For the past couple of years I’ve been noticing that my hair is changing. I feel like it is frizzier and is thinning out. Is it my imagination? Is it because I’m getting older? Maybe it’s a little of both. Whatever the reason, this means to me that I need to switch up my hair care routine. I experimented with a lot of products and I finally found a routine that I’m happy with.
Everyday routine when I wash my hair:
I take Nature’s Bounty Hair, Skin & Nails every day. They are fancy vitamins that are supposed to help, wait for it, hair, skin and nails. Faithfully, every single day. I mentioned them a couple of weeks ago when I talked about my eye lash routine. After about six weeks of taking the suggested dosage, I noticed that I wasn’t loosing nearly as much hair as before. Now, I’ve been taking them since November and I absolutely swear by them.
Step 1. I use Wen’s cleansing conditioner to clean my hair. I’ve been using it for six or seven years now, and I love it so much that I can hardly believe I used to use regular shampoo on purpose. My hair is softer and I never get split ends. In fact, I don’t tend to bring it on vacation and after just a week away there is a noticeable degradation in my hair. You must follow the directions on the bottle to get the best results, and being on vacation and not using it definitely doesn’t follow the rules. Many of my family and friends have tried Wen’s cleansing conditioner and there is no consensus. Some love it and same hate it.
Then I apply Wen’s styling creme. Not a lot to say about this, it’s another Wen product and I like it. 🙂
Step 2. I don’t wash my hair every day. If it’s a day that I washed my hair then I apply Moroccanoil Treatment to my hair. The oil smells uh-mazing and it even feels good on my hands. I won’t use products that smell gross or are sticky, no matter how good it makes my hair look.
Step 3. I have naturally wavy hair so using a gel of some sort is essential. I use Paul Mitchell’s Ultimate Wave Beachy Texture Cream-Gel. It helps to minimize the frizz and maximize the curl.
Step 4. Why is that I have no problem spending money on a pair of shoes that I don’t need but I have an issue with spending money on a hair dry that I so badly need. I kid you not, I had been using my previous blow dryer for over 10 years and it needed to be replaced probably at least 5 years ago. About five months ago, I saw that QVC was selling a T3 hair dryer as the Today’s Special Value and I knew I had to finally bite the bullet and buy a new one. (Note that QVC does not sell it anymore so I linked the same exact one straight from the T3 website.) I’d heard many great things about the T3 brand so I figure it was now or never. My husband convinced me that now was better than never because he figured my old one might start a fire or something. As it turns out, I love the hair dryer so much that I went back and bought the T3 curling iron a week later.
I use the detachable diffuser and scrunch my hair lightly with my fingers as I dry it.
Step 5. I’m not loyal to a particular hair spray because I find that they all do pretty much the same thing, whether you spend $4 or $20. I tend to buy whatever is on sale. Right now I use Garnier hair spray. It smells great and it was cheap.
Everyday routine when I do not wash my hair:
Step 1. I found that since using the Wen cleanser I only need to wash my hair every two or three days. I apply Paul Mitchell’s Smoothing Super Skin Serum. This serum smooths out my hair and removes the frizz from “bed hair.” It doesn’t make my hair feel greasy at all and totally helps me go the extra day.
Step 2. I spray the same hair spray that I mentioned in the above step 5.
As you can tell these days mean that it’s lower maintenance. Sometimes I’m not as happy with the way my hair looks on the days that I don’t wash my hair, so I style in a pony tail or bun.
Routine for special occasions:
I don’t have time in the morning before work to curl my hair. Honestly, I’d rather get the few (30+) extra minutes of sleep. For special occasions, I don’t really consider it optional. More curls are more better.
Step 1. I apply Paul Mitchell’s smoothing super skin serum to my hair. (It’s the same product I mentioned above.)
Step 2. I divide my hair into sections and spray Rich Protect and Shine on each section. It helps to keep the curling iron from toasting my hair.
Step 3. I use the T3 curling iron to curl each section. The curling iron allows you to switch barrels so you can decide whether you want a polished curl or lose wave. I have the 1 inch barrel and the 1.25 inch/.75 inch tapered barrel. I prefer the tapered barrel because it gives me a looser wave. The curling iron is pricey but I think that it’s worth the money. Long gone are the days where I had to hold the iron in my hair for 1-2 minutes per strand. I can get a curl in mere seconds. I was blown away the first time that I used it. It also heats up fast and cools down quickly when you turn it off. Just a couple minutes after I’d used it, I warned my husband not to bump into it because I didn’t want him to burn himself. His response was to walk over and pick it up by the barrel. No burns and it was barely warm.
Step 4. I gently loosen the curls with my fingers.
Step 5. I spray the same hair spray that I mentioned above to finish the look and hold it in place for the long haul.
Ciao for now!
