I have made a lot of mistakes with my hair over the years. A lot of mistakes. A lot. Many, many, many mistakes. So many mistakes. I have fried it beyond repair with chemicals and heat. I’ve had to chop it off more times than I would like to admit.
Being that I’m a hairdresser, it’s kind of embarrassing. And for an extremely long time, I never felt comfortable going to any kind of event without wearing extensions because my hair always looked bad.
Over the years, I figured out how to get gorgeous, shiny, damage-free hair without abandoning my hot tools.
And today I’m going to give you five amazing tips that you can do too. There is also an awesome giveaway today, so keep watching so that you know how to enter it and so that you can win a prize. Let’s go.
Tip Number 1
Tip number one is to avoid over-processing your hair with chemicals. Coloring your hair darker or within the same level, especially when done professionally, Isn’t that damaging or even damaging at all. However, going lighter is.
If you want your hair to be lighter, the cuticle layer needs to be lifted for the color to be stripped out of it. And the only real way to do that is through a process called oxidation.
And this process can be very damaging. Bleaching your hair does a serious, serious number on it. You will know if you have a lot of damage from bleach because your hair will look just like mine did.
It will be flat, dry, brittle, and seriously prone to breakage and you’ll have loads of split ends that you cut off and that come right back.
What sucks though, is that when you have chemical damage like this, the hair loses elasticity and becomes even more easily damaged by everything else.
So for example, if you heat style healthy hair regularly, it will likely be fine as long as you do it properly.
And we’re going to get into that in a minute. But if you have styled chemically damaged hair, it will get significantly more damage because the fibers are just not strong enough to withstand the heat. So they’ll break more.
So it’s this vicious cycle, right, Because the hair doesn’t look good unless you heat style it. But the more you heat style it, the more damaged it gets. So what do you do? What do you do about it?
If you don’t want your hair to be its virgin color and you don’t want to go darker. That is a real question. I can relate to this because
I don’t like having my hair in one solid dark color either. The way that I get around it is by getting a balayage done only on the top layers of my hair. So abolish is a hand-painted highlight that doesn’t start at the root because it doesn’t start at the root.
You don’t have regrowth, so I don’t have to maintain it very often. Hardly ever. I do it like maybe once a year. And because I don’t have to maintain it as much, I don’t have to lighten the hair over and over and over again.
I also keep the light parts at a pretty close level to my natural color, and I tone it like a mid-level brown and not a light blond because the lighter you go, the more damage you cause. So this gives me just enough dimension in the hair that I’m happy, but not so much that there’s a significant amount of damage done.
If you just cannot live without significantly lighter hair, though, I recommend that you always invest in a bonder Most salons will carry Olaplex or something like Olaplex, which acts as an insurance policy against breakage.
It gets put into the bowl of Lightner and as your hair is lightning, the Olaplex reforms the disulfide bonds that make up the hair. So basically it allows you to bleach your hair lighter without it breaking off.
Tip Number 2
Tip number two is to do regular hair treatments to correct any of this damage that you’ve done with chemicals or with heat.
Not all treatments are the same. Not all of them are the same. So you need to know what you’re using before you even waste your time using it.
Some work well, and then they’re products that coat the hair shafts and feel softer for a hot minute, but it’s not doing anything.
So you want to stay away from those low-quality products and you want to invest in products that are super high quality and that deliver results or else it’s just like a huge waste of time.
I just discovered an awesome Korean hair brand called L’Ador. I’ve been using so many of their products lately and I love all of them.
L’ador’s whole mission is to offer salon quality hair care from home and honestly, they deliver that the products are beautiful. They are amazing.
When I got them in the mail, when I got this PR package, I was like, Oh, wow, these are really like, really, really nice. Trust me, you guys won’t be disappointed if you order some of these.
This is called the perfect hair fill and it is a water-free liquid concentrate that delivers nutrients, and proteins, repairs damage, and locks in moisture.
It is an amazing intensive treatment for severely damaged hair and people love this product. L’Ador has sold over 1 billion ampoules globally and I can see why this is how it works. You want to mix with perfect hair, fill up with cold water in a 1 to 1 ratio, and stir it until it morphs into a cream.
This process here is called Hydrolyzing and what’s happening is a product is releasing fresh proteins to nourish the hair.
