Gym Hair

While I was at the gym today I overheard two fellow female classmates arguing about how to wear a headband successfully during a hair whipping dance class. One suggested that she should try it with wet hair, the other argued that she had tried that and preferred it dry​, blah blah blah...neither way was going to look good in this particular scenario. Here is what I recommend for morning activity hair.

If your hair is curly: Try re-wetting it with a spray bottle filled with warm water and a drop of lavender oil. Spray the water (a fine mist is best) towards the bottom of the curls and scrunch up. Work your way up the hair, stopping before you get to your roots. Grab your trusty pomade, Kevin Murphy Easy Rider​ is my choice. Place a dime sized or less amount of pomade on your palms and emulsify until it's no longer white but has melted like lotion in your palms. Smooth the crown of your head with the pomade, and pull remainder to your ends.

If your hair is straight: ​Pull out the pomade, smooth the crown of your head to tame any frizz, spray hair with hair shine serum, through the ends only. Make a deep side part to either the left or the right. Sleek your hair back into a low or high ponytail depending on your mood. Finish with a light hair spray at the crown.

If your hair is short: People think this is the easiest but it's not always true, it can be a pain to keep out of your face. I recommend a bit stiffer pomade to keep it in line for shorter styles. If you have some length in the front, pop it up faux hawk style. If it's mid-length you can pull back both sides and secure each side by making an X with the bobby pins, or using a clip barrette.​

If you are feeling adventurous: You can pull off a great bun if your hair is curly or straight and it really does look beautiful. Grab your pomade, smooth the crown of your head back towards the high ponytail that you're going to put it in. Pull all of your hair into a high center ponytail. Pull the ponytail straight up in the air working with small sections and tease the base of the ponytail using a fine toothed comb. By doing this you are creating a fluffy base. ​Grab 5-10 bobby pins that match the general color of your hair (brown, blonde or black). Using the same small sections you teased, grab the section by the base and direct towards your scalp (I start at the top and work clockwise), wrap the remainder of the section inwards toward the base of the ponytail and secure into the ponytail. Continue working clockwise around, make sure to check the rearview and use additional pomade if necessary for smoothing. If you have a lot of hair then you may be able to accomplish the sock bun. See the video below for that tutorial. 

Gym hair doesn't need to take a lot of time or effort. It does need to look better than you have just rolled out of bed and dragged yourself down there. I want to know that you have brushed your teeth, combed your hair and changed out of your pajamas to be there. Maybe that's just the mom in me. As far as headbands go, any of the above mentioned styles will look great with a headband, just make sure it is a headband for an adult and not a little girl. How about instead of a headband you try a bandana rolled up and tied with the tie in the front? Cute!!

​Rockabilly headband, perfect for the gym

Overnight Hair Rescue, Caviar Anti-Aging by Alterna

This product is amazing in so many ways, I'll just start with a few reasons why I love it​

• You apply it at night and leave it in your hair, no bother with waiting 20-30 minutes to rinse and then dry.
• It is not greasy, sticky or tacky so when you apply it to your hair at night you can instantly go to bed and you won't have grease stains on your pillow​
• The effects are cumulative so the more you apply the healthier your hair becomes, unlike masks and deep conditioners which just temporarily boost the moisture.​
• Even with consistent use it 1 bottle lasts a long time, which is good because I think it retails somewhere in the $50-60 range​
• Everyone can benefit from it, if you're a blonde who wants to protect your dry, brittle or over-processed hair. If you are a brunette who wants more shine and happy hair. If you are trying to grow your hair out it will prevent split ends and boost elasticity. If you wear your hair short it will keep it healthy and prevent it from drying out. If you color your hair it will immediately boost the shine. If you wear your natural color it will make you feel like you are really spoiling yourself and it will additionally make your hair shiny like its been colored.​
• ​You shampoo it out in the morning, or whenever you get around to shampooing your hair, you'll never know it's in there if you skip the shampoo until next time. 

​Alterna Overnight Hair Rescue

Overnight Hair Rescue works by penetrating deeply into the hair, delivering vital nutrients for transformational results while you sleep. It helps to seal split ends, and strengthen hair from root to tips​, while simultaneously restoring shine and improving elasticity.

To apply: Dispense a dime sized amount of product into the palm of your hand, emulsify the product between your two palms (like your going to wash your palms) and apply to the roots of your hair. Dispense an additional dime to nickle sized amount, emulsify again and apply to mid shaft and ends. Viola, you're all done. Wasn't that easy? Now braid your hair, cuz it's cute and go to bed. Below is a video with a more detailed explanation of the process. Michael Sean Corby gives the demonstration, I love him! I've had the opportunity to meet him 3 times because he has family in Nampa (poor guy). I think you might enjoy it. ​

How to Choose a Shampoo

It's a daunting task, even for me because there are just too many options. Even if you decide that you like a brand they usually have 10-20 different options for you to choose from. Why so many options?

