Category: Inner Sense

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Re-Hydrating Your Hair

 

While we have been sheltering in place, we may have neglected to wash our hair. I want to discuss hydration with you and why we need to get our hair wet again.

Have you ever neglected a house plant and went to water it and the water rushed right through the pot? This is due to lack of hydration in the soil. All you need to do is continue to water this plant daily to bring back the moisture into the soil.

This is the same thing with our hair.  If you:

  • feel your hair and it feels dry and brittle on the ends
  • you use heat every day to style your hair
  • it takes a long time for your hair to fully saturate with water in the shower
  • you haven’t gotten your hair wet in multiple days

Your hair is probably dehydrated and you need to spend a little bit of time re-hydrating your hair. This doesn’t mean using a deep conditioner,  it just means using water more often on your hair.

Try these ideas to see if you can rehydrate your hair:

  • On second or third day of your hairstyle,  you could scrunch in some water, or smooth some water over the top layer of your hair.
  • If you shampoo on a daily basis, you could skip the shampoo for the day, and just use conditioner on your hair. Fully saturate your hair with water, run conditioner on the ends, avoiding the scalp, let it sit for 5 min and then rinse. 
  • Another option is to really let the water soak into your hair. Just when you go to reach for your shampoo, stay under the water a little longer. Then when you rinse, do it very well, making sure to feel your scalp and know that all the product has been removed. 

Just some ideas to rehydrate your hair that doesn’t cost you a penny!!

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Hair is made from a protein called keratin. It gives structure, shape and strength to your hair. Without protein, your hair is limp, lifeless, weak and may fall out easily.

Protein helps to balance out the moisture in your hair. You need a good combination of moisture and protein to keep hair healthy. If you have more protein and less moisture, your hair will feel dry and brittle. If your hair is limp and lifeless you may have too much moisture.

Here’s a few things that can effect protein in your hair:

  • Chemical Treatments
  • Weather
  • Not enough Protein in your diet
  • Heat-styling too much 
  • Using too harsh of a surfactant to cleanse your hair

How to tell if you need more protein:

  • Your Hair is weak, lifeless or limp
  • No amount of moisture helps
  • You say your product isn’t working properly anymore

A protein treatment is going to attach to the outer layer of your hair called the cuticle. It will harden the cuticle, filling in any weak areas and adding strength to the hair.

There are proteins in most products you will use every day. Here are some key words that will be on the product if it contains protein: reconstructing, strengthening, rebuilding, The ingredient list will contain the words: keratin, silk, hydrolyzed protein, amino acids.

If you feel like your hair is limp and lifeless, add in a protein treatment once a month. Here’s an option for at home use.

For an in salon service, I highly recommend Virtue’s Color Kick to be added into your next coloring service with me. It is pure keratin delivered through the color to get into the cortex of your hair.

Just remember: Do not go over board on at home protein treatments and start using it too frequently.  There is a balance with moisture and protein. Make sure to notice how your hair feels after a protein treatment. If it feels hard and brittle, back off on the treatment to maybe once every 8 weeks. This is all based on what your hair feels like. For added moisture Inner Sense Hydrating Hair Masque is my go-to choice.

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Transitioning Away from All Over Color

The past few years I have been transitioning into what I like to call the “natural world.”

What this meant to me was:

  • Researching ingredients and being able to offer top of the line products that include safer, cleaner ingredients. I highly recommend  Inner Sense Organic Beauty products.
  • Eliminating silicones, sulphates and parabens from my beauty routine.
  • Allowing my natural wave pattern to come through and actually figuring out a way to wear my hair like this daily. Offering that advice to clients as well.
  • Not coloring my hair every month and allowing my natural color to peek through.
  • Not painting my fingernails or toenails.
  • Cleaning with safer, healthier options.

If you’ve sat in my chair you’ve probably heard me talk about this journey. It has sparked some fantastic conversations and allowed some of my clients to want to explore this journey as well. This has been such a fun process for me! It has allowed me to expand my knowledge because there is no guidebook for this.  I am also helping my clients see themselves, for the first time in a long time, as they naturally are. This is about so much more than hair. I have felt a closer connection to these clients and feel honored that I got to be a part of this journey with them.

