BUH-BYE BRASS
You. Guys.
My bff lives across the country. I am on the East Coast, she is on the West Coast. I would give anything to be her regular stylist, but- distance. We have recently given up texting, for voice messages, and she sent me a message the other day that had me dying to write this post. It is all too real, and something I hear so often.
I screen grabbed her message, because I had to share. Take a second to listen. Can you relate?
First of all, I love that my bestie can read my mind from across the country. As she was speaking, I was wondering if she had changed her shower head to filter out her hard water.
HARD WATER CHECK
Hard water can wreak havoc on your hair. Most of us jump in the shower and don’t think twice about the quality of the water that is raining down on us. We trust it is doing it’s job of aiding in our cleansing process. But here are the “hard” truths.
Minerals like Calcium and Magnesium that are in hard water can not only build up in your hair, they can fade your color, make your hair feel dull or slimy, cause hair damage or breakage, and even cause hair thinning and hair loss.
I think it’s safe to say that our water quality is kind of a big deal. If you have never tested your water, grab a test.
Your water is all good? Great! Read on to the next section.
Your water is no bueno for your delicate hair and skin. Now what?
The next step would be to get a filtering showerhead. Just like you would get a Brita (or the like) for your drinking water. A good hardwater showerhead will have a changeable filter, like this one.
You can find the hard water test here, and the showerhead here.
SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN, CLEAN
Look, I get it. You have to wash your hair every single day or it is a greasy, disgusting mess. (And you must have missed my post on hair training).
Whatever your washing your hair cycle is, there is no judgement here, I assure you. My job is to present you with brain food to help make educated choices, and hopefully make life a bit easier.
Let’s start with how often you are washing. If you have highlighted, balayaged, or lightened hair, your gloss/toner will typically last 6-8 weeks, or about 24 washes. The gloss or toner is what delivers your champagne, beige and boujee, ice queen, butter, or caramel color. It is the secret sauce to your coveted tone-of-blonde of the moment. This is why gloss maintenance is so important. But I digress.
If you are 3-6 months post service and you’re complaining about brassy tones on your lived-in-color, it is not your stylist’s fault. Girl, get a gloss.
If you are 2 weeks in, and your blonde is looking brassy and trashy, and you already know that your water quality is a-okay, my next question is always going to be what kind of shampoo/conditioner are you using.
Real talk. Your stylist isn’t trying to pull one over on you by suggesting the $20+ bottle of professional product. There is a real reason. You probably just paid a pretty penny of your hard earned cash for your hair. We want to protect your investment. Drugstore hair products are just not going to cut it. I’m sorry. You can look up a million YouTube videos or watch Brad Mondo test out multiple brands, but the results are still the same. Further more, you use twice (or more) as much product with drug store brands, than professional product. In the end, you are paying the same amount. I tell every single client, less is more, when it comes to professional products. Add more water, not product. And before you pull a fast one with going to Marshalls, TJ MAXX, Ross or the like, so many of these products are too old to use, or even worse, not the actual product. Same goes for Amazon with ONE exception. Many product lines have put their own products up on Amazon, so as long as you are buying from the actual manufacturer, it’s all good.
My absolute fav product line is Design.ME Hair. I recommend the GlossME line for oodles of weightless hydration and strength, and the PuffME line for va-va-voom volume for days. If you need a great dry shampoo, I also recommend Design.ME Hair’s QuickieME, which comes formulated for light/blonde shades and dark/brunette shades.
HOT AS HELL
But Nic, my water is good, I only wash twice a week, I use professional products. What gives?
My final check is heat. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You bake most food at 350 degrees, you do not need to bake your hair at that heat too.
First of all, there should be zero heat exposed to your hair without a heat protector on your hair first. Just like you protect your skin from the sun by using sunscreen, you should be doing the same service to your hair with a heat protector.
It is never going to be okay to run a flat iron, curling iron, wand, etc on your hair every day. Its not healthy, and it is going to fry your hair. It is also going to fade your color. Big time.
I recommend FabME, by Design.ME, to protect your hair from anything and everything. It gives your hair a mega boost of strength, nourishment, hydration and sun and heat protection.
KEEPING IT REAL
If absolutely none of these things apply to you, your hair could be extremely porous due to over processing. This is a tough pill to swallow. When your hair is overly damaged, it just will not hold your color. There is nothing for the color molecules to cling to. You need to consult with your stylist to talk about options of bond building, like adding Olaplex or Brazilian Bond Builder (B3) to your service. You need to build up your hair’s strength and commit to getting it healthy.
Communicating with your stylist is key. You need to go over home care, and be totally upfront and honest. Your stylist wants you to love your hair. This means you need to be truthful about any home-hair-jobs, that one time you tried out another stylist, or when your neighbor/niece/friend-of-a-friend who went to hair school did it because you were desperate and didn’t pre-book your appointment. No matter what happened, we won’t judge. We just need the truth. We can handle it. Your hair’s health depends on your honesty.
As always if I didn’t cover something in this post, or you have a topic related question, comment below or send me an email. I am here to help.
