So, your colour has lost its edge, and you need to top it up. This easy-to-follow guide will talk you through step by step on how to apply your top up colour at home.

Prepping the Hair

Unless you’re feeling very brave, you will want to get some gloves and maybe a tint brush handy, and put on an old t-shirt that you don’t mind staining.

Firstly, you’ll want to give your hair a shampoo and detangle your hair, this raises the cuticle layer of the hair slightly but will also help the product go further throughout the hair.

Pro-Tip - If you have a pastel shade of hair like a light peach or candyfloss pink, or you want the highest payoff possible. Skip this step and apply on dry hair, you will use up more product though.

After that, you will want to section out the hair either into the separate colours or into manageable sub-sections.

The Fun Bit... Applying it!

Divide the hair into 1-inch-wide sections (working bottom to top) and using either your gloved hand or a tint brush, apply the colour directly onto your hair, no need to mix anything in.

Make sure you are fully saturating the hair with colour to ensure you have an even colour deposit.

Continue this, working bottom to top throughout either the whole head or that section of colour.

Then repeat if needed to on other colours. I recommend when applying more than one colour to start with the lightest shade, then move towards the darkest colour.

Let it Develop

Let the colour develop for a minimum of 30 minutes. The longer the better though with these types of colours. The more time it is left, the better your chances of maximum colour deposit.

Rinsing

Take the colour off rinsing with cooler water, the cooler the better, until the water runs as clear as possible. Depending on the colour, some shades will never run perfectly clear, this is perfectly normal.

If needed, give your hair 1 light shampoo to make sure you have gotten all the colour product out of your hair, be careful that your shampoo is colour safe though as some shampoo can remove the pigment you’ve just put in.

For best results, I recommend finishing off with a treatment mask. My go-to is Joico Luster Lock Mask, this will seal in the colour as well as give your hair some extra TLC. If time is short though, just a regular conditioner will do the job.

Get the look

Style your hair making sure you’re always using a heat protector or allow your hair to air dry and you're all set!