Naturalish Hair Care
My Natural(ish) approach to hair care is based on a few factors. I don’t take the time to to a hair stylist, I don’t color my hair, and I don’t like paying hundreds of dollars every 6 weeks to maintain all the hair I have. I never had healthy hair and colored it most of my life. I finally decided to grow out the color, take care of the hair I do have, and find ways to enhance it that are not permanent and don’t damage it. I have it trimmed once or twice per year. With that in mind, I spend a little more on a few items, I spend less in a year than a man who routinely gets a basic cut with a barber. I always use sulfate free products, and I keep it natural, or at least clean, as much as I can.
I have always had dry split ends, which changed very quickly when I added
I tend to under consume protein, so my hair and nails get brittle. These products have completely changed that, and for the first time, I can just wash and go. On the days that I don’t wash, I add Olaplex Leave in Hair Moisturizer and / or Argan Oil on the ends to keep them from drying out. For special occasions, I boost shine with Acidifying shine hair treatment. This isn’t natural, but it keeps me from using chemical treatments to enjoy the color of my hair.
Occasionally (rarely) I want to cover up the grays that are sneaking in, but I never want to go back to hair dye. This is really easy to do if you have brown hair.
A small dab of this Brown Hair Color Enhancer before applying your leave-in conditioner will subtly enhance your color and stain the grays. It’s gone in a few washes, but the difference is subtle and won’t look like your hair color is changing all of the time. If you want to let all of your natural color transitions happen but you still want to boost what you have, I love clear glosses and glazes. I will add this Clear Hair Glaze or Clear Hair Gloss before going to bed, going out into the sun, or going in a sauna. They do work better if they are set with heat, but I have never taken the time to use a dryer to heat them up. The gloss comes in colors as well. If you are going to try a color, choose a shade lighter than your hair. Darker colors will come out uneven. Lighter colors will stain your gray / lighter tones for natural highlights rather than making the color splotchy. If I am well conditioned, glossed, glazed, and shiny, I may take the time to blowdry my hair with a speed dry brush to straighten it. However, as I said in previous posts, my start getting ready to out the door routine is 20 minutes, so I keep it simple. Sometimes just a quick Sea Salt Spray will add wave, texture, and volume with no time spent. The only downside is that usually I will need to wash it the next day if I use a product like this, so I plan accordingly. The other products I mentioned don’t need to be washed more frequently.
Finally, if you know you are going to wash in the morning, consider an oil treatment once a week while you sleep. Apply roots to ends, or just apply to the areas that tend to get dry. My favorite cosmetic oil, although it is a bit hard to find, is pracaxi oil. Pracaxi as an amazing regenerative oil that is a natural bean extract. It has not caught on as a cosmetic oil in the US, but I think that is mainly because of limited availability of the real oil. Most “pracaxi” products that I see contain little or no real oil, so it is better to just get the pure oil. Argan Oil also works as a natural overnight oil treatment.
Goal
The goal of this combination is to maintain the strength, integrity, moisture, shine, and movement of your natural hair. It takes some time to transition away from sulfate based shampoos, frequent coloring, and other hair treatments. However, if you can work on getting naturally healthy hair and occasionally boosting it with a gloss or glaze, you may find that you like enhancing your natural color, texture, and shape.
