Thursday, June 11, 2020

The Most Important Tip For Having Healthy Hair

The Most Important Tip For Having Healthy Hair
There are a lot of women out there who blame their stylist for the state that their hair is in.  While I will not deny the fact that there are some stylists that neglect their client's hair, I will say that sometimes it is not all entirely the stylist's fault.  It is your stylist's job to advise you on what to do and what not to do to your hair, suggest products to use (I suggest these in case you were wondering), and give you an outline of what your hair care regimen should be.  However, your home maintenance routine is a very important part of your hair's health as well.  Think about it like this, when you visit your dentist every six months don't you still do what is required of you at home to keep up what he did in your previous visit? It would be foolish to not brush and floss your teeth at home and then question your dentist about what he is doing wrong when you end up with a mouthful (literally) of problems that could have been avoided.  The same goes for your hair.  You can't neglect your hair at home then question your stylist when you only see them every now and then.


Even if you see your hair stylist once every week, if you go home and apply heat the other six days and don't wrap it every night, you will see a drastic decline in your hair's health. Your stylist doesn't know what you are doing at home for the most part.  It is very important that you be honest with your stylist, especially if the health of your hair means anything to you. Tell your stylist the truth when you are asked what you are doing at home.  That way, your stylist can take the correct approach to getting your hair to the healthiest state possible.


At home maintenance includes several things. One of the most important things for your at home maintenance plan is to drastically decrease if not eliminate your use of heat. I recommend to only use heat once per week MAXIMUM.  And the heat that you do apply needs to be the minimum amount needed to effectively straighten and/or curl your hair.  First, you should only use heat tools that allow you to control the temperature (like this one).  Secondly, having the heat setting on the hottest temperature is definitely not recommended. If your heat tool goes up to 400 degrees, try curling your hair on 350 (for fine/thin hair). If that doesn't work, increase the heat level 25 degrees until you get the desired results.  I have not seen hardly any heads of hair, especially relaxed, that requires the maximum amount of heat offered in heating tools. The few that I have seen have extremely thick, coarse hair and most of the time the person is natural. Then and only then can your hair endure that type of heat. Even still, once per week is the absolute maximum that I would recommend AND only one pass of the flat iron is needed.

Another aspect of your home maintenance program is protecting your hair at night by wrapping.  Wrapping your hair every single night is very important. Wrapping your hair preserves your style and protects your ends. Not wrapping your hair nightly results in friction caused by your hair rubbing against your pillows and sheets at night.  This causes your ends to split, which means that you have to get your hair cut sooner than you would necessarily want to. Let's be clear, wrapping your hair does not, I repeat, does not prevent your ends from splitting.  It does however prevent them from splitting as quickly as they would if you didn't wrap at all. So make sure you are wrapping every single night with a satin scarf (get one here).  If for some reason you can not wrap your hair, at least sleep on a satin pillow case. This will reduce the amount of friction that you would have with a cloth or cotton pillow case. Sleeping on a satin pillow case will not preserve your hair style, but it will help protect your ends.  Not protecting your hair style normally results in using heating tools more than once per week, so to maximize the benefits of your home maintenance program, wrap nightly.



I also recommend that you shampoo your hair once per week.  If you visit your stylist once per week, then all you have to worry about is keeping your style up until the next week without applying heat, and protecting your ends by wrapping.  If you see your stylist every other week or less than that, I recommend that you shampoo weekly. A lot of women don't want to fool with their hair that week in between their salon visits (I get it!).  If you have no clue about what to do with your hair on your own, just focus on keeping the heat out and wrapping it. Rolling it is also acceptable.  Your hair will not fall out or anything if you are only shampooing it every two weeks.

The reason why I recommend shampooing weekly is because generally after one week the hair becomes heavy due to an accumulation of your own natural oils as well as product build up. This causes the hair to not move and be free flowing. I personally don't like when my hair feels like this, so shampooing weekly is a no brainer for me. However, I also know how to style it and make it look nice so again, shampooing weekly isn't a big deal for me. But there are people out there that struggle with styling their own hair and can not realistically do their own hair every week. In fact, they may actually do more harm than good by trying to tackle their own hair. If this sounds like you, just stick to no heat and wrapping and call it a day. Never go more than two weeks without shampooing as a clean scalp equals a healthy scalp.


The last part of your home maintenance program should consist of products that you do or don't put in your hair.  Your hair naturally makes its own oils so putting lots of oil sheen, grease, and serums only makes it greasy and heavy.  This is not a good look and causes you to have to shampoo your hair more often.  I do sometimes apply a little tiny bit of serum right after I have shampooed, dried and styled it, and I also use one right before flat ironing to protect my hair from heat. I also use a serum when moisturizing and sealing my hair.  With serums and oils, a tiny bit should go a long way. Also avoid styling products with alcohol like hair spray and spritz as these have a tendency to dry the hair out.  A light holding spray is ok, but again, use in moderation. Also, when using holding spray and oil sheen hold your arm all the way out and spray towards your hair allowing the product be misted onto your hair. Spraying too close puts too much product on your hair.

Following these steps will put you on the right track to developing a home maintenance program that will allow your hair to becoming the healthiest its been. It also helps your stylist to keep it that way by providing you with the necessary treatments and other things you need. Having both of these things does nothing but help your hair, but your at home maintenance is the most important part.  Remember, take care of your hair and it will take care of you!

Check out the video below:



Share:

3 comments

  1. Very Nice website. I just finished mine and i was looking for some ideas about Hair stylist and your website gave me some.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very great information!

    ReplyDelete


Try an online hair tutorial from LaToya!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Is Your Hair Always Dry?

The Healthy Relaxed Hair Journal

© LaToya Jones | All rights reserved.
Blog Design Handcrafted by pipdig