Are you using a heat protectant before styling your hair with hot tools? If not, you may be damaging your hair.
Hot styling tools are known to cause damage and breakage to your hair. Despite this fact, we continue using hot styling tools such as blow dryers and straighteners to style our hair. This is likely due to the efficacy, ease, and quickness of hot styling tools. While there are some alternative methods to styling hair without heat, they often require more time and a less polished look.
Thankfully, there is a way you can style your hair with hot styling tools and cause less damage. Less damage means healthier, shinier, stronger, and more beautiful hair.
So what’s the secret? Heat protectant products.
Heat protectant products are hair-care products that are applied before styling your hair with hot tools. They are often used on damp hair, before blow-drying or using curling irons, straighteners, or any other heat styling tools. These products can come in the form of a spray, serum, or mousse.
How do they work?
Heat protectant products act as a protective barrier between your hair and the heat imposed by styling tools. This protective shield prevents the heat from permeating the hair strand and damaging the fragile follicle.
While heat protectant products may not eliminate heat damage completely, they can greatly reduce the effects. Besides keeping your hair healthy and less damaged, the products are often infused with vitamins and oils which improve the texture and appearance of your hair.
Next time you style your hair, consider using a heat protectant product first.
Tag Archives: hair breakage
8 things you should never do to your hair
There are some things that should just be plain avoided if you’re wanting to have healthy, strong, beautiful hair. Certain behaviors, products, and habits you do every day may be causing your hair to become damaged, dull, frizzy, and to stop growing.
Below is a list of 8 things you should avoid to keep your hair growing, healthy, strong, and beautiful.
- Sleeping in your hair products – sleeping in your hair gel, hairspray, or mousse can irritate the scalp and cause buildup. Buildup on the scalp means clogged pores and suffocated hair follicles. Make sure to wash or rinse the hair products out of your hair before bed.
- Hair ties – have you ever noticed fly-aways or hair breakage about halfway down the hair strand? This is caused by tight hair bands. When you wear your hair in a tight hair tie it causes delicate surface strands to break, leaving you with a frizzy, damaged ‘do. Try hair clips instead. You get the same look with less damage.
- Towel-drying hair with cotton towels – tying your hair up in a towel post-wash is a very common practice. But it may actually be causing hair damage. Cotton bath towels are rough on our locks. The fibers grip and pull on the hair, contributing to frizz and breakage. Your best bet – go for a microfiber towel instead. You’ll notice your hair will dry faster and look better.
- Hot styling tools on damp hair – hot styling tools like straighteners and curling irons should never be used on damp hair. After washing our hair, the cuticle is open. This means your hair is in an extremely fragile state. Applying hot tools on it will cause damage deep into the cuticle. This means dullness, frizz, breakage, and split ends. Practice patience and wait until your hair is dry.
- Direct, unprotected sun exposure – this one is extremely important for those with dyed hair. Not only will the sun change the color of your hair, it will contribute to dryness, which means brittle, straw-like feeling hair. Consider changing your products to ones with SPF in them. And if you plan on spending time in the sun, wear a hat to protect your locks and color.
- Sleeping with hair in a ponytail, bun, or tight braid – your hair needs rest to. Give it a break and refrain from tying it up tight in a ponytail, bun, or braid. As you move around in your sleep, your hair is being stretched and pulled. This tension, also known as traction alopecia, can cause breakage and hair loss over time.
- Weaves – weaves are another tension hair loss culprit. Weaves are sewn into the tightly braided natural hair. This tension lasts for an extended period of time and wreaks havoc on the hair follicles. With continued use, you will experience hair loss known as traction alopecia. For which, there is no cure or reversal method, only hair transplantation.
- Over-styling hair – our hair needs a break sometimes too. Constantly using hot styling tools and products on our hair can quickly cause damage, breakage, and dullness. Every few days let your hair go au natural to give it a break from styling and products.
