Colour costs more than the products that maintain it, which is why this is the one category where buying professional care genuinely pays for itself. This guide covers the Biolage answer and, more importantly, the behaviour that actually determines how long your colour lasts.
Prices and sizes below were correct on ProHair.ca in September 2026. Ranges change and packages are discontinued — always confirm the exact size and price on the product page before you buy.
Where colour actually goes
Fade is mostly a washing problem, not a sunlight problem. Three mechanisms account for most of it: hot water swells the cuticle and lets pigment out, harsh surfactants strip it, and a high-pH product leaves the cuticle open so the next wash takes more. Everything a colour-care shampoo does is aimed at those three.
Which is why ColorLast is built as a low-pH system. Biolage states that the low-pH shampoo cleanses gently without stripping colour, nourishes with soybean oil and stearic acid, and that the line prolongs day-one colour tone for up to 40 washes — with 35% more shine, 13x smoother hair and 2x stronger hair after one use, measured against a non-conditioning shampoo.
The ColorLast routine
- Cleanse — ColorLast Shampoo, 400 ml $23.80 (1 L $39.90, 3.8 L $65.92). This is the step that matters most; if you change one product, change this one.
- Condition — ColorLast Conditioner, 400 ml $23.80. Biolage describes stearic acid forming a lightweight veil that coats the hair and helps prevent fade from external aggressors.
- Tone — ColorLast Purple Shampoo, 400 ml $23.80, once or twice a week in place of the regular shampoo.
- Finish — All-In-One Multi-Benefit Spray, $21.37. Detangles, protects against heat and helps even out porous lengths, which is where freshly coloured hair is most uneven.
Buying the pair together, the ColorLast Duo is $46.41 at 400 ml.
Purple shampoo: how often, and who should skip it
Purple shampoo deposits violet pigment to neutralise yellow. Biolage says the ColorLast Purple Shampoo neutralises brass and unwanted warm tones and enhances colour dimension with violet pigments, at the same low pH as the rest of the line.
Use it if you are blonde, highlighted, balayaged, silver or grey and your tone drifts warm between appointments. Once or twice a week is the answer — in place of your normal shampoo, not in addition to it.
Do not use it if your hair is virgin dark or brunette: there is no yellow for it to cancel, and you are paying a colour-shampoo price for an ordinary wash. Brunettes who want richness are better served by ColorLast Shampoo alone.
Do not leave it on for ten minutes on very porous blonde hair. Bleached hair grabs pigment fast, and the failure mode is a grey-lilac cast that takes several clarifying washes to remove. Start at one minute, see what you get, and increase from there.
When your colour is also something else
Coloured and breaking
Fix the breakage first. Run Strength Recovery for four to six weeks — Biolage claims 3x stronger hair after one use from its olive squalane and vegan protein concentrate — then move the wash-day pair back to ColorLast and keep the Strength Recovery mask as your weekly treatment. Colour on structurally weak hair fades faster anyway, because porous hair does not hold pigment.
Coloured and frizzy
Keep ColorLast Shampoo and switch the conditioner to SmoothProof. The shampoo is where colour is lost, so that is the product to keep colour-safe; the conditioner can do the smoothing job.
Coloured and dry
ColorLast Shampoo with the HydraSource Conditioning Balm, and the HydraSource Deep Treatment Pack weekly. Colour-treated hair is almost always drier than it was before the service.
Four habits that outperform any product
- Wash in cooler water. The single highest-leverage change, and it is free.
- Wait 72 hours after a colour service before the first wash, so the cuticle has closed on the new pigment.
- Wash less often. Every wash costs you some colour. A dry shampoo day is a day your colour does not fade.
- Use heat protection every time. The Thermal Active Setting Spray ($21.03) or the All-In-One Spray. Heat opens the cuticle just like hot water does.
The rest of the Biolage guides
- The Complete Biolage Buying Guide
- Biolage Line by Line
- Biolage by Concern
- The Biolage ScalpSync Guide
- Biolage 400 ml vs 1 L vs 3.8 L: the back-bar cost guide
Buying Biolage at ProHair
ProHair is a Canadian professional distributor and has been supplying salons since 1996. Biolage arrives through the authorised Canadian professional channel, which matters more than it sounds: a shampoo that has spent two years in a warehouse or been decanted into an unbranded bottle does not perform like a fresh one. Shipping is free over $99.99, and the back-bar sizes are stocked alongside the retail ones so a salon and its clients can buy the same formula.
Browse the full Biolage range →
Performance figures in this guide are Biolage's own published claims and carry the brand's own test conditions; they are quoted here so you can judge them, not repeated as our results.