All About Hair!

I get lots of hair questions, so thought I'd do a post on my favorite products and how I manage my hair.

A few facts about my hair:

• I've never dyed my hair, ever.
• I've been growing out my hair since before my wedding when it was around shoulder length so about 2.5 years now, with 1 inch trims at about every 3 months
• I've had 2 digital perms (a little less than a year apart) and probably due for another one
• My hair is super annoyingly thick so I have to get it thinned out every few months.
• My hair has become drier since the digital perms and I tend to get more split ends now.

So, everyone wants to know if my hair comes out like this because of my digital perm.  The answer is, No, but I wish it did!  What the digital perm did is give my hair texture and the ability to hold a curl.  When I don't curl my hair and use a diffuser to blow dry my hair, it comes out more wavy than curly, like in this lookbook.  To get these curls, I use this curling iron (which you can read about the other tools I use in this hair tutorial)

All photos below are clickable and will take you to their respective links to buy!

I've tried several shampoos and my hair seems to like Bumble and Bumble the best.  I like this gentle shampoo as I don't need anything too harsh on my hair since it's generally pretty healthy. 

I also really like using this Sunday shampoo to get that really clean feeling.  They call this shampoo a "detox" which is a great word to describe it.  You can really tell the difference when you use this, it gets super sudsy and just feels like it's getting all the product residue out of your hair.  Hard to explain but once you try it, you will know what I mean.  I use it only once a week or once every other week depending on how hard I was on my hair.

After my shower while my hair is wet I like to put in one of these two sprays to keep my hair healthy.  I also think it helps keep it full because if I don't use it, my hair tends to get a bit limp.  I blow dry my hair after I spray these in.

When I want to curl my hair with a curling iron, I prep my hair with this Curling Lotion (it's called lotion but it's really a spray) from Lucido L, a Japanese brand.  I buy mine at Uwajimaya (a Japanese grocery store) but I hear that you can get it at a lot of Asian type of markets.  I haven't seen it elsewhere in Seattle though.  I really like this spray because I think it really helps curl my hair yet it still leaves my hair very soft to the touch.  It's like hairspray without the stiffness.

Also from the same line, I use this hair cream to smooth my hair after styling.  It's really lightweight and doesn't leave my hair greasy feeling like some hair creams can.

When I don't want to curl my hair, I spray my hair with the Tigi Curls Rock spray before I blow dry to give it some texture.

When I'm not working out every day, I'll only wash my hair every other day (sometimes even 2 days).  I hate washing my hair every day just because it actually makes it harder to style and manage when it's squeaky clean.  It's so true that dirty hair is easier to style.  On some of the days where I feel like my hair feels a bit dirtier, maybe from product build up, I just put a bit of dry shampoo in and my hair instantly feels cleaner.  I've mentioned this Stila Hair Refresher before and I want to note that I've used many dry shampoos since but none that I have liked more than this product.  It's just the right consistency and has a delightful fragrance.  Also, a trick I use is when I want very voluminous hair like you've seen here, a bit of hair powder really helps your hair stay "big" after teasing.

So there you go, my "dream team" of hair products.  I experiment a lot and am a sucker for new products so I do try out a lot of new sprays/lotions/creams, etc... but those above are the ones that have really stuck with me for the past few months, years even, that I really like.

In the pictures above I'm wearing Elizabeth and James blazer, Forever 21 top, Earrings by Marika King.