Your best hair tips please!

[Wibblytummy]

Please share your tips on how you all achieve perfectly groomed and beautiful hair with young children in tow? Please!

With the rather wonderful invention of BB cream, some blush, highlighter and mascara, I can manage to leave the house fairly swiftly with a 2yr old (and imminent newborn any day) looking like I've not been freshly dug from the earth but my hair always let's me down!

My hairdresser upon hearing my plea cut my boob length hair in to a 'easy manage' just above shoulder bob with side fringe. Except it's even harder to maintain!! If I don't spend 15 minutes straightening it each morning, it looks awful. (Straightening with my DS about is near impossible. He spends the entire time trying to get at 'mummy's hair stamp' ) Day 2 hair needs just as much styling as the wash and blow dry day as its returned to kinked, misshapen blah. I spend every day with it pulled back and it just feels frumpy, flat and dull.

If I was to invest would you recommend one of those big hair jobbies? Some keratin straightening stuff that I keep hearing of or even a silk pillow that I've heard some people swear by?

Please help me beautiful groomed ladies of mumsnet!

I have 3 word for you...

Babyliss Big Hair.

I will look in to it now! Does it only work on wet hair or is it something I can use daily? I have to tie my hair up at night as I usually wake up it all clammy if not,so day two always looks as much of a mess if I have or haven't styled it wet!

OP a few questions:

What state is your hair in if you let it air-dry?

Frizzy, wavy, etc..?

What shampoo/conditioner do you use?

If you need to improve the condition of your hair then this is a trick I got told years ago and although you look like a doughnut it does the trick.
Get thick conditioner either a hair mask or the little conditioners you get with hair colour put it on damp but not wet hair- put a plastic carrier bag over hair them leave on as long as you can- 30 mins if poss. Do this deep conditioning once every couple of months and your hair will thank you for it.
Also always do the last rinse with cold water and never rub hair with a towel always pat hair

Oh, another one: how healthy is your hair? Shine and bounce-wise?

I think it's in fairly good condition (by my own guesses!) Trimmed regularly, hair dresser always tells me it looks healthy and I usually treat myself to a treatment every other visit. I also use an oil on the ends once a week BUT it's always ruddy tied up so my work seems to be in waste.

When DH is about on the weekends and I can sneak up stairs and style my hair if we're going out, I'm often greeted with shocked and genuine compliments about how lovely my hair looks and have I just had it done etc but the time it takes to achieve that is not possible when trying to get out the house with rogue 2yr old!

Hair is inherited from my father and bloody family trait, very fine but masses of it. We also have double crowns at the back and it seems to refuse to sit naturally in anything but a side parting. If left to dry in its own state it'll be half way between curly and straight (not an elegant wave...) with a slightly puffy harassed frizz to it. I have a fringe that insists on doing a convex side curve to it unless straightened in to submission and also despite my years rather fluffy baby hair tufts still in the corners of my hairline that are not noticeable when styled/sorted but awful when left to do their own thing and then I tie my hair up. Outgrew the fringe once but it just meant I had to have hair completely pulled off face when tied up and then the baby hair is very visible.

Blimey reading that back it sounds like I just need to invest in a wig...

Oh and if blow dried but not straightened the frizz is instantly gone, shine and bounce back but due to my obscure hair line/crown/mental fringe it still looks bonkers!

BBH works best on 80-90-% dry hair.

I have very thick, coarse, dry hair and find that it works best to wash my hair in the evening, pull it back and sleep on it, and the style it in the morning. It is much quicker, and it styles it much better. I am left with swishy, soft, beautiful hair.

I have waited all my life for my BBH. Can't say enough good things about it. :)

My hair sounds broadly similar to yours Wibbly, it's mostly curly back and sides however straight but frizzy at the front. I'm very interested to hear what people have to say.

I'm currently using V05 Smoothly Does It frizz free creme which does actually seem to make a difference in that straightening remains to some degree on the second day. It's not perfect but it's the best I've tried over many years.

I like the whole vo5 range of sprays and glossing stuff.

Also second the BBH; Tresemme do a similar cheaper tool but it doesn't spin; my hair is similar to yours and it works well, always feels swishy afterwards. Def blast it 80% dry first then finish off with the other.

Have you tried John Frieda 3 day straight?

