More about hairs (this time from the head)

I’m going to dedicate this month’s post to hair, but this time to head hair. Anyway, in the future I may talk more about fuzz and body hair. Let’s start, then.

First, I will explain the type of hair that I have. It is long and wavy, which implies advantages when it comes to varying my style, but not so many if one wants to get out of the shower and let her hair as it is (although that is precisely what I do). I’ve always had a lot of hair (in this case I don’t dislike it so much, lol), in a dark brown color.

When it comes to washing my hair, as I have a lot and it is not greasy, what I do is leave two days in between washes. That is, if I washed it on Monday, I wash it again on Thursday. I can do this for my hair type, although I know that girls with fine or oily hair need to wash it every day or at most with a day in between. But in my case that would be an ordeal, because it takes a lot to dry and I would have to use the dryer everyday (with the consequent damage). Well, even so, a discovery I’ve made recently and that I wanted to share is dry shampoo. It is a spray that you put on your hair when you do not have time or do not want to wash your hair, and what it does is to absorb oil, odors, and give a better appearance to the hair. I would not use dry shampoo on a regular basis, just for some urgency. The reason is that I have looked at the list of ingredients (of several, I have compared) and most of them contain aluminum and I don’t know how many more horrible things. And it is not like the normal shampoo that you put on and rinse, this product can really reach your scalp, and as I explained in the post on deodorants, everything that reaches your skin is absorbed by your body. I could also talk about the environmental damage caused by aerosols, the danger of breathing the components … To sum up, I would recommend dry shampoo just like Perspirex: only for very specific cases, knowing that it is not good and that there are alternatives (like washing your hair, hahaha).

Turning to the topic shampoo/conditioner/hair mask /fixing products. As with skin cosmetics, I have a lot of distrust and I think less is more. For shampoo, it is a whole world and I am not an expert, but I know that the less rare ingredients the better. Also in this case, the issue of ingredients seems less serious than in cosmetics, since they will only be in contact with the skin during the time we wash our hair, and “your hair itself is already dead, no matter what you put on it” (this phrase was told to me by a friend who was studying medicine and it was recorded, hahaha). By the way, it makes me feel quite uncomfortable to think that some people wear natural hair extensions. What is most important for issues like dandruff, itching, etc. is the health of your scalp, that is, of the skin of your head. And for that, I think food and water are we ingest are more important. Of course one cannot control whether the water is softer or harder, it depends on where one is. I have noticed a lot of difference in my hair from one city to another using the same shampoo, and this is due to water. Soft water leaves hair much cleaner and more manageable than hard water (with more lime). Knowing that, what I recommend is to put a filter in the shower (like a Brita jug, but for the shower, hahaha). It is not only good for your hair, but also for your skin, which appears less dry. It is much more useful to invest in a filter (in Spain they cost around thirty euros) than in products like moisturizers and hair masks. In addition, I use tip-to-medium conditioner (here there is no concern for the scalp, so I use Pantene) to control the frizz and because if I don’t use it my hair looks like Mafalda.

On shampoo brands, I would like to have more biodegradable (non-polluting) brands available in supermarkets. As there are not many options, and since I always look for the least bad option, I usually choose baby shampoos (since they are for babies have a more controlled list of ingredients). On fixing products, I understand that for girls with frizzy hair they may be indispensable. I do not use them, or at most I wear some aloe vera (this time the cheap green phosphorite). In addition, I have a slight suspicion that foams and hair gels cause acne (leaving residues on the pillow where you put your face). What I do when I wash my hair (usually at night) is to dry it with the dryer, and the next day I put it in a bun. The second day I can already wear it loose. From time to time I iron it, but honestly, it takes me 40 minutes and every time I am less willing to waste time on something like that. On this, another tip: those who have a lot of hair like me, it’s better to use irons with large squares in order to advance much faster. Regarding curling irons, I have only used mine twice. And it didn’t look so bad when I did it, but I repeat, for these things I don’t have patience.

Finally, the theme of the dyes. Because of my hair color and eyebrows (also black) I never dyed my hair until my gray hair began to bother me (about two years ago). Many people change their hair color for fun, I don’t find any sense in that (sorry, call me bland). But what I can’t do is go with gray hair!! Now it seems fashionable to dye your hair in white, even young girls are seen with white hair… It’s like ripped jeans, people do weird things to be fashionable. If it becomes fashionable to carry a vase on their head they will put it on. The fact is that I began to be traumatized by my gray hair (and did not have so many) and, of course, the first thing I did was to tear them off. MISTAKE!!! I do not think this causes more gray hairs to grow (obviously with time you will have more grey hairs, it is the law of life) but if you tear them off, later you’ll have short white hairs, and that is much worse !! What I had to do with some grey hairs (especially when I had straight hair, which made them more noticeable) is to paint them with mascara! (luckily my hair is black, I’m sorry blondes). I had to wait for them to grow to be dyed. But here I had another problem, and it is that my hair is very thick (that’s why it takes so long to dry) and it seems the dye doesn’t work very well on it. In fact, the 4 or 5 times I’ve dyed my hair, I get the feeling that the dye has not done very much on my hair me. Does this happen to someone else or is it just me??? I tried with Apivita and Herbatint dyes (I wanted without ammonia), a color less than black. A hairdresser told me that without ammonia grey hairs are not covered, but I don’t want to use it … I have not tried henna, but I have heard that it stains, it goes with the washes and then you can’t use dye, so I don’t see it very practical.

As a last tip, I recommend that you buy a tangle teezer brush, it’s amazing!

Until next month!!

UPDATE!!: I finally tried henna and it worked!! Read my post: I dye my hair with henna. You can also read the post Shampoos, hairbrushes and showers.