Damaged, Dry and Fried Hair: How to Fix Overprocessed Hair

At the end of winter and beginning of spring, many of find our hair is fried and damaged after the long winter. There are several things you can do yourself to improve your hair condition quickly.

First, now that the weather is warmer, lay off the high heat appliances like Hair straighteners, curlers, and blow driers as much as possible. Give you hair a styling day off with a French twist chignon or wearing your hair up in hair sticks. The washing of your hair does not damage it, but the styling products and tools usually do, so whenever possible consider styling with alcohol free hairsprays, like Ish Rescue's I Love My Hair - a hair spray that uses a rice derivative instead of alcohol as a fixing agent and is actually good for your hair. Use the dryer on a cool setting on the first few inches of your hair for volume and style, and then twist your hair into sections until it makes a knob. Pin that knob to your head and make a few more. This dries naturally into loose soft waves without heavy styling products or heavy high heat styling.

When you do use heat styling appliances, always allow your hair to get mostly dry and use the dryer to style to minimize damage. Use a protective styling agent like Graham Webb Heat Response Firm Finish Spray that will protect the hair from the heat and leaves the hair super soft.

Consider using a more gentle shampoo, even baby shampoo, and a leave in conditioner like Infusium 23. Another conditioning idea is when you hair is wet, rub a dime size dollop of jojoba oil to your hair from about the ear down and comb through. This will soak in to the hair shaft. If you blow dry it in like a styling tool, this is a good way to wear your hair in a French braid or chignon or up in a hair clip and keep it neat and be able to wear a deep conditioner as a styling treatment.

Once you rinse out the jojoba treatment, assess the health of your hair. Trimming split ends will improve the health and appearance of your hair and help you assess the health of your hair to decide what needs to be done.

Coloring your hair darker will often conceal damaged sections and make the hair shaft smoother. This is not the case with highlighting or going lighter, which strips the hair. Coating your hair with a glaze at the salon will smooth the cuticle and make the hair look healthier.

Another option for styling is to consider the use of steam curlers such as Vidal Sassoon or Caruso curler. These curlers work like regular electric curlers but they run on steam not dry heat, so they infuse moisture with the heat and hold a curl for days. This gives your hair volume and allows you to restore moisture to your hair.

After a few weeks of giving your hair a break and using some products like Infusium leave in treatment and minimizing the use of heat styling appliances will help restore your hair for summer hairstyles.