The Basics of Healthy Hair

Is your hair dry and brittle? Is it greasy and flat? Puffy, stringy, frizzy, the list goes on and on. There are so many things that can go wrong with our hair. So here are the basics thing to keep your hair healthy and in beautiful condition.

Scrub-a-dub-dub! Everyone knows that you have to shampoo your hair, otherwise you have tons of gross buildup and it just won't cooperate. Conditioner is just as important otherwise you won't even be able to comb your hair, much less style it. It's very important to pick a quality shampoo and conditioner fit for your hair type. Say you have color-treated hair; you get color-protective shampoo and conditioner. Makes sense right? Right. Now, its pretty much just lather, rinse, (only repeat for VERY dirty oily hair) condition, and rinse again. But there are some helpful tricks to it. When you shampoo, don't be too rough with your hair or you'll damage the cuticle. Always be sure the shampoo is completely rinsed. When conditioning, focus on the ends of your hair as they are most prone to breakage and therefore tangles. The water should be cold when you do the last rinse out with your conditioner. It helps seal the cuticle (basically, hair strand), making it so your hair appears shinier.

Once your hair is clean and fresh, you'll probably want to use a shine serum or detangling solution on it. Gently pat your hair dry as much as possible with your towel and squeeze a small amount of product into your hand. I like Biosilk Silk Therapy Treatment. Massage the product into your hair gently, again focusing mostly on the ends. Avoid the roots, as they can look greasy with shine serum on them. Now it's time for blow-drying. If you have curly hair, you'll want to use a diffuser so you don't frizz your curls. Otherwise, you shouldn't need any attachments. Pointing the nozzle down, blow-dry your hair from five inches away. Make sure not to hold it in one spot, or it'll get fried. Once hair is semi-dry, lift hair in sections with your fingers and blow-dry a section at a time. This will keep your hair from being flat when it's done being blow-dried.

Flipped-out or curled under? Spiraled, waved? Now you have to decide what you want to day with you hair unless you like it just blow-dried. Check out iVillage's Virtual Hairstylist below for some great ideas. They even tell you how to do it! Is that not the coolest thing ever?!?

Written By:Katie Weaver & Debbie Frantzen http://www.glitznspritz.com