 

Here are some of the documented journey’s along the way:

Day 1 of no more all over color.
After first hair cut. You can see the curls better and some gray peeking through.
Final Product! A few demi permanent foils strategically placed to make the hair look salt and peppered.
Before picture: starting the process of seeing her natural color.
All Natural Color
Small Picture is first session, bigger picture is a few months in.
A few months between these pictures. I did a highlight to bring in some lighter pieces to make the difference not so noticeable.
Final Color! Nothing but a toner to blend the natural color with the gray coming through.

 

Along the way we would discuss how often they should come, at home maintenance but most importantly how they were feeling. Certain months were better than others. My biggest piece of advice if you are thinking of following this journey is to begin to
Loosen up your thoughts on how you see yourself
Give yourself some grace
Let the old go and embrace the new
I saw multiple times someone would take a comment from someone else so personally that they would want to stop the journey altogether. No one should have that much control over how you feel about yourself! This is your life and if you want to see who you are with your hair natural, then by all means do it!! In all honesty, that comment said to you shows more about what that person is struggling with than anything to do with your hair. They may be jealous of you for actually doing it!

If you are thinking of transitioning away from coloring your hair every 4 weeks, or if you are interested in what I call the “natural” beauty world, let’s have the discussion at your next hair appointment.

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Hydration

Hydration is key for healthy hair. As we are transitioning into colder temperatures I want to offer some tips to maximize hydration and keep your hair from getting dry.

First- Fully saturate your hair with water before you apply shampoo.

If your hair is not saturated the shampoo will not be able to do the job it needs to do. I highly recommend Inner Sense Organic Beauty products due to the fact that they are concentrated and need water to make them perform properly. So before you even reach for the shampoo, make sure your hair is sopping wet and you can feel the water on your scalp.

Next- Make sure you emulsify the shampoo in your hands before applying it to your head.

This will allow the water from your hands to mix with the shampoo allowing it to begin to suds up. Then apply it to your hair and you should get a great lather and the shampoo spreads all over. If this is not happening, dip your head back under the running water and emulsify your hair some more. You need tons of water to allow the product to work properly.

Third- Rinse, Rinse, Rinse!!

Make sure all of the shampoo is completely rinsed from your head before you apply conditioner. Now the conditioner should be applied to sopping wet hair as well. With Inner Sense being concentrated, make sure to start with one pump and work up from there. I will tell you to scrunch your conditioner into your hair no matter what texture of hair you have. You are trying to push water into the cuticle layer of your hair.  Moisture will get trapped and the  cuticle will close over the water molecules hydrating your hair from the inside. You can now rinse the conditioner off of your hair. Depending on the texture of your hair, you can leave a little conditioner on your hair or rinse it completely apply a leave in conditioner.

Last- I highly suggest you apply your products to your hair while you are still in the shower but before you have towel dried your hair. You want to now trap all of the moisture still left on your hair with your products. This will seal the cuticle down completely, lock in the moisture and allow you to use less product because you are getting great slip from the added water. Always start with a leave in conditioner then followed by your product of choice. After this is complete you may towel dry your hair.

These tips should help you hydrate your hair all year round!

So don’t forget:

  • -Apply Shampoo to sopping wet hair.
  • -Emulsify your shampoo in your hands before applying to your hair.
  • -Rinse, Rinse, Rinse!
  • -Use a Leave in Conditioner or keep a little conditioner on your hair.
  • -Apply products on in the shower with sopping wet hair.

If you have found any of these tips to be beneficial, comment below, I would love to hear from you!

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The Beginning of my Wavy Journey

I’m going to be honest, I have become extremely bored with my hair over the past couple years. I would wash, blow dry, and then straighten my hair. I used every type of volume product possible to add some kind of body to my thin, fine hair. This went on for many years, never really knowing what year or age I was by looking at pictures. I did the same routine over and over. I wanted a change so I started to just let my hair grow.
Continue reading “The Beginning of my Wavy Journey”