First of all you have to decide what it is you are struggling with, let me give you some examples​

• ​You want cleaner hair
• You want bigger hair​
• You want skinnier hair
• You want more hair​
• You want your hair to be less frizzy​
• You want you hair to feel less dry​
• You want to protect your color​
• Your scalp itches or you think you might have some flakes​
• You don't know what you want but you just don't want to spend too much or buy cheap shampoo.

Lucky for you most higher end shampoos are multi-taskers so you may only need one or two in your arsenal to satisfy your needs all year round. 

These are the products my clients are purchasing the most of...​

​Kevin Murphy Angel Wash: This is a product that helps your hair become bigger, fuller, more voluminous. Often considered a volumizing shampoo but it is so much more. It protects that beautiful color you have in your hair. It helps to heal and repair any damage that is happening to your hair, and unless its a pixie cut there is damage. This shampoo also helps to control frizz and reduce breakage. I'm sure you're dying to use it already.

DS-Laboratories Revita Shampoo: If you are concerned with hair loss, hair thinning, or excessive shedding, this is the shampoo for you. This hydrates, feeds, and stimulates the hair follicle to reactivate the growth cycle that is either too short or lying dormant in the follicle. This will also help protect your color and prevent damage although if you are struggling with frizz you might want to consider rotating this in with your other shampoo.​

DS-Laboratories Dandrene: If your scalp is occasionally itchy or you are seeing some flakes this is the product to try. Not only does it calm inflammation and itching but it helps to rid your scalp of the fungi (I know it sounds gross, but everybody has fungi on their scalp, sometimes it just gets out of control)​ and control excessive oil on your scalp. It also calms inflammation and itching so you won't feel embarassed by those flakes. 

Kevin Murphy Maxi-Wash: If you want your hair clean, like really clean, squeaky clean this is the shampoo for you. It will remove product buildup without removing color. It will remove chlorine from blonde hair, it will remove all the sweat from dancing, the stale club smell, the old hairspray and glitter leftover from the weekend. It removes buildup of chemicals that you didn't even know were there. It also contains a natural antiseptics to detoxify the hair and scalp. ​

Kevin Murphy Born Again: This is an ultra rich moisturizing shampoo for tortured or chemically dehydrated hair. It is wonderful if your hair feels crispy, dry, lifeless, dull or in general uncooperative. We all have our days. This shampoo acts like a conditioner. Also if you feel like your hair has too much body or fly away feeling it is craving moisture and this might just be the drink it needs.

If you have other questions concerning other brands or problem you are experiencing with your shampoo please let me know and I will guide you towards a wise choice. ​

Side note: Don't ever purchase a 2 in 1 shampoo, they don't exist, it's a myth.​

Don't forget to read: How to wash your hair​

How to Wash your Hair

When you look at the direction on the back of the shampoo bottle it says wash, rinse and repeat if necessary and if have questions call the hotline. Ridiculous right? who needs help washing their hair? Well I have news for you. You need help washing your hair! Don't worry, don't panic, you haven't been doing it dreadfully wrong but there are some things that could be doing better.

First let's start with your shampoo. If you color your hair or have thinning or delicate hair or hair that you feel just doesn't do what you want it to do then you need to upgrade your shampoo. No more drugstore shampoo, it's cheap stuff made with sodium laurel sulfate which is equivalent to DAWN dishwasher detergent or TIDE clothing detergent, very soapy to give you all those bubbles, but very drying to your hair, skin and scalp and believe me it is not doing your style any favors. I know you think you are saving so much money by using it but when you consider how much you spend on your color, or how mush you like having hair, and how frustrated you get mid-day because you are once again having a bad hair day it just might be worth it. I'll give you some brand suggestions that range from $18-40 per bottle. It sounds like a lot of money compared to the SUAVE that you have been using but it will last you a lot longer than that cheap bottle, so you can already half the cost because these shampoos are not watered down, they are concentrated so you can use less and get waaaaay more!
1. Take a shower, get in there, get your head wet. If you have color in your hair I recommend you use a cooler temperature water than the scalding hot water that my skin likes.
2. Take your brand new fancy shampoo bottle and distribute a small amount in the palm of your left hand. If you have chin length or shorter hair you will want to use a dime sized or smaller amount. If your hair is shoulder to chin length you will want to use a full dime, more like a rounded marble size. If your hair is longer than shoulder length you can use a flat quarter sized amount. Start with a very small amount, remember you can always repeat later!
3. With the appropriate sized amount of shampoo in your left hand you're going to start the most important and most missed step of shampooing. Take your right hand and put in in the palm of your left hand with the shampoo, rub that shampoo around in your palm like your washing the palms of your hands with it, this is called emulsifying! I can't believe more people don't know about it. emulsify that shampoo until it is spread like a lotion all over both of your palms, then...
4. Apply the palms of your hands to the top, back and ends of your hair to evenly distribute the suds (it will most likely be a lot less sudsy than your previous shampoo) . rub your palms together again and go back to the top of your head. Use your fingertips to massage your scalp fairly aggressively, then use those fingertips to scrub the middle back and finally your ends. This should last about a minute or so depending on how long it has been since have last washed. Rinse with a warm to cool water, again avoiding hot water if you have color in your hair.
5. If you are an infrequent washer or you just want to enjoy the experience again then repeat process. Viola. you are now a professional shampooer.

