All women have something to say about their hair. I haven’t met a woman yet who hasn’t had some sort of complaint about their hair. Our mane can sometimes be the bane of our existence. Everyone wants to have healthy, beautiful hair but unfortunately years of daily washing, styling and exposure to the elements can take a toll on our tresses.

I can write for ages about hair care products and styling — I, myself, have a mop of wavy, high maintenance hair on my head. I know what it’s like to feel unhappy with the state of my hair. My hair is thick and has a lot of volume but I also have a lot of frizz and fly-away hair. Without styling products, my mix of frizz and fly-away hair looks disturbingly like what I imagine witch hair to look and feel like. To add to my distress, the shorter hairs that grow at my hair line are wiry in texture and are curly. So if I tie my hair up, without putting any product to my hair, I’ll end up with a crown of wiry, frizzy hair, standing on end. Lovely, I know.

So I thought I should write about my plight and hair styling products that actually work. I cringe when I think about the amount of money I’ve wasted on products that promised to smooth out my frizz or tame fly-away hair. If you’re hair is like mine, I have a few suggestions that might save you time, money and the stress that comes with being unhappy with your tresses. Here are my top 5 tips to getting rid of frizz and start loving your hair:

1. Let’s start this To-Do list with one Don’t. One mistake I made was that I tried to make my hair look like someone else’s. We can waste a lot of time and effort trying to achieve a look that isn’t natural for us and I encourage you to look carefully at your hair type and your face shape and see the potential it has. Instead of seeing what looks wrong with your hair, focus on what looks right and find out how you can enhance that. From there you can figure out a style that’ll fit your hair and face shape.

2. For a long while, I thought the key to fixing my frizz and excess volume was using a straightener. Every time I went to the salon, they would straighten my hair and it looked fabulous. So I purchased a hair straightener. There are a number of things to look for in a quality hair styler. The most important thing to look for is ceramic plates. Hair straighteners, like hair dryers, can cause a lot of heat damage to your hair. Most people use hair dryers and hair straighteners to flatten out frizz and unruly hair, not knowing that their causing damage that just intensifies frizz. Heat damage causes dry, brittle hair that is usually frizzy and can easily break. Ceramic plates doesn’t burn your hair or take moisture away. What results is soft, shiny straight hair. Tourmaline plates are even better than ceramic plates. They can generate six times more negative ions than ordinary ceramic plates which leads to longer lasting straight locks. It can also get your hair straighter faster then ceramic plates.

The other incredibly important thing to look for is the length of time it takes for the straightener to get hot. If you’re planning on using this regularly, you probably don’t want to waste time waiting for the straightener to heat up. Many straighteners come with an alarm or alert light that tells you when it’s hot so that you can just plug it in and continue getting ready. It sure beats sitting around watching a straightener heat up. Ceramic plates heat up much quicker than ordinary hair straighteners as well. My favourite brand when it comes to buying hair straighteners is called Herstyler. They have salon quality straighteners that really deliver. The only downfall is the price, but if you’re thinking about investing in a hair straightener, you might as well get one that is sure to work.

The straight look looked better than a mop of witches hair on my head. But I still wasn’t satisfied. I loved the volume that came with wavy hair and to be honest, it really matched my personality much better. I liked the way it fell around my face and straight hair was just..well, plain. Straight hair just didn’t feel natural to me and as much as I love to look my best, I don’t want to do anything that makes me look too altered. In addition, I’m one of those people who are chronically running late. Procrastination is a sad forté of mine and adding another 10 minutes to my make-up and hair styling time wore on my in no time. If straightening your hair everyday works for you, more power to you. If not, continue on.

3. It helps to use a shampoo that’s moisturising as well, since shampooing everyday can dry and damage your hair. A moisturising shampoo will not strip your hair of essential oils as much as a regular shampoo.

4. Use anti frizz conditioner. Using a moisturising conditioner everyday stops frizz and fly-away hair from happening, but keeps my hair its natural, wavy, bouncy self.The only other problem with using anti frizz conditioner is simply the price. Using it everyday tends to get a bit expensive. Anti frizz conditioner can tend to be really expensive and a great alternative is simply buying a moisturising conditioner that does not have alcohol in it. Anything with alcohol can damage your hair and make it brittle and dry. And be generous with the amount of conditioner you use–make sure you lather it on your frizziest hair.

5. Use anti frizz serum. This is probably the most important thing that I’ve done to get rid of frizziness. Anti frizz serum can be extremely expensive as well. The trick is to find oil based serum because you can use just a bit of oil and easily cover all of your hair. Creams work well too, but you might need to use more of it for it to be effective. My absolute favourite brands are Living Proof, John Frieda and Biosilk. Biosilk has gotten a lot of flack for using alcohol in their oil serum, but I’ve been using it for years and I’m pretty happy with my results thus far.

I’m happy to say that after years of battling with my hair, I’ve learned about my hair type enough to know how to handle it. I’ve finally found products that work and now, I genuinely feel comfortable under my mop of hair

Did you know?

Healthy hair grows an average of about a half an inch every month and a total of six inches a year.

-Miljean

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