Stable Condition? Critical Condition?—Deep Condition!

What is the state of your hair? Is it suffering from trauma due to being over processed or heat fried? Is it dehydrated and feeling dry or brittle? Are you recovering from emergency surgery because of severe split ends? Well, don’t fear. Help is here!

With a mixture of water, humectants, oils, and maybe some protein extracts, you could be well on your way to injecting life back into your hair.

Why Condition and How

“Wash-n-Go” that’s one of the latest trends in hair styling. With less and less time in the day, many women are opting for styles that require less time in front of the mirror. But does that mean you should be spending less time caring for your hair? If anything, it’s the opposite. The time you save in styling your hair should be more time allotted to nurturing your tresses. It really only comes down to an hour a week. Can we take an hour out of our busy schedule to pamper our hair? That’s what deep conditioning involves.

It's a critical step in your healthy hair journey! And there are several benefits to conditioning your hair on a regular basis:

 ·         Maximize moisture intake

 ·         Repair cracks and holes in the hair strand

 ·         Increase strand luster or ability to reflect light

 ·         Make detangling less stressful on the hair by providing slip

 ·         Provide more hands-on time with your hair

So please, never just wash and go. Wash, deep condition, relax, relax, relax, and rinse. You won’t regret it!

Keep It Clean People

Do you remember the feeling you got when you purchased your first car? It didn’t matter if it was a Beater or a Benz. You wanted to keep your “new” car looking just like it did when you drove it off the lot—shining like a new dime!

Now think back to the first time you went to the beautyshop. Remember coming out  with your hair bouncing and feeling light as a feather? If your hairdresser was on point, your hair was looking just like that car—shining like a new dime!

So what did your hair and that new car have in common? They both just had a good deep-down clean. There’s no substitute. A little soap and water can go a long way to making you look good .

Shampooing: Why & How

As mentioned in your SOLH consultation, you can cleanse your hair with shampoo or conditioner. The most important point is to remember to cleanse often. It takes away the dust, lint, dirt, and of course left over product that can weigh the hair down. Thus causing it to loose it’s shine and ability to retain moisture. And remember moisture is the Master Key to unlocking the secret to long healthy hair.

Shampoo is the better of the two when it comes to a deep cleanse. It’s chemically designed to take dirt away from the hair. The co-wash is a fortified rinse that can take away surface pollutants while leaving the hair less stripped than the shampoo.  During your consultation we determined how often and in what proportions you should use each. As mentioned in your SOLH Hair Plan, switching the days are fine but switching the frequency will greatly hinder your progress.

The best way to cleanse your hair is in the shower. You have less opportunity for tangling your strands. Plus you're better able to access your entire head. Remember BE GENTLE. You should never come out of a cleanse with a soar scalp or headache!  If you’re unable to cleanse in the shower, your next best option is to braid the hair in loose plaits and cleanse in the sink. The plaits will decrease your detangling time afterwards drastically.

So when it comes to supporting hair growth and maintaining healthy hair -- KEEP IT CLEAN!

The Master Key--MOISTURE! (Video)

To unlock the secret to long healthy hair, you must have MOISTURE! Moisture keeps the cortex (the tootsie roll center) of your hair strand pliable and less prone to breakage. The best and most readily available moisturizer is water. I KNOW! I KNOW! We’ve been taught all of our lives that water will “dry your hair out.” And most of us have lived this summertime scenario at some point in our lives:  

After swimming (or splashing with style!) in the coolness of the pool, you hear the dreaded whistle, “REST BREAK!” Everyone scurries out of the pool to dry off and make a dash for the nearest refreshments. In the rush of it all, you forget to pull your hair back into a ponytail. By the time you finish your Choco Taco and orange drink (in a plastic water barrel, of course), your hair is on its way to looking like you just stepped out of the pool--holding a light socket! You try desperately to ponytail it now. But it’s of no use. It’s as parched as a savanna during dry season. Not to mention your legs look like you’ve been kicking flour. What happened?!

Some might say it was the water. But was it truly? Can water—the quintessential thirst quencher and re-hydrator—make you dry? Plain and simple, NO. WATER DOES NOT DRY OUT YOUR HAIR! It’s been proven time and again that water is our hair’s master key to length.  Ask any SOLHSista with long healthy hair. They will tell you that it was impossible to get any kind of length without regular moisture. Does that mean all you need to do is throw some water on your hair and go? No, you’re not a houseplant. The best way to keep the water in your hair is to team it up with other substances that will hold the water in place. That is where your water-based moisturizers come in. Whether in a spray or cream these products help your hair stay moisturized longer. We discussed these at your consultation and all SOLH Hair Packages contain either one or both.

The other key to keeping your hair moisturized is sealing in the moisture with natural oils. These oils keep the air from “sucking” the moisture out of our hair. We discussed these as well and every SOLH Hair Package contains some natural oils for sealing the hair.

So what made us so dry after being out of the pool for only 20 minutes? The same chemical that kept you from catching “Snot-nosed” Sally’s summer cold—chlorine. Chlorine is one of the many chemicals that can come in contact with our hair and cause it to dry out. Some other culprits to dryness include hard water (too many minerals), heated hair stylers, wind, and high manipulation. We’ll discuss these at length on a later date. But in the meantime, we hope you start looking at water as it truly is—a gift from heaven, for our bodies and our hair!