View fullsize

I know it doesn't seem like a big difference but the simple act of emulsifying activates the lovely ingredients that you paid for in your new fancy bottle of shampoo. Now tell me this method isn't better than just plopping a glob of cheap shampoo on your head and improperly rinsing leaving itchiness, dryness, or limpness where the glob was applied. Also on a side note. You do not need to wash everyday or even every other day. I typically wash my hair 2-3 times per week but get it wet and condition it everyday. Although I know some people who love that "dirty hair" feeling who will go 8-9 days without wetting or shampooing, hence dry shampoo but I'll cover that in a different post. 

Fishtail Braid

​This braid is a beauty! It looks complicated, and it is the first 4-5 times you try it, but then once you get it you will always use it. I'm sure that you've noticed by now braids are big, and they are so easy so why shouldn't they be?

Items needed: 2 pony tail holders, large toothed comb or brush, pomade, hairspray, patience and shoulder strength.

1. Brush or comb your hair away from your face towards your soon to be ponytail. Make sure to smooth out any bumps or ridges that will be bothersome. Let go of your hair.

2. Pomade up: Take a small (dime sized or less) amount of pomade and emulsify it in your palms; pretend that you're going to wash the palms of your hands with it.

3. Smooth your hair back into the ponytail evenly distributing the pomade across the top of your head and down through your ends (dirty hair makes for good braids). Apply elastic to secure ponytail smoothing and gathering right smack in the middles of your head or lower at the nape of your neck so the braid will cascade down one side and over your shoulder.

4. Divide ponytail into two even sections. Starting on your left side; grab a small piece of hair from underneath the left section at the base of your ponytail. Wrap this small section up, around and over and then join it with the right section, it is now a prt of the right section. Now the right side. Grab a small piece of hair from underneath the right section at the base of your ponytail. Wrap this section up, around and over the right section and then join it with the left section. It is now a part of the left section. 
Repeat these two steps continuously until you reach the bottom of the ponytail. 

5. Secure with small elastic ponytail holder. Beautiful.

Chlorine Removal

It's summer, you're swimming, or your kids are. All is going well until you start to notice that your hair is starting to turn a lovely shade of slimy green....ahhhhh! What do I do now? 

Fist of all let's start with what to do before you jump in that pool. Your hair is porous (especially if you are blonde) which means that it will absorb water like a sponge. So instead of absorbing all the pool water get your hair wet with tap water. You can shower rinse it, spray it with a water bottle or run it under the sink. Then take a conditioner, the thicker the better, and run it through your damp ends, but don't rinse it out, leave it in. At this point you should try to braid your hair back or put it up in a loose bun,but sometimes we just want to jump I the pool. I know this sounds like a lot of effort but when you consider the time and money we put into our hair it's really not that much. Although after I've had a few drinks by the pool most things seem like quite an effort. 

For the kids, and in this circumstance I mean girls because of the length of their hair; same rules apply try to French braid or double braid before swimming. Wet hair, towel dry, spray with leave in conditioner and braid the hair. These water lovers need it the most. They stay in until their hands get wrinkly and their lips get blue. Once they get out of the pool unfortunately you have to un-do that pretty braid and shampoo out the ends. This is a detox shampoo (try to make me go to rehab, I say no, no, no. RIP Amy Winehouse) kids and adults can use, try using it twice in a row to really build a good lather. It will gently remove the residue buildup without stripping color from your hair. Concentrate on shampooing your ends where your hair is the most porous.

More concentrated efforts for chlorine happen when it's really gotten too late. Honestly,if you are trying to repair your hair at this stage it's probably going to be too late in most circumstances. I've tried bleaching it out which doesn't remove the greenish/grayish color very much at all. I've tried bleaching and toning but you can't tone out a residue. I've tried the home remedy route, things like baking soda, vitamin c, seen tomato juice not work, then ended up removing or cutting off all of those un-happy lengths of hair anyway. Luckily most of these experiments have been on extensions which means removal is just as easy as replacement. 

I don't have full time access to a pool so I don't really suffer from this problem. These are the rules I follow when poolside. Sunscreen, hat, lip balm, cold drink, pull my hair up as high as I can and try not to get dunked but if it happens I won't regret it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

​