How long to wait to wash hair after gloss

Educator: Jamie Sea/ @prettylittleombre

For most hair stylists and colorists, glossing is an essential element of your coloring protocol. After all, whether you offer it as a standalone service or as a top coat of a balayage (or foilyage, or other coloring service), creating a custom glossing hue to reflect and complement your guest’s complexion is a testament to your unique artistry!

But as with any other coloring technique, there are a lot of opportunities for glossing to go wrong. And that can leave you with an unsatisfied guest.

Luckily, there are steps that you can take and tips that you can follow to get the best possible gloss for your client—one that’ll leave them looking and feeling gorgeous (and coming back for more).

What is glossing?

Before we dive into specific advice, we thought it’d be helpful to lay just a little bit of groundwork. Mainly: What is glossing, anyway?

Glossing is a treatment that we use to give hair back some of the shine that it might lose with age or as a result of another coloring technique. (The term is often used interchangeably with “glazing” or “color glazing.”)

Essentially acting as a top coat of sorts, glosses are great for clients who complain about dry, dull, or lifeless hair.

Depending on the effect that you’re going for, glosses can be either transparent (acting as a protective coat to add back shine) or tinted with a bit of pigment (to complement your guest’s complexion). Done well, they can help you cancel out brassiness or emphasize subtle hues found naturally in your client’s hair.

When it comes to glossing, one of the most common questions we get is this: Why doesn’t my guest’s gloss last?

It’s an important question. When a treatment doesn’t last (or doesn’t last as long as your client believes it will last) it can cause a lot of frustration, and possibly even some broken trust between you and your guest. Because so much of what we do is focused on relationship building, we obviously want to make sure that we’re always meeting (and hopefully exceeding!) our guest’s expectations.

Below are some hair glossing tips you can use to help your clients get as much life out of their gloss as possible. 

1. Set yourself up for success.

One of the surest ways that you can help your guests get long life out of their gloss is by making sure you’re treating the hair properly before the treatment even begins. This boils down to choosing the right gloss and treating the hair before glossing it.

Glosses live within the outer layers of the hair’s cuticle, which means that it lightly releases after every shampoo; this is what eventually causes a gloss to fade. Using a demi-permanent gloss that contains a bit of peroxide will help this cuticle open a bit more during the application process, which will allow the dye to penetrate a little deeper compared to a semi-permanent, and will help you create a balanced, tonal effect in your guest's hair. (At Salt, we use RedKen’s more acidic shades.) But just like any other color, demis have a lifespan, and you need to understand what that lifespan is.

Similarly, using a porosity equalizer prior to glossing can help you make sure your canvas is even before you apply your gloss.

2. Let the treatment sit.

I feel like I say this any time I’m discussing color, but it’s important: You need to let your product sit if you want it to properly be taken up by the hair. While the exact time conversion will depend on your formula and the effect you’re looking for. 
If you rinse too quickly, you risk the color not neutralizing and also it will rinse out too quickly for your guest.

Important note: The maximum amount of time you should let the hair process is 20 minutes, or until the desired deposit is achieved.

3. Close the cuticle.

Just as you want to open up the cuticle before glossing so that the dye has a way to get into the hair, you should also close the cuticle back up after you’re done. This will help you keep the dye where it’s supposed to be—in the hair!

That’s why, at Salt, we us a pH sealer to close the cuticle after every lightening or glossing service.

4. Warn your clients against shampooing too soon.

We have a 48-hour rule for a reason: It takes time for a treatment’s molecules to properly secure to the hair. If your guests shampoo their hair before this time has passed, they’re definitely going to get less life out of the treatment.

5. Explain why heat is bad for glosses.

Just like how your clients washing their hair too soon will cause their gloss to rinse out, exposing their hair to excess heat can also cause fading. Hot water, the sun, styling tools...all of these can have a detrimental effect on the staying power of the gloss.

When you’re performing the treatment, make sure that you choose products that have UVA/UVB protection. Use heat protection when styling, and cool that water (way) down when shampooing! Educate your clients on why they need to do the same.

6. Create realistic expectations.

You need to make sure that your client understands that glosses, like any other color, will fade. Sunlight, heat, washing, life in general—they will all cause your hair to slowly release dye over time.

As a stylist, you need to set your clients and guests up with realistic expectations about how long their gloss is going to last. If you over-promise, you can find yourself burning trust and damaging a relationship that you’ve spent a long time building.

7. Create literature for your guests.

A lasting gloss of course starts with a good application/treatment, but that only accounts for around 20% of how long the gloss lasts. The other 80% boils down to how your client takes care of their hair after the treatment. That’s why it’s critical for you to educate your guests on ways they can help keep their gloss vibrant.

Extra Hot Tip

Have a client that is coming in for a maintenance gloss? Keep in mind that, after a coloring service, it takes a total of two weeks for the cuticle to completely close. This means you will need to slightly release/open the cuticle at a maintenance gloss appointment so you can have the gloss absorb effectively like it would after a lightening service.

Have you been struggling with your confidence when it comes to formulation? Building confidence in this area is the key to becoming a better stylist, empowering you to deliver the results that your clients are looking for. Sign up for the Salt Lab course with Christine, where you'll learn the fundamentals of color theory and real, tactical skills that will allow you to formulate with the confidence that you need!

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