Salon Tips and Products for Straightening Hair at Home

Keeping that straight out of the salon look for days is not as hard as you think. Before you even begin styling your hair though, there are several things you should be doing to make sure you have healthy hair that will be easy to style and maintain. The next time you want to straighten your hair with salon like results, try following the advice of several stylists that have shared their trips and favorite products.

Creating salon like results and maintaining a hair straightening blowout begins before you start styling your hair. It is very important to treat and condition your hair so that styling treatments and other natural drying out conditions do not harm your hair and cause damage. Leave in conditioner is a great way to add moisture to your hair and aid in styling it at the same time. It also helps reduce the number of fly aways you will have once you straighten your hair.

One of the most common mistakes women make when styling their hair, especially when straightening, is to add plenty of product, thinking that more is better-- not true. The more product you add to your hair when styling means more product that you have to deal with the next day, when you want to be able to easily fix your hair and avoid having to straighten all over again. Hair product builds up and makes your hair appear greasy with time, so instead, limit the amount and types of products you use to those that will get you the results you want without the help of four other products.

If you have already made the mistake of adding to much product, or absolutely cannot avoid it, but have the perfect salon straightened hair and want to keep it, you can reduce the amount of shine without washing. Use hair powder to help you get another day out of your perfectly styled hair, specially formulated products like Bumble and Bumble Hair Powder ($30, folica.com) or plain baby powder blotted into your scalp with your finger does wonders.

A little moisture can ruin your straight hair blowout in minutes, so make sure you take the time to do what you can to avoid it. This is one of those steps that needs to take place even before you begin styling your hair, and can be easily seen to with all the differently formulated shampoos that are available. Several shampoo brands make anti frizz or frizz control shampoo, but I have found that John Frieda's Ease Weather Works Weather Proofing Shampoo and Paul Brown Hawaii Stay Straight Anti Frizz Smoothing Shampoo both work very well for several hair types.

Finally, any stylist will tell you that she/he is only as good as the tools they use-- the same goes for you. Creating the perfect hair straightening blowout is much easier when you have beauty tools that work and won't cause unnecessary damage to your hair. That said, the flatiron is not the best thing for your hair, and really should be used at a minimum. Look for tools that give you the option of using varying degrees of heat, or can get the job done on a cool setting, rather than tools with a single setting. For the best results and safest use, try a hair straightener like the GHD New Generation IV Hair Straightener that uses heat and hair sensors to automatically adjust to your specific hair type and reduce the amount of damage that is done to your hair.