Styling your hair can take its toll: products like hairspray, styling gel and mousse, combined with chemical treatments like hair color, perms and heat styling, can destroy your hair's cuticle, leaving it dry and unable to maintain its natural moisture. When the weather's hot and humid or dry and cold, the problem can get even worse--and your hair can quickly go from kind of dull to totally fried. Repairing your hair takes time and effort--and a few well-chosen products can go a long way.
Microfiber Towel
Making sure your hair is as dry as possible before turning on your blow dryer is essential for healing damaged hair, but a regular towel can be too rough for your tortured strands, according to "Allure" magazine. Opt for a super-absorbent microfiber towel instead, and blot your hair rather than rub it.
Rich Conditioner
Damaged hair needs lots of moisture to heal. Get a good trim so split ends don't spread their damage upwards, and use a conditioner that contains moisturizing ingredients like coconut oil and honey, recommends "Real Simple" magazine. Instead of a smoothing cream or serum, try using a leave-in conditioner to smooth and style your hair--it will maximize your hair's moisture reserves.
Hydrating Hair Mask
Encourage your hair to return to health with a twice-weekly hair mask designed for your specific damage issues. If your hair is dry and brittle, "More" recommends choosing a mask that describes itself as "nourishing" or "repairing." Hair that's fried to the point of frizz needs a mask that is "moisturizing" or "hydrating." To get maximum results from your mask, David Evangelista, celebrity stylist and creative director of Cornelia Day Resort in New York City, recommends in "More" magazine that you use your fingertips to massage your scalp for a minute after applying the mask so it can better penetrate your hair.
Gentle Heat Styling Tools
Unless you're willing to change to a hairstyle that allows you to forgo heat styling entirely, you'll need to switch to gentler styling tools if you have damaged hair. Garren, a hair stylist with the Garren New York salon, recommends in "Allure" magazine that you upgrade to an ionic hair dryer with at least 2,000 watts of power so that the drying process--and your hair's heat exposure--goes more quickly. If you use a flat iron, "Allure" recommends using one with ceramic plates, which heat more evenly than metal plates.
Member Comments