After you shampoo your hair, you towel dry, apply it, focusing on the ends, put on a hair cap or I like to use a satin-wrapped hair towel, and then you wait 10 to 15 minutes before rinsing it off.
After doing this treatment, you will notice that your hair is so shiny and soft. It is amazing. Doing this regularly and taking the time to nourish your hair does have the power to transform it over time. It is 100% worth doing.
Tip Number 3
Tip number three is to maintain a healthy scalp. Everything starts at the scalp and if your scalp isn’t healthy, it’s unlikely that your hair will be super healthy.
I feel like as children, we’re just not taught how to properly shampoo, and most people are doing it incorrectly. When you are shampooing, you need to first make sure that your hair is completely wet.
Shampoo needs water to work, so if you have dense hair, separate it in the shower and open it up to properly saturate every strand, then focus your shampoo on the entire scalp and not on the ends.
The first shampoo will pick up oil and buildup and it likely won’t lather a lot. The second shampoo will be able to cleanse the scalp and you’ll notice that it will lather a lot more.
If you are only shampooing once, then you should try shampooing twice. It will make a huge difference to the health of the scalp and also to the overall softness of the hair.
If you have issues with a dry scalp, you can also add an inexpensive shampoo brush into your routine to exfoliate the skin as you are cleansing.
If you are still struggling with your scalp health and you are properly shampooing already, L’Ador also has a scalp tonic that is targeted towards alleviating scalp itchiness, removing dandruff, and even preventing hair loss.
It comes in this bottle and all you have to do is spread it into the scalp two or three times and then massage it in every day.
This is good. If you are the type of person who just struggles with those scalp issues, you’re doing everything right. You can’t get around it. Adding something like a tonic to your routine may be the perfect solution for you.
If you want more than this, if you want a treatment style product instead, or even as well to use together, you can also get an Ampoule style product. That’s cool. This one is specifically made for super sensitive scalps and for people who have weak thinning hair or hair loss, it has six types of peptides, which makes the hair super glossy. Plant-based oil for hydration.
And it also has menthol, which is so cool and refreshing on the head. You just apply it after shampooing on wet hair, massage it in while focusing on the damaged areas, and then rinse it off.
Tip Number 4
So tip number four is to heat style your hair using only the amount of heat that you need and no more. This doesn’t mean that you can’t heat style.
I heat style my hair every time I wash it. It’s in great shape now, but you should minimize the amount of heat you use, but you still get a good result at the lowest possible heat setting.
I have a friend who has super fine hair. It’s relatively straight and we were getting ready together the other day and I noticed that she was using her flat iron at the maximum heat which is so unnecessary.
She was causing damage for absolutely no gain. She would have gotten the same result literally with half the heat. So next time you’re doing your hair, try dialing the heat down by half and see if you still get the result that you want.
There are very few hair types that need maximum heat and you’re probably not one of those people.
Before applying any heat. You also want a barrier between the heat source and the hair, and that’s where a thermal protection spray comes in.
L’Ador also has an awesome, awesome thermal protection spray. The reason that I love this one is because it can be used on wet hair and dry hair.
So when I’m blowing my hair out, I apply it on my wet hair first, and then if I’m doing curls or waves or crimping it or whatever, I apply it on my dry hair before using my hot tools.
My favorite thing about this one is that it doesn’t leave any kind of sticky residue whatsoever. It reduces static for sure, and it prevents moisture loss, but it’s completely weightless.
I love that because I’ve used a lot of heat protectors that have left a weird, sticky, or even too-slick residue. And it’s very annoying. It’s especially annoying when you have fine hair.
Tip Number 5
Tip number five is not sleeping with your hair wet or putting it up in a tight elastic when it’s wet when your hair is what it is at its weakest state.
The cuticles naturally lift, making the hair more vulnerable and prone to damage.
So putting it up in a tight elastic in that state will lead to severe breakage. If you do this all the time and you notice that you have this tiny short hair at the top of the neck.
That is why sleeping with it wet also causes a whole other set of issues. The wetness of the hair and a damp pillow could create the perfect environment for yeast to flourish, including the yeast associated with dandruff.
This environment can also lead to unwanted bacteria, skin irritations, itchiness, and dryness. If you regularly sleep with your hair wet and you have scalp issues, this could very much be the reason why. So stop doing it immediately.
