Hair Care -- demystified! -- with Aquarius

[Aquarius]

Ok, so periodically questions about hair come up in other threads, as they have recently in the Expanse Fit Club section. Rather than hijack the thread with an explanation there, I decided it might be good to open a thread were you can ask your questions.

THIS COMES WITH A CAVIAT: I can't *see* your hair. This is stuff you should be asking your regular stylist, because he/she is the one who has his/her fingers in your locks every 4-8 weeks. (If you are waiting longer than 8 weeks, you are waiting too long!) But I can make suggestions, explain how things work, and give you an idea of what you should be asking your stylist when you go in.

The question I was about to respond to in the other thread was about dry hair and Frizz-Ease.

Frizz-Ease is NOT meant for restoring moisture to dry hair!

If you look at hair under a microscope, it's covered in a scaly-looking cuticle layer. Coarse, curly hair needs to have that cuticle straight and smooth instead of bent, if you're trying to have a straighter style or to not have a frizzy afro on humid days. A product like Frizz-Ease is meant to TEMPORARILY smooth down that cuticle. It does NOT restore moisture balance to the hair!

If your cuticle is roughened up due to chemical treatment or general dryness (dry climate, heat on in your house all winter, etc), you must use moisturizing shampoos and conditioners! The stuff from the drug store generally has more wax in it, so while it makes your hair appear softer and smoother, it's actually just putting a coating over your hair. People swear by Pantene, but it doesn't really do anything for you -- your hair is all shiny because of all the panthenol in it (where Pantene gets its name from -- Pantene = panthenol), but it hasn't really made your hair healthy, and all the wax in it (which makes it "cheaper") is kind of defeating the purpose.

If your hair is super dry, I like to recommend Joico daily moisturizer to most clients. The chemists at Joico have formulated their shampoos and conditioners to use ingredients with the smallest molecules possible, ensuring that the product more easily penetrates the cuticle layer so it can actually do something, vs. just sit on the outside. How often you use this will depend on how thin/fine or thick/coarse your hair is. If using it every time is too heavy for your hair, switch to using it every other time or once a week, and use a lighter conditioner the other times.

(Hard water can also make hair frizzier and harder to deal with. There's a whole other answer for that problem.)

Also, remember that no products take the place of good, regular trims. Once your hair is damaged, it's damaged. You can help to prevent it from getting damaged more, you can cosmetically correct the damage to a point, and you can keep it from spreading further up the shaft where the hair is likely to be more healthy. But the only thing that *really* gets rid of dry, damaged ends is cutting them off. Not what most people want to hear, but it's true!

Hope this helped.

[Artisticmom2]

Yes, it helped and no, not quite. I will look into the Joico products but my hair is like Hermione Granger's. One big fizz...more so in humid weather... but it only lays flat if I don't wash it for 2-3 days, and even then I still have a little halo. Although... my poor daughter has both mine and my husband's hair... I married a man with kinky curly hair... in the 70s he was the only blue eyed white boy in his class with a big blond afro! Her hair is dry AND kinky!

What you said is true... <saying sheepishly> I should really have a RL stylist I go to... on a regular basis...every 6-8 weeks... <AM2 hangs head like bad puppy>

This all ties back into the Fit thread... taking care of oneself in all areas of life, including regular haircuts!

[Brandyjane]

Cool! Thanks! So...here's another question. What brand of hair dye do you think is best? I know, I know - I really should let the professionals handle it. Unfortunately my checkbook can't handle that. Is there a particular brand that fades less than the others?

[lfvoy]

Expanse Fit Club? Did I miss something?

[Aquarius]

Yes, it helped and no, not quite. I will look into the Joico products but my hair is like Hermione Granger's. One big fizz...more so in humid weather... but it only lays flat if I don't wash it for 2-3 days, and even then I still have a little halo. Although... my poor daughter has both mine and my husband's hair... I married a man with kinky curly hair... in the 70s he was the only blue eyed white boy in his class with a big blond afro! Her hair is dry AND kinky!

What you said is true... <saying sheepishly> I should really have a RL stylist I go to... on a regular basis...every 6-8 weeks... <AM2 hangs head like bad puppy>

This all ties back into the Fit thread... taking care of oneself in all areas of life, including regular haircuts!

How do you wear it? I mean, do you wear it curly/wavy? Do you try to blow it out straight? From the other thread, I understood that your issue was dry hair. If you have both issues going on, and you're trying to straighten it or something, or you want better-defined wave or curl, then there's more to the "cure".

