Care For Your Hair This Summer

Summer is an amazing time of year. Warm weather, shorts and beaches, what else could we want? Amazing hair perhaps?

The sun, the pool, beaches, everything we love about summer damages our hair. Don’t worry though, there are some simple tricks to protecting your hair while enjoying your summer.

Chlorine Pools and salt water

Swimming is a summer staple. We go to the local pools, or the beach for a dip to cool down. We lay out near the water and soak up that sweet vitamin D.
Chlorine is great at killing bad bacteria in the water to keep it clean and safe to swim in, but comes at a cost. The chemicals are so good at their job that they also strip the natural oils out of our hair and off our skin.  Without these oils we have no protection and we dry out. When our skin gets dry it can get flaky and itchy.
Our hair gets dry and it becomes brittle and weak, making it more prone to breakage, split ends and color fading. Thankfully we can prevent all of that.
Wetting your hair prior to jumping in will help prevent your hair from absorbing too much chlorine.  Our hair is like a sponge. When dry it will soak up the the chlorinated water. However, if you wet it first it will already be full of water, therefore it won’t absorb as much of the chlorinated water. For extra protection, use a styling oil after wetting to add a protective barrier.
After swimming always take a good shower. Wash all the chlorine off your skin and out of your hair. Using a gentle clarifying shampoo with help cleanse your hair of chlorine, and prevent build up if you are a frequent swimmer. Condition and moisturize after cleansing. Putting the moisture back into your hair and skin will help heal any damage and keep your hair shiny and your skin soft.

The Sun

We all know that we need to protect our skin from the harmful rays of the sun. Did you know we also need to protect our hair? The sun causes our hair to lose moisture, which makes our hair dry and more brittle. It can also cause color alteration, to both colored and natural hair. Your colored hair will fade faster when unprotected and become dull. Natural hair will lighten and will often become brassy.
There are many products available today that offer UV protection for your hair. Most come in a spray that you mist through your hair. Some Leave-in treatments will have UV protectors in them.  Your stylist can give you recommendations on which ones would work best for you and your hair.
Hats are another way to help protect, not only your hair, but also your skin. Our scalps are sensitive to the suns rays and the required UV protection for our hair isn’t the same as what is needed for our skin. The skin around the part and hairline can often get burnt, sometimes with out us even noticing, causing dry and itchy skin.
You can put sunscreen on your part, and always around your hair line, but the best way to protect is with a hat. Find one you love and it could change your summer for the better.

Heat Styling

Blow-dryers, flat irons and curling irons are all tools we use to style our hair. We all know that heat is a double edged sword. Although it helps us shape our hair into amazing styles it also causes damage, drying our hair out. That is more true in the summer, when so many other things are fighting to dry our hair out.
Heat protectant and Leave-in conditioners are your hair’s best friend when it comes to heat styling. Before you pick up any heat tool and put it to your hair you need to be applying heat protectant.
They work by coating your hair and acting as a barrier to the damage, some even go a step farther and help repair while they protect.  This is another product your stylist can help you pick, everyone’s hair is different – so what my hair needs might not be what your hair needs.
Summer can get warm, and heat styling in warm weather can be exhausting. A good way to protect from heat styling is to skip it all together. Learning no-blow-dry styles can not only protect your hair, but save you time. Not to mention give you a new style to add to your arsenal. There are many products out right now that were designed to be used for air drying hair. For curls, work a little gel through and let it be. For straight hair, work a volumizing mousse through your locks then twist and scrunch. it will give you texture and volume.

Loss of Moisture

It seems no matter what we do in summer to protect ourselves, we still have some sort of moisture loss in our hair. Combat that with a good shampoo and conditioning system.
Using a moisture rich shampoo and conditioner can do wonders. Make sure it is sulfate free, as sulfates can cause color fading and drying. Don’t wash daily, instead wash every three days if you can make it. Doing so will help your hair protect and moisturize itself. Our scalp produces oils that protect our scalp and hair. Dry shampoo can help stretch you to that extra day if your scalp is eager and produces too much oil.
Conditioning often (even when you don’t shampoo) will help put moisture back into your thirsty locks. When showering, condition at the start of your shower, but don’t rinse until the end. Leaving it on with the steam from the shower will help drive the moisture into your hair shaft creating a deeper conditioning. Rinse with cooler water to seal it in. The water doesn’t have to be ice cold, just cool.

Use these tips and talk with your stylist about products and dry-free styles to try out, and have an amazing summer, with amazing hair.