Hair Products 101

Do you have tons of hair products in your closet? Do you ever get lost on when to begin putting them on your hair?  Read below for the basics.

Shampoo and Conditioners: Shampoos are meant to cleanse and remove and excess oil or debris from the hair. Because it is meant to cleanse, you don’t need to worry about putting it all over your ends. Applying and rubbing on just the scalp is all you need to do. Conditioners are meant to moisturize, add moisture, add protein, and essentially close the hair cuticle in order to have a shinier appearance to the hair and aid in the longevity of your hair color. Because your scalp already naturally creates its own oils and moisturizing, you only need to add conditions to the mid shaft and ends of your hair.

1st- Prepping: Use a product that will condition the hair and protect the hair from the usage of thermal tools ( blow dryers and irons). Apply this product all over your hair base, mid shaft, and ends after you have towel dried your hair.  A prep product is exactly what is sounds like, it preps your hair for the next steps of your styling. 

2nd- Styling and Hold: Choose a product that will give you the amount of hold that you will be needing with the desired style. Determine whether you want a long lasting hold, if you want a smooth finish, if you want volume, etc. Check out the different types of hold to determine which will be more effective for you. (It’s usually found on the bottle. Think about if your hair holds styles easily or not. If it doesn’t use a stronger hold.)

Finishing: Top off your style with a hairspray, smoothing product, or shine spray to help smooth down unruly hair. A finishing product will be the last thing that you put on your hair before you head out the door. 

Styling Straight-Wavy Hair

You are able to do so much with your hair! Your hair can easily be wavy or straight. Most people with this texture have mastered the straight hair, but getting it wavy tends to be a little more difficult. To get the most out of your wave you must start the styling process in the shower.

1. Shampoo your scalp, massaging it in circular motion to remove and debris and dirt.
2. STOP! Instead of ringing the water out of your hair, flip your head upside down and begin to scrunch the water and the shampoo from your hair. You don’t want to straighten any of the wave that you do have in there, so be gentle, and activate the wave rather than pull it straight.
3. Add plenty of condition in the palms of your hand, more than you think you need. (curls need moisture)
4. STOP! Don’t ring out the hair. Flip your head upside down again and scrunch out the remaining water. Don’t worry about washing all of the conditioner out of the hair. It is actually good if there is some remaining conditioner left in the hair.
5. Flip your head back up once the water has stopped dripping from your hair. Don’t run your fingers through it. You want to keep all movement and wave that you just created by scrunching.
6. Find an old t-shirt or some paper towels. You want to scrunch the moisture from the hair ( do you see a pattern with scrunching?) I don’t want you to use a bath towel because those tend to pull out the fine hair from the curl resulting in frizzy and unruly hair once it’s dried.
7. Apply curl enhancing product, gel, and a little hair spray
8. Either air dry or diffuse ASAP

Diffuser Tricks**

– Use high heat

• Turn on low power
• Tilt head to side or upside down
• Gently place hair in diffuser from ends to root
• Move from section to section until the whole head is dry
• Spray a little hairspray as you go, just to lock it in a bit more

Density of Your Hair

Thin Hair

You may have found that over the years the amount of hair on your head has decreased. Due to age, hormones, stress, medical, and other environmental circumstances hair may fall out and “thin out”.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a permanent fix just yet. However, there are a few things that may help in delaying this process from happening or happening at all. When the hair follicles ( the place on our scalp where our hair grows from) are clogged, hair is unable to break through the barrier, resulting in no hair growth. To insure that the follicle stays open, we can exfoliate our scalp ( similar to what we do with our skin). This process with remove the dead skin cells from the follicle which will promote heathy hair growth.

For instant results in thickening the hair the best thing to do would be to use products advertised for thickening the hair. These products will use larger molecules that will help the product adhere to the hair and have the image of a fatter cuticle or thicker strands of hair.

Also, making sure you are keeping a healthy diet, stress free living,  and maintaining proper vitamin intake. All these things can help aid in healthier hair and keep your hair growing.

Medium Hair

You are in a category that is the subject to jealousy among men and women all over the world. There is not much to say here… your hair is not too thick and not too thin. Most likely you are able to have optimal drying time and find it fairy manageable. Be grateful for your genes and for every hair on your head for there are many people that would trade their thickness with yours in a heart beat.

Thick Hair

You are the on other spectrum of the hair charts. You do not struggle with bald spots on your head. Your haircuts take extra long and your stylist wishes she would have worn a sweatband before starting the blow drying process.

As you know, your hair takes patience, arm strength, and extra products when it comes to styling. One way to eliminate these side effects is to not wash your hair everyday. More than likely your hair can at least* go a day with out washing before it looks like its a greasy mess. Do yourself and your hair a favor and take a day off. That way when you do take the time and effort to blow dry and style your hair one day, you know that you are putting in a two-days work amount, and you can take a break the following day. Learn, the art of multitasking, and let your hair air dry a bit before you start the hot process of blow drying your hair. Thoroughly towel dry your hair, put a little leave-in conditioner in your hair, and go do your make up or house work. Let the air be your friend for a few minutes and see what it will dry naturally for you.

Your body is telling you something

“Doesn’t everybody get dry, red, cracked hands?”

This was an alarming comment that I read on a professional hairstylist discussion group after I posted a picture of my red hands. My question to the group was whether other people experience the same side effects after shampooing at work.

In 24 hours I had over 70 likes and comments on the topic. Most of which were agreeing that they get this. People started throwing out lotions they use to help, medical diagnosis’ of what they have, and stories of friends of friends who had to get out of the industry.

What’s alarming about all of this, is that most of the posters just think it “comes with the job” and “doesn’t everybody get this”.

NO.NO.NO they don’t! and NO NO No they shouldn’t be having this problem!

What’s even more disturbing is that even when people know there are certain chemicals in the products that are making their skin react, they aren’t doing anything to stay away from them. After all, how can a professional stylist that is working in a commission salon or a rental salon where they don’t get to pick their products, change their exposure to these products?

Stylists (and clients) are prisoners to the big boy companies! These companies need some integrity and need to be proactive about keeping stylists and clients SAFE! We need more toxic-free companies in our industry and we need the big boy companies to man up and get some integrity in the products and the ingredients they are producing.

It is not normal to get itchy eyes, red hands, watery noses, breathing problems, itchy scalps, headaches, blisters, cracked hands, etc. etc. etc.

Check out what WEBMD says about these allergic reactions.

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/guide/chemical-allergies