I’ve been trying to stay away from using heat tools on my hair (aka curling wands, straighteners, blow dryers, ect). The fine texture of my wavy locks means that it easily becomes brittle when exposed to heat. Brittle hair breaks and healthy looking length is lost. Sad day! But sometimes you just can’t avoid heat! Here’s my best tips for you (the same things I do for my own hair) to help make sure your hair receives minimal damage when undergoing styling with heat tools.
Don’t blow dry if possible!
Let your hair air dry if you know you’ll have to curl or straighten it later. If you must blow dry, let it air dry about 80%.
Use a heat protectant spray before styling.
Make sure you let the moisture dry out of your hair before applying heat!
Start with the lowest setting of heat possible to curl or straighten your hair.
Why apply big heat when little heat do trick? (Where my Office fans at? hehe)
When curling, try leaving ends out.
Leaving your ends out of the curling iron (about an inch) creates a very laid back look that is very popular right now. However, I do it to prevent damaging my ends that tend to damage easily already!
Curl and straighten in larger sections.
Grab larger sections of hair to prevent putting too much heat on individual strands.
Don’t hold heat to hair too long!
You know your hair and how long it takes to style it. So, don’t hold a section on the wand longer than needed and don’t straighten the same section again and again! I use to watch girls do this in high school and it stressed me out! More time is not always the answer to setting a look.
Deep condition on your next wash.
After applying heat, use a deep conditioning mask on your hair the next time you wash. This helps restore moisture.
Though the only way to really avoid heat damage is to not use heat, these tips will at least help minimize the effects. Let me know what you do to protect your hair in the comments!
Happy Thursday!
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