Jasmine Zik: Don’t Dread Hair Wash Days! Here are 7 Tips to Help You Through

I know Wash day (you know the day you set aside to wash your hair, yourself or by a professional at the salon) can be kind of a struggle or nightmare, especially when you haven’t really gotten a hang of it… Here are a few tips you can try to help you ease up the stress!

BEFORE WASHING

1. Pick a day
Choose a day you can be free for at least an hour with intervals… If you have kids without a help, it can be at the moment you put them to sleep or when they’re engrossed watching their fave cartoon or on your phone/ipad playing games… If you work 9-5 or more you can pick an evening on Saturday or Sunday, this is if you’re doing most or all of the hair washing yourself.

2. Detangle
Slow down, don’t be in a rush…trust your gut on this. It has long term benefits.You can put them in sections so you won’t get them mixed up-the detangled and tangled parts.

It’ll be wise to get a spray bottle, for easy detangle with water or water mixed with little conditioner. Fingers are great tools for detangling;  but if you must, use a ‘wide’ tooth comb.It’s important to detangle first before every wash – whether or not you’re doing the washing yourself.

3. Prepoo
For shinnier softer hair, you should try doing a prepoo. Simply put, it’s the art of applying a treatment (either a conditioner, humectant or oil) prior to shampooing, hence the name pre-(sham)poo. benefits of this range from softer, easy detangled hair, lesser breakage/shedding to prevention of natural oils being stripped from hair by shampoo, nourished scalp and protection of fragile ends.

You can use a conditioner or preferably oil (diy mix of oils like olive oil & peppermint oil): section hair->apply-> cover for a few minutes ->rinse out!

You can go ahead and Deep condition, cowash or apply your shampoo and conditioner.

AFTER WASHING

4. Tea rinse
Using Black or green tea to rinse hair afterwards (yup! Just brew the tea, allow to cool & pour over hair) reduces breakage, so you’ll see less hair after washing while moisturising,detangling and/or styling. It also helps with dandruff and stimulates growth.

5. Moisturise
Whether you’re using a leave in, some moisturiser or doing the L.O.C method, moisturising is a must-do. You’re hair needs moisture to thrive… so always make sure what you’re using to moisturise contains water/aqua. For longer effect, try doing the L.O.C/LCO method.

6. Oil & Massage
Use essential oils like rosemary, lavender, etc. to oil and massage your scalp. This helps to increase blood circulation in scalp, helping the hair grow stronger & longer.

7. Trim
Contrary to what you’ve always known, trimming doesn’t technically grow your hair. The process is meant to cut offhair tips which are damaged(as they are hindrances) to give way for healthy ends to grow out without breaking. So trim when you see you have split ends, in no particular order. If you’re a monthly, yearly, or weekly trimmer, you’re on track as long as you’re trimming the unhealthy split ends!

Now you can enjoy a healthier hair, Enjoy Wash Day!

Photo Credit: Dreamstime