How I Look After My Hair

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Ever wondered how I style my hair and what products I use?

Sure you have! …OK maybe not.

But I’ve had a haircut recently and thought I’d share my routine with y’all, focusing mainly on the products I use regularly and how I tame my mane on a daily basis.

STEP 1: The Prep

I wash and condition my hair every morning. I know some people say not to, but I’ve personally never had a problem with it.

Here’s the thing: my hair is straight but very wiry. If I curl it, the curls can last for days and days. If I sleep on it and it kinks, that kink will last FOREVER. Or at least, until I next wash it.

This means that in the morning I frequently look like I’ve stuck my finger in a socket.

Now, I work in a very corporate environment and have to look neat and tidy at all times. And finger-in-socket hair doesn’t quite fit into that look. Especially with a blunt fringe, it’s just so much easier to start over in the mornings than to try and fix it.

Because of this, I get through quite a bit of shampoo and conditioner and I love trying new ones!

Lately I’ve been loving the Herbal Essences Bee Strong duo. It’s advertised as being a strengthening product, perfect to help treat damaged hair like mine. I also use the hair mask once a week, usually on the weekend, to give it a little extra nourishment.

They’re working OK so far. No miracles, but then I’m pretty skeptical about miracle hair products (my only exception is Alpecin which I wrote about in my post about growing my pixie cut!).

STEP 2: The Products

I swear by L’Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Oil. I happened to be looking for an economical hair oil the very week it was launched and at £9.99 it fell into my basket. I’ve never looked back.

This is something like my 5th bottle (I think) and I recommend it to everyone.

I use the coloured hair option because I used to dye my hair a lot, and I feel the extra nourishment probably benefits that. It’s not a scientific fact but I think it works.

I warm two pumps of the oil in my hands and then run it through my ends, working it up my hair lengths.

To protect from heat damage, I then spritz through Redken’s Pillow Proof Blow Dry Express Primer*.

I was kindly sent this a couple of weeks ago to try out and I’m actually really impressed by it. It claims to cut blow dry time and reduce breakage, as well as protecting hair from heat up to 450 degrees.

Now, my hair dries quickly anyway, but this definitely helped speed things up further. It’s not heavy at all, and doesn’t leave a residue or anything, so I think it’d be great for you ladies with the crazy long hair that takes hours to dry!

I think the only downside is the smell which is a bit strong. Not unpleasant. Just pretty strong. But it doesn’t linger and you can’t smell it on your hair after drying, so I’d say it’s a minor point.

Final Verdict: it really did help make my blow dry that little bit smoother. My drying technique is (very) flawed so this just gave me that little extra boost to help make everything super shiny.

STEP 3: The Blow Dry

Disclaimer: I’m not the best at blow drying.

I don’t have the right brush, I don’t have any patience and I have no hand-eye coordination. My hairdryer is the cheapest one I could find in Superdrug and I’ve lost the flat nozzle for it (that’s the thin one you really need to make your hair look smooth and glossy).

If you want a proper tutorial on how to blow dry hair, definitely check out Rosie, The Londoner’s post on how she does her own glossy, NYC-inspired, curly blow dry. She does it like a proper professional.

My hair is quite short, so I can never get that proper Hollywood blow dry feel anyway, but my technique is simple even for that: I basically to just section my hair off, and try and wing it as best as I can!

I do try and roll some volume into the top and obviously I try and smooth my layers out, but I’m usually aiming for a boho, groomed bed-head kind of style. Sort of.

The one thing I do every time without fail is to flip the ends of my hair under. My hair has an unfortunate tendency to do the opposite and blow drying is the only way to tame it!

STEP 4: The Final Touches

After drying, I shake it all up a bit to loosen it and make sure everything is definitely dry (there’s always that really annoying strand that’s somehow missed the hair-dryer, isn’t there?)

Then I section off the very top sections of both sides of my parting and underneath these sections I spray Toni & Guy’s Casual Rough Texturiser.

I LOVE this stuff.

It’s pure volume in a can.

More of a powder than a liquid spray, I think the texture is pretty similar to a dry-shampoo.

Spray it on, leave for a couple of seconds and then just work it in with your fingers.

I like to then backcomb the underneath of my roots slightly and then tszuj it (Jooj? Zhooj? HOW DO YOU EVEN SPELL IT) upwards, giving the top and sides of my head a bit more volume and texture.

^^^ Just look at that volume! (and that face… my mother must be so proud)

Lastly, I finish off with a quick spritz of hairspray to tame some of my many (many) flyaways.

I used Lee Stafford’s FAT’n’Flexible, mainly cos it’s what I had to hand. It came in one of last month’s event goodie bags (I think it was the Company one?) and it works pretty well for me.

My only bugbear would be the smell which is very strong!

Et voila!

My hair. Poor thing. It’s pretty dry from all my previous dying and re-dying, but there’s not really much I can do for now except look after it, feed it (and me) lots of protein and let it grow out.

Even though my roots are reaaaally starting to bug me, I’ve given up colouring my hair completely and you can really see the difference between my healthy, shiny non-dyed roots, and the poor dry frizzy ends of it.

Learn your lessons here kids: don’t go crazy on the hair dye!

With all the hindsight that comes with being a grown-up, mature and responsible (LOL) adult, I can honestly tell you that you will regret it when you’re older.

Sorry. Lecture over.

How is everyone’s week going so far?

I’ve just made plans with G to go for pizza on Thursday so mine is looking pretty darn perky at the moment! Pizza makes me happy.

I’m also going to Zoo Lates on Friday. Super excited for that!

G and I looked into going last year, just after we’d met, but they were totally sold out weeks in advance. So this year we planned ahead and booked them waay back in March. No way was I missing out again!

Have any of you been before? I’m not quite sure what to expect (apart from animals, obvs).

Happy Tuesday!