[Aquarius]

Cool! Thanks! So...here's another question. What brand of hair dye do you think is best? I know, I know - I really should let the professionals handle it. Unfortunately my checkbook can't handle that. Is there a particular brand that fades less than the others?

You're not going to like my answer...but it's the only one I've got. (sorry)

As a professional, I simply do not have the training on over the counter stuff, except to know that when they sell you the stuff in the box, the assumption is that everybody needs the same thing to get a certain result. The reason you have to pay me more to do it is because you're paying for my knowledge and expertise. When we open a swatch book and you point and say "I want this color," it's not as simple as going to the back and grabbing the tube labeled with that color and TA-DAH, you're that color in 30 minutes. Because I have to take into account things like how light/dark your natural color is, the tones in that base, what YOU'VE done to it chemically, porosity, etc, sometimes I have to mix something completely different in order to land you anywhere near the color you want.

Also, box color is insidious when it comes to corrective color. You should see what we have to do to get that out of your hair when clients decide that it didn't turn out how they wanted and want us to fix it. Box colors often contain metallic dyes that are bad for your hair and incompatible with any other type of haircoloring -- which means most any attempt to change your color is going to end up long and expensive.

I know y'all are gonna do what you're gonna do in terms of home coloring, but as a professional I can't in good conscience say "buy this one, it's great". There's a reason we don't use it in the salons.

Sorry, I know that's not what you were looking for, but I promised to give the professional end of it.

[lfvoy]

Perhaps a different question then?

The one time I got my hair colored professionally (which was many moons ago) it washed out within ten days. Frustrated, I did the bottle thing and it stayed in. My suspicion is that this could have been caused by the fact that I kept using the grocery store shampoo and conditioner after the professional work. In other words, the damaged hair reacted to products that damage hair but not to the good stuff.

Any comments? What do you recommend in terms of care to maintain color?

[Aquarius]

Without knowing your natural haircolor (in industry terms and not lay terms, because just about everybody thinks they have something different than what they actually have), it's condition at the time of coloring (elasticity, porosity, what your water at home is like, etc.), whether or not you had chemically treated hair at the time of service, what brand the stylist used, how strong she mixed it, etc. -- I can't answer your question. Could the stylist have f'd up? Sure. Could they be using shitty color? sure. Could you have had some kind of buildup in your hair that the first color service stripped out between the ammonia and peroxide, but not enough to deposit anything into your hair? Sure. Could what you have bought have been one of those metallic dyes, so great, it stayed, but good luck getting it out when you want a change? Sure.

Too many variables for me to say over the web. Sorry. But you see now how complex this really is. Not all products are created equally even in the professional realm, and even the best ones are only as good as the stylist using them.

[Aquarius]

Expanse Fit Club? Did I miss something?

It was born out of this thread. Anyone who wants to is welcome to join, but because of the personal nature of each person's journey into weight loss/and or fitness, the actual fit club is kept invisible to anyone who is not a group member. People are posting pictures, weights, etc., and that's just not stuff a lot of folks are comfortable with everybody seeing. We'll show each other in the club, but no random guests or whatever.

If you would like to join, you can PM Honeybee or myself and we'll fix it up for you.

[Artisticmom2]

How do you wear it? I mean, do you wear it curly/wavy? Do you try to blow it out straight? From the other thread, I understood that your issue was dry hair. If you have both issues going on, and you're trying to straighten it or something, or you want better-defined wave or curl, then there's more to the "cure".

Aquarius: my hair is dry, but neither coarse nor fine. Somewhere in between. Today it is nice and smooth with little frizz but I haven't washed it for 4 days. The only hair that feels coarse is the grey that is coming in on the sides... the grey also loves to stick out!
As to how I wear it, I usually wear it up in a bun, or a twist, or pulled back or braided...or, or, or (you get the picture). While I love to play with it I hate having it in my face so it is very rarely down and when it is it don't know how to keep it looking nice except for adding hair spray. So I said all that to say this... my hair IS straight. When it is short, it is stick straight (except the cowlick ) When it is longer, but down, there is a wave to it from whatever style I've had it up in.

I couldn't care less if it is wavy or straight. I just want less frizz. Will the Joico help with that even at times when hair is prone to frizz, like extreme humidity or extreme dry air? If so, can I only get it through a salon?

And would you believe... my mother is a stylist. This is a case of the shoemaker's kid... I can barely use a curling iron without getting it stuck in my hair, or a roll brush, and my blow dryer is from the 80's...