Use sodium free products on it. It's made a massive difference to my hair. I did a home Brazilian treatment on it in May which lasted around 3 months. It didn't make it straight, but it definitely controlled the frizz ( my hair is very frizzy/curly) I have long hair which when left to its own devices looks very Brian May

Babyliss big hair has transformed it. It gives me gorgeous bouncy curls. If I haven't got time to do it, I wash it at night, wait until its 80% dry and put it in a donut. The following morning it has a nice wave to it. Not sure if yours is long enough for a donut but it does work.

Everything Hopasholic said. My hair is being transformed by using sulphate-free stuff. I can't recommend it enough! My hair is behaving so nicely now without having to faff about with it.

I also think BBH might be worth a go.

To those who love their BBH- how do you use it to achieve root volume? When I hold it at the roots and spin it, it just pulls more hair in from the hair below and I end up with a messy knot in danger of needing scissors to remove!

What am I doing wrong?

The key with the BBH is separating your hair into sections with a clip, so you don't end up dragging more hair in than you need - that way it doesn't tangle so easily. If you take fairly shallow sections, you can gently pull the hair away from the direction of growth while it spins to encourage lift at the roots.

You are my hair twin, from the sound of it. On rare occasions (think Halley's bloody comet rare) it hangs well enough to wear loose, but mostly it's a wavy scraggly mess.

On work days I often wear it in a side pony; it's just as quick as a traditional back-of-the-head pony but just seems to look a bit more "done".

Oh Bluestones I'm glad I'm not alone! Sadly though due to the length of my new "manageable" cut, side things are off the planner. I'd barely get half the head swooshed to one side and would need more clips than possible to keep the rest in place!

Any recommendations for sulphate-free shampoos from all you experienced pros?

With the BBH, do you all wash/dry your hair every day then? Or does it possess such magical skills that day 2 hair will look half decent?

Thank you all by the way for these wonderful replies. I'm feeling much more hopeful for this barnet and tatty old ponytail of mine!

verycarefully I section my hair and give it a blast at the route on setting 3 without rotating put pulling it in the opposite direction to which it will fall. Not sure if that describes it well!

wibbly I use Organix. It smells lovely. It was on offer in waitose yesterday and it's available in Boots.

I use dry shampoo in between washes and wash it every 2/3 days depending on what I'm doing but I often wear it up for work which means I can get away with it for a bit longer.

hi Wishfulmakeupping do you put on the conditioner after shampooing?

Wibbly my hair sounds exactly like yours. Some good advice here for both of us.

The name of the Babyliss Big Hair has always put me off. My hair is big enough on its own I want small hair

I don't know anything about it though. I have wavy/frizzy hair with a mind of its own, even if I spend time drying and straightening it doesn't "hold" the straightness and ends up with the ends flicking in and out (just above shoulder length long bob). Like the OP I just have my hair in a pony 99% of the time. Only time it behaves is if I leave it dry naturally and then straighten later on in the day but that only works on weekends.

I don't have time to properly style my hair all the time but have found a quick up do, that looks like I have put more effort in than I have. People think its taken me ages but its two mins max, its my fail safe for busy mornings. Hard to describe but I straighten my side fringe then take a section behind that and push up and clip, bit quiffy, then pull the rest up in a twist secured with a clamp clip.

Might be worth googling some easy up do's, so you feelmore done than wwith a ponytail.

If you have fine straight hair will the BBH work?

OP- I feel the same, looking half turned out with my DC are around is a nightmare!

I don't have the excuse of little DCs anymore, I still don't presentable in the mornings. My hair is having a mid life crisis I have flicks where I don't want them.

One of my work colleagues has a weave and her hair looks fab 24/7. Some times I really consider going down that route.

I use Liz Earle shampoo and conditioner and my hair is shiny, but a bit wild.

So glad I am not alone out there! I was beginning to feel like the only redundant hair tamer amongst the glamorous mums in my local town. They always seem to achieve a natural casual perfection to their hair.

So at the minute my current plan of action seems to be: Wash hair night before, in morning use Babyliss Big Hair (having to wait till pay day here as I may have got a bit over excited this month snapping up bargains from the Christmas thread. Or see if I can achieve the needed £2.32 lacking in Boots points... ), then find a more elegant up do than my current pony for non wash days.

I've tried to pouf/back comb the hair up for a bit of a more volume ponytail but my hair being the uncompromising git that it is, still tries to go in different directions at the side parting, leaving me with a sort of valley in my 'pouffed' pony.

If above fails, perhaps I can persuade all that giant Russian ushankas will be on trend this Winter and I can lurk my dodgy barnet under one of those...