My New, Restorative Hair Care Routine

Here’s the deal, my hair sucks.

 

I mean, it’s really bad. I guess years and years and years of processing it with color, bleach, color, bleach, a perm (ONE TIME! thank you, mother.), numerous applications of [poorly] glued in, sewn in, keratin bonded and clip in extensions, topped off with a few boxes of dye and bottles of Sun-In here and there will do that. Yea, believe me, I’m also surprised I still have a few measly strands dangling off my scalp. 

Now, here is the other problem. I really don’t take as good care of hair as I should. In all honesty. With dry, damaged and brittle hair like mine I really should be taking the time to give it an abundance of TLC. However, I don’t. Instead, I pretend that washing it twice a week or so (to let my “natural oils” to their business..) prevents it from drying out further and does the trick. Um…no.

Last year I tried using coconut oil on my hair once or twice a week for a deep conditioning but that didn’t end well. I have zero patience so sitting around waiting for the oil to absorb was not happening. So, I along with my infinite wisdom, decided it’d be a GREAT time saver to oil up my hair before I went on a long run. I figured if I’m out for an hour or two the oil would have time to absorb and then I’d be showering right after anyway, brilliant! Brilliant. Yes. Except, I made this decision in December. Oh, and I ran while it was snowing. Long story short? Post run, my hair was rock hard, I could barely wipe a snowflake off. Then, the oil didn’t even come out in the shower!! My hair stayed hard for the first fifteen minutes of my shower. I blowed it out and…yup, it never dried. It was still drenched in oil. My hair was all separated, stiff and stringy. After a hysterical meltdown I showered again, washed and blowed again…it dried about 85% of the way but was still a little oily and stringy in the back. 

From that day on, I vowed to only use coconut oil in baking.

Then, this past March, only a few days out of surgery (I was still quite a bit drugged up) I decided to just chop it all off. I cut off close to five inches thinking it’d magically become healthy once the dead ends were gone it would grow back into this glorious, full, long, healthy mane! Yea, no. No, it did not. It stayed right above my shoulders in this horrifically ugly, boxy bob that made my face look fat. 

It’s now December, almost a year later and it’s finally starting to come back (barely a few inches) and it’s still not what I want or used to have. Ugh. 

So I’ve already decided that I’m just going to go off the deep end and invest in permanent bonded extensions that I’m going to maintain for forever. Yes. I have given up. I’m taking the plunge.

BUT!

I’m not doing that just yet. They’re an investment and require a lot of care. I want to get into a good routine now so I’m used to it by the time I get them done. Plus, I want my hair to be as healthy as possible when I get them. 

So yesterday I marched my little tush over to Ulta Beauty and picked up some different hair treatments. I bought different things that I have tried samples of, so I knew they worked for me. I tried my new routine out yesterday and even Dan noticed a difference. Already, my hair felt softer and even looked shinier. So, my goal is to use this treatment at least 3-4 times a week and really make caring for my hair a priority. Instead of just calling it shit and treating it as such I’m going to try and really give it what it needs.

This is what I did yesterday and what I hope to continue to do. 

First, I used this anti-breakage shampoo (I always shampoo twice because I have naturally oily hair and by the time I wash it-after teaching and working out-it really needs the double dose). It’s a cheapy shampoo and I’m not sure if it’s the best thing for my hair but at the least it smells really good and I still have about half the bottle left. I didn’t want to purchase a new one and just throw this out. So once I finish this I’ll invest in a higher quality anti-breakage shampoo. Isn’t it so annoying that the cheap drugstore shampoos always smell so much better than the salon quality stuff?! Salon quality ones just smell kind of chemically to me, or they don’t have much of a scent. I’m sure the yummy scents of the drugstore brands are just there to mask the crappy ingredients, sulfates and alcohols in the product 😦 sigh.

My next step was conditioning with that Jason Biotin conditioner. I have used both the shampoo and conditioner from this line (I purchased them at Whole Foods) and I really like the conditioner. The shampoo was ok, but like I said, I have very oily hair and I didn’t think the shampoo was strong enough for me. Even after several washes my hair still looked a bit greasy after using it. I tried taking Biotin in supplement form but some people are prone to break outs from Biotin and I most certainly am one of them. My OBGYN was actually the one to recommend this product to me. The smell is ok; it’s good but not my favorite.

 

After the conditioner sat for a few minutes, I rinsed it out and rubbed a glob of this MoroccanOil mask into my strands. Mmmmm, now this stuff smells heavenly. Easily my favorite salon quality product scent. The directions say to let the mask sit for ten minutes and that’s just what I did. I applied it in the shower and took the ten minute wait time to shave, wash my body and face, etc. I rinsed it out at the end of my shower using cold water. I’ve heard cold water helps lock the conditioner in so I figured a cold rinse couldn’t hurt. 

After my shower, I rang my hair out with my hands and put it up in a towel turban. I’m going to try and stop putting it up like that as I’ve heard even using the towel is bad for your hair because it can break the strands. Everything breaks my strands so I’m sure this applies to me. After sitting in the towel for about ten minutes I rubbed in a dime sized amount of that Argan Oil. I have been using a sample of this oil for the passed few weeks and have noticed a difference. My hair is definitely silkier and shinier. Also, it has heat protectant in it and I’m trying to really protect my hair in any way I can. This product also smells great, similar scent to the MoroccanOil. Then, with the oil in, I combed through my hair. Next I used that Macadamia leave in cream, which I love. I’ve been using that leave in cream for a few months and have noticed a considerable difference in the texture of my hair. It drinks this stuff up and has felt much less dry and brittle! It also has a nice, tropical-ish scent. When my shampoo runs out I’m going to try the shampoo from this line. After these guys were in I blew out my hair. I let it dry a lot before blowing so I don’t use heat on it for too long. I don’t use a brush when I blow I pretty much just flip my head over and use my hands to shake my hair around while blowing from every different direction. I’m no pro, clearly. Once it’s mostly dry I blast it with the cool setting. I don’t dry it 100% and I let it finish air drying while I apply my makeup. My hair is naturally pin straight so I can get away with this drying routine. Well, I guess there’s one positive about my hair!

 

Finally, after my makeup is done and my hair is fully dry I run through it with a flat iron just to get all the fly aways in place. I really just focus on the ends because I’m still trying to grow out this horrible haircut which left my hair all thick and poofy at the bottom. Ugh. It’s awful. So the flat iron just hides that. I know it’s the worst thing to do to your hair and I try to use it as little as possible. Plus I have a good quality iron and use the lowest setting, hopefully that helps. I need to invest in another heat protectant to spray or rub on before using my dryer and iron. The last step in all of this is rubbing a small amount of this serum through my ends. I love this stuff. It smells like summer heaven and really makes my hair look glossy and healthy. It does wonders for masking my split ends! 

Lastly, I’m trying to incorporate more healthy fats into my diet as they are essential to hair growth and health. Some of the foods I’ve been adding in include salmon (which I usually have for lunch), spinach, walnuts, whole eggs, low fat dairy and anything orange (sweet potatoes, carrots, apricots, etc). These foods contain essential healthy fats, various anti oxidants (like beta-carotene, which I thought was just for your eyes but apparently it’s great for your hair, too!) and Vitamin A which is essential for hair growth!

We’ll see how this works, hopefully it helps!

xox