Oily hair can be a bit of a pain, but dry hair is never any fun. Dry hair tends to be dull, with little shine or gloss and it can also be fairly unmanageable, particularly when you use straighteners or curling irons. Dry hair often equals frizz and so styling, managing and maintaining your hair can be tricky. Luckily, there are a few home remedies that you can take advantage of to keep your locks looking strong, shiny and lustrous. Take a look at some of the tips below for ultra-shiny, ultra-glossy and ultra-manageable hair, but first, we’ll take a look at some of the most common causes of dry hair.
What Causes Dry Hair?
Some people have naturally dry hair, but others end up with dry hair because of a number of external factors, such as the environment, or internal factors, such as an illness. Chlorine from swimming pools can cause dry, brittle hair while hair dye and hair perms can also cause issues. Using external heat sources such as a hair dryer or hair straightener, exposure to heat and wind and shampooing too often, as well as using harsh shampoos can also cause dryness. Avoiding these environmental factors is the first step in getting strong and silky locks, although there are a number of home remedies that you can use to make your hair even softer.
Wash Your Hair Every 2-3 Days
This might sound a little strange – after all, most of us believe that washing our hair multiple times in a day = squeaky clean and healthy hair. But that’s not true. Washing your hair multiple times in a day, or even every day, can actually strip the naturally occurring oils from your hair, leaving your hair lank and lifeless. Washing your hair too infrequently will also cause a build-up of oils in the hair, leaving hair greasy. Every 2-3 days is just about the right amount – not too much and not too little.
Be Gentle
If you regularly find yourself twirling your hair around your fingers or snapping off split ends, our advice to you is to stop messing with it! Be gentle with your hair – that includes using soft bristle brushes or brushes made with natural fibers and using natural or organic shampoos and conditioners. Quit twirling your hair around your fingers, too!
Use Conditioner
Sounds obvious, but many gals skip the conditioner, just because it shaves a little time off of their beauty routine. If you have dry hair, you desperately need to condition it every time you wash your hair. Use a conditioner with a really low alcohol content – the higher the alcohol content, the more drying the conditioner will be. Generally, if the conditioner is fragrance-free, it’ll have a fairly low alcohol content. If your hair is really dry, use an overnight conditioner – just slather it onto your hair, cover hair with a shower cap and wash it out in the morning.
Embrace Oils
Hair oils are the new buzzword in hair and beauty and with little surprise – they can turn even the lankest and dullest of locks into soft, fluffy and beautiful hair with just two drops. Look for nourishing hair oils and apply them to the mid-lengths to the tips only – applying them to the roots of your hair will just make your hair really greasy. You can either apply hair oils whilst your hair is damp as a blow-drying aid, or when your hair is completely dry as a finishing touch. If your hair is still dry at the roots, think about mixing a little hair oil into your shampoo.
If you don’t want to use a chemical hair oil, mix together a little natural coconut oil, hazelnut oil, avocado oil and virgin olive oil in a saucepan. Heat until just warm – not scalding – and spread over the mid-lengths to tips of hair. Wrap with a towel, remove and then wash out using a gentle shampoo. Use this treatment just once a week and avoid the scalp as much as you possibly can – these types of oils can leave hair greasy at the roots, even after multiple washes, so take real care to massage in the oil from the mid-lengths to tips only.
Pace Your Hair Treatments
Women love to have shiny, glossy, colored hair – and we put up with a multitude of different hair treatments to get the perfect glossy mane, such as hair dye, highlights, perms and straightening treatments. If you must put your hair through all that damage, pace your hair treatments out over the course of at least a few months, rather than a few days to avoid damaging your hair too much at once.
Add Vinegar
Vinegar is a really simple way to improve shine and prevent dryness – and you can use it in literally hundreds of ways. Massage it onto the scalp before shampooing to prevent a dry scalp, rinse hair after washing or mix a little vinegar into your shampoo to improve hair texture.
Egg it Up
Eggs are a surprisingly good way to nourish moisture-starved locks – but you have to be careful when washing them out so that you don’t wind up with poached egg on top of your head. You can mix eggs with a little oil and vinegar to use as a pre-shampooing treatment, or you can simply massage eggs right through the lengths of your hair before washing out. Wash out any eggy treatments at a low temperature – too high a temperature will result in straggly bits of poached eggs throughout your hair.
Got any fabulous hair care tips that we haven’t shared? Let us know in the comments!