As you guys probably remember, I started coloring my hair, about 6 months ago.  I don’t do anything drastic, I pretty much just intensify my deepen my normally blondish-brown hair into a deeper chocolate brown.  I LOVE my hair being darker, I think it really flatters my features and skin tone a lot better than my natural color which had a tendency to make look a little lifeless.

My hair is a bit of a medium/chocolate brown (depending on how long it’s been since the color has been done) now and I absolutely love it.

And my goal is to keep it looking really healthy and beautiful, especially since you can really see shine and health in darker hair than I could when my hair was naturally lighter.

I have always been a user of hair products/styling products, so because of that, I almost always have some build-up and residue left even after showering and shampoo/conditioning my hair.  Anyone that regularly uses hair products is going to experience it from time to time.  Before I colored my hair, I used a clarifying shampoo every few weeks to really get all the excess gunk out and really make my strands nice and clean.

My hair stylist recommended the Bumble and Bumble Sunday Shampoo to me and I loved it.  It made my hair squeaky clean and it just smelled really good in my hair.  It is a bit on the expensive side since it’s Bumble and Bumble, but I only used a small amount like once a month, so it justified the price for me.  I highly recommend it if you need a deep clarifying shampoo and DON’T have color-treated hair.

You’ll notice how I said if you DON’T have color-treated hair because the Sunday shampoo warns that it can strip your color if you are someone who has color-treated hair.  In all fairness, the majority of clarifying shampoos warn this because of the harsher nature of the shampoo; it’s designed to clean out everything chemical in your hair and leave you with your own natural hair.

Which kind of sucks for those of us who color our hair because we still put product in it, we still wind up having build-up and residue and gunk in it that needs to be cleaned out. I know I was having a ton of issues managing my hair because I knew it needed a deep clean and I was worried about using almost any clarifying shampoo because all of them warn against people who have color-treated hair using it.

It took a good month before I found a product that is a clarifying shampoo and that states it SAFE for color-treated hair, meaning it will not strip your color.  A friend of mine who does hair suggested it to me and swore that she’d used it on clients and never had an issue with a loss of hair color; and I trust her, so I tried it.

IT WAS AMAZING!

My hair had that squeaky clean feeling that I’m going for after a clarifying shampoo but best of all, my hair color still looked the same!  It was just shinier and brighter probably because all the build-up was gone. It felt amazing!

This amazeballs shampoo is only sold at Sally Beauty Supply (I actually think I saw it on Amazon once, but it was like twice the price than just going to Sally’s to get it), which is a slight inconvenience for me since I never really shop there for anything, but I’ll get over it because it works THAT well.

The shampoo is simply called Clarifying Shampoo, it’s from Ion in their Purifying Solutions line and it looks like this:

It’s a good sized 10.5 oz bottle and it’s only $6.99.  I’ve used it maybe five or six times now and I’m not even close to a quarter of the way through the bottle.  I usually use this once every 3-4 weeks depending on how much product I’ve used in my hair, so this bottle will easily last me at least a year, if not much longer, so it’s unbelievably inexpensive. Totally worth a random trip to Sally’s every once in a blue moon to restock.

In typical clarifying shampoo fashion, it can leave your hair feeling a bit dry (which for me, all of them do that so I can’t say that this is any better or worse than other’s I’ve used), so when I clarify, I always use a deep conditioner/mask on my hair to replenish the moisture.

With the Ion shampoo, recently, I’ve been using this Wella Brilliance Treatment Mask for Fine/Normal Colored Hair.  They have a formulation for coarse hair as well, that I would assume is richer, but I don’t have coarse hair, so I’ve stuck with the fine hair one because this one is rich enough for me.  It’s really thick and almost buttery, which I really need and want after using a clarifying shampoo.

It comes in two sizes, there’s the smaller size that I currently have (as I was trying it out) and this bigger size that I’m going to get when my small one is done.

I have used this every time I’ve done the Ion shampoo and I still have enough left in my jar for another use or two (and this is the small tub), so it does last quite awhile.  I’m not the biggest fan of the tub packaging because it can be hard and slippery when you’re in the shower but I’ll deal with it because of how amazing it feels.  And it smells SOOOOOO good.  Devon will tell you I’m typically just seen sitting sniffing my hair for like three days after I use this.

These two products together are like liquid gold for me.  They clean my hair deep down to the scalp and also protect my color and strengthen my hair from further damage.

If you color your hair and you still feel like you need to rid your hair of excess products and gunk definitely try the Ion Clarifying Shampoo and follow it up with the Wella Mask and I promise your hair will feel so soft and beautiful when you’re done!