Love Your Hair

I'm not a #wokeuplikethis kind of person.  And it's not just because I'm older.  I've been an insomniac for most of my life starting in childhood. People who don't sleep much don't really have the opportunity to "just wake up looking gorgeous."  Then there were the baby years in my early 20s and now I'm nearly 40 and a good night's sleep is precious thing to me, but even if I do get it, I still usually look like I crawled out of a diaper fire on a humid beach (it's even worse when I travel) and I thank God for a little smoothing under the eyes in Photoshop for some of these early morning photos, but I do expect a little more from my hair than it has been delivering the past few years.

 

I remember when my mother turned 30 or so she started getting up every Saturday and Sunday and styling her hair even if we weren't going anywhere.  I thought it was odd that she couldn't just be herself around her family, but she said she felt better about herself when her hair was styled even if no one else saw it.  I never thought much about my hair and I do not enjoy styling it, but in the past couple of years I have noticed my hair becoming impossibly dry, damaged, and frizzy and as it has worn on my self esteem a little.  I now see what my mum was talking about.

I was so frustrated that something had to change or I was going to go all 2007 Britney and shave my head so I could start over.  Chances are there are a lot of you out there who can relate to this sentiment, but I want to encourage you to put down the electric shaver and devote some time to a little hair love.  I did a little research and decided to make some changes to my hair care routine and some of these tips may help you as well.  Personally, I have several factors at play here and all of them needed to be addressed: A. I color my hair.  B.  I straighten my hair.  C. My shampoo.  D. I have gray hair.  E.  A Plethora of Styling Products

Because red hair dye tends to fade more quickly than other colors, I always touched up all of my hair at the end of coloring my roots for an extra 5-10 minutes.  And because I have gray hair the type of dye that I use is no joke.  It's serious stuff to cover all the gray.  Those two things alone can lead to brittle damaged hair.  In order to address this issue, I kept the same brand (for now), but I only color my roots.  Instead of touching up, I've switched to a basic wash out color for the ends that intensifies my color, but there's no damage.

Although I use heat protectant sprays and creams, I was straightening my hair at least three times a week on high heat.  In my fight against the frizz I was actually creating more frizz by straightening so much.  I decided to just give my hair a rest and only straighten if it's absolutely necessary, which is a maximum of twice a month instead of three times a week.  The rest of the time I'm letting it go au natural and trying to work with whatever wildness that produces without any products.  I was using a lot of things on my hair to try to make it healthier, but honestly all that gunk wasn't helping and I think it feels best when there's nothing on it at all.

I grew up shampooing my hair everyday.  Then, as an adult, and particularly during the baby years, I switched to every other day and conditioning every day.  Now, with my hair being so dry, I noticed I could go three to four days without shampooing or conditioning and even then only my roots looked greasy.  After three days the rest of my hair was just starting to look normal.  So, I took a cue from the No-Poo-November trend (which is about stopping shampooing not trips to the toilet) and took a whole month in which I only washed my hair once a week.  It was gross, not even gonna sugar-coat that, but my hair did seem to improve.  Now I'm maintaining at shampooing twice a week.

Lately, I've been really thinking about going back to my natural color, which includes several prominent gray streaks.  The trouble is that my hair is so damaged my stylist informed me that it couldn't withstand a dramatic change and I don't like the idea of red mixed with dark brown streaks while it grows out as she suggested.  But, while I was researching I did learn a lot about sulfate-free shampoos.  I decided to make the switch about a month ago and, I think my hair is really improving.

Sulfates are great at stripping grease and dead skin and other nasties from your hair, but they also strip out dyes and natural oils that protect your hair.  Not everyone needs to make the change, but for me I can tell my color is lasting longer and my hair is looking healthier in a far more dramatic way than all those other changes I made combined.

It's not perfect, it's not even great, but I'm way happier with it now than I have been in ages.  And there are more and more mornings lately in which I can honestly say, why yes, I #wokeuplikethis --at least with my hair anyway.

Shopping Info: Notch Neck Lantern Sleeve Tie Front Striped Top from Shein, Ribbon Maxi Skirt by Free People