Haircare routine - how does this look?

[kersh33]

I’m finally getting my act together on a haircare routine. For background, I have fine, short hair that waves but not nicely.

I currently wash it every 3 days and blow dry using hairdryer and round brush. I then run straighteners through it to get it to behave. I might have to straighten it in the mornings to deal with overnight flicks and waves that have appeared.

As a result I am starting to see some heat damage. So far I have identified the below as a product routine:

Douai leave in conditioner
GHD blow dry cream to hopefully hold style a little longer and for heat protection
Olaplex no 7 hair oil

Olaplex No 3 as a weekly mask.

What do you all think - does this make sense, should I be looking at anything else? I have no scalp issues so not bothering with anything there. My hair is just a bit dull, frizzy and wavy at the first sign of humidity and gets very pouffy if I air dry.

Shameless bump 😁

Have a look at the blow dry professor on YouTube . It sounds like you're doing everything right.
if you really wanted to up your game I'd consider a silk bonnet/ pillowcase and some kind of heatless curler (if you're happy with curls) for overnight so that you can ditch the hairdryer/ straighteners for a bit.

Thank you ! I’ll have a look. The overnight bed hair is tricky to manage and I would like to avoid using so much heat styling so will have a look at the silk pillow.

My dd wraps her curls in a silk tie, like a dressing gown belt, which helps stop her hair from going all over the place while she sleeps and reduces the need for heat styling. Her hair is long but you can get very soft rollers to sleep in

Absolutely second this advice, The Blowout Professor transformed my hair!

Ideally he says you need to go 3 days in-between using heat on your hair, so trying to stop the top up straightening would be good.

I also think try a silk bonnet, brush your hair and tie it in a loose silk scrunchie and then sleep with a bonnet and fingers crossed when you wake up you take the scrunchie out and just brush and go. I have long hair that is also wavy in a not-nice way but if I blow dry it properly on a wash day and use my bonnet and scrunchie each night my hair usually looks good until the next wash day.

I agree with the silk recommendations. I put on some sort of leave-in product then let it dry naturally. At this point it is pretty frizzy. I sleep on a silk pillowcase and by morning it is much less frizzy. It then gets a tiny dab of a silicone serum.

I rarely heat style at all and definitely wouldn’t use straighteners. It’s in pretty good condition.

Could you recommend somewhere to buy a silk bonnet/pillowcase from?

Does anyone have experience of using the Olaplex no 3? I saw some things that said that the K18 was better but it was a lot more expensive so I thought I’d give Olaplex a go

Slip silk for the pillowcases

No idea why this happened but olaplex was really bad for my hair - expensive mistake. It started breaking.

Eek - that’s no good! How long did it take for that to happen? Did you see it straight away?

After a couple of times I think. But it might depend on the number. Worth looking for other threads or forums for views on olaplex I think. I spent a fortune and kind of regretted it. But other people’s hair will react differently etc. generally I have spent a small fortune on expensive hair products and am currently using aveeno for £5 🤷‍♀️

It’s tricky isn’t it. It’s hard to know whether it’s worth investing in products or whether cheaper alternatives work as well. As I’m starting out I thought I would test out more premium options and see how I get on and get a benchmark of what good looks like. Then maybe swap out some lower cost alternatives as a test from time to time to see if I can tell the difference.

I used Olaplex 3 as well and it was awful for my hair, my hair went kind of mushy and matted. I misunderstood what it was for, I think it's only meant to be for bleach damaged hair and I've not bleached mine (I could be completely wrong on this so happy to be corrected!)

When I said silk bonnet, I actually use a satin bonnet I bought from Amazon 🤣 so not as good as silk but a lot cheaper and I get good results. I have this one and it suits me fine, stays on most of the time https://amzn.eu/d/8RhyAGW

I have similar hair. To give it a bit of a break from heat styling I often put a Kerastase mask on it overnight. Then let it air dry the following day. I put a few waves into just the top part with a wand after that

Can I ask which one you use - there seems to be a gazillion different Kerastase ranges and I get a bit lost. So do you wash your hair in the evening - put a mask on and then air dry and style the following morning?

Yes that’s what I do. Here’s the kerastase mask I use:

The heat protection and oil and conditioning treatment will definitely be helping to protect and repair your hair, especially if you start to also use heat even less frequently. It could just be taking time to see the best results, it will probably get better if you stay consistent. But if your hair is dull and gets frizzy, it could benefit from extra hydration, and since your hair is fine you could use a lightweight oil and even keep it on overnight before you wash it which is what I usually do (my hair is a bit dry and gets dull and frizzy).

I use this oil currently: https://www.harirhaircare.com/product-page/hair-oil-for-dry-hair

The heat protection and oil and conditioning treatment will definitely be helping to protect and repair your hair, especially if you start to also use heat even less frequently. It could just be taking time to see the best results, it will probably get better if you stay consistent. But if your hair is dull and gets frizzy, it could benefit from extra hydration, and since your hair is fine you could use a lightweight oil and even keep it on overnight before you wash it which is what I usually do (my hair is a bit dry and gets dull and frizzy).

I use this moisturising oil currently : https://www.harirhaircare.com/product-page/hair-oil-for-dry-hair