Basic Hair Care Tips: Do This, Don't Do That

Hi Ladies! I thought I would just do a really quick basic hair care tips post for you today. I know when I was first researching how to properly care for my hair a lot of the information I was looking for was all over the place, and I also read some conflicting information. So let's get to it...

Don't  use a bath towel on your hair. Bath towels are made of terry cloth, which you can see when you look at it, has loops and a generally rougher surface. All of that texture on your towel is just awful for your hair. Your hair cuticle is basically like a roof; layers overlap layers, and the cuticle is delicate. All those loops on your bath towel "catch" on your hair cuticles and rough them up and damage them. I highly recommend using flour sack towels or an old soft t-shirt, which both have very smooth surfaces and are much more gentle on your hair.

Don't wash your hair daily. This is a huge one, and is hard to manage for some of us, believe me I know. When I wear my hair natural, i.e. curly, I cannot, no matter what I do, get decent second day hair. So I basically just have to pull it into a messy bun, it's literally my only option. Washing your hair too frequently is just awful for your hair, it's drying, it strips hair of protein and moisture. The less often you can wash your hair, the healthier it will be, and the longer it will grow.

Use your heating tools on the lowest setting you can. The more heat you use on your hair, the more damaging it is. You're essentially baking your hair every time you use your curling iron or flat iron, so turn down the heat as low as you can. All that high heat use on your hair dries your hair out, makes your hair strands brittle which in turn makes your hair more prone to breakage. High heat styling tools can also literally melt your hair off, I know we've all seen the video on YouTube of the girl accidentally melting off a chunk of hair. Don't be that girl.

Don't overdo it with the hair color changes. I am personally guilty of this offense, I used to change my hair color monthly. It's really hard on your hair, and just leads to more problems. The more damaged your hair becomes from all the dye jobs, the more difficult it is to get it to "hold" a color. When you dye your hair, the dye molecules basically insert themselves under your hair cuticle. Remember our roof analogy? Well imagine under each roof shingle, dye molecules are pushed under there. The more you damage your hair with dye and heat and all the things we put our hair through, the more shingles start breaking off. Well if you're missing roof shingles, the dye molecules aren't being held in place, and that gorgeous chocolate brown hair you wanted just washes away. This is especially a problem with red hair dye, as red has the largest color molecule. So ladies pick a hue and stick with it for a while.


What's your biggest piece of advise on properly caring for your hair???