hair routine to maintain the color as well as the integrity of the hair. If there isn’t a lot of blonde, you can care for your hair as normal with professional products.

The only downside to this type of hair color is that each service is typically more expensive. But the upside is that you won’t need to come in as frequently. So depending on how far out you can push your visits out, this can actually be less expensive.

For the lowest maintenance colors, bronde and brunette hair take the cake. This is as long as the brunette isn’t getting a gray coverage service, which would turn the color high maintenance.

If you have any questions for me regarding low maintenance and lived-in hair color, leave them for me in the comments! As always, Have A Good Hair Day!