Good hair days can come out of nowhere though, you might have accidentily slept on wet hair after a very late night and wake up expecting to see horror hair but thankfully find you've now got tumbling waves that kink in all the right places. It doesn't happen everyday but when it does we have that lovely 'I'm having a great day, look at my hair!' feeling.
For those in-between days there are certain tools of our trade that help us to handle our hair with a fair bit of success. My hair is naturally curly (I'm talking corkscrews) so I'm prone to frizz and dryness which means split ends and it's got finer as I've got older but there's a lot of it. However, I'm pleased to say it can be straightened very easily so my style options are pretty limitless.
'Aussie' is a firm favourite for a lot of people because it really does work, it smells great and isn't too expensive. It's probably a couple of pounds dearer than the majority on the shelf but I'd say it's definitely worth it especially their three minute deep conditioner.
I always bang on about 'Herbal Essences' but I really do think it's the best thing I've ever used from its serums to its deep conditioners and their 'Hello Hydration Intensive Mask' is pretty damn good. I also love their 'Tousled' range in purple and their red range for 'Beautiful Ends'. The smell lasts until your next wash and they're so creamy and rich you don't need much more than one dip in the pot. 'Boots' and 'Superdrug' are always doing buy one get one free or half price on all offers on the 'Herbal Essences' range so I always stock up on payday. The only negative thing I have to say is I wish they'd kept their original packaging because the jungle flower theme went with their famous 'oh oh ohhhh' adverts and now it just doesn't go. But with the packaging makeover came new ranges and ingredients so I can't complain.
Once I'm out the shower, blotted my hair with a towel and combed it into place (never brush!) it's time to lay down the foundations for a good blow-dry by protecting my very delicate hair from the 200 C temperatures it's about to endure. This hair protector by 'L'Oreal' is the best protector I've ever used and I saw a MASSIVE difference after just the first time I used it. My hair was thick, bouncy and shiny with no dry ends and kept its straight style for a couple of days until I next washed it. It was advertised by Cheryl Cole which sent my friend running off for some and I fell for the fact it's new and was on an introductory offer but although we both have very different hair we both agreed it was brilliant. I used a 'Toni and Guy' heat protector before this and a few oil based products from 'Bedhead' that I found in 'Sally's' but they left my hair sticky and crispy and swiftly rejected proving it's not always the high end products that do the best job.
I've been using this ridiculously creamy split end protection cream by 'Herbal Essences Beautiful Ends' range for a couple of years now and I can't even tell you how life saving it's been and how amazing it smells. I just use one tiny pump and rub it though the ends and the fine hairs around my face that are prone to breaking and it stops them being frazzled to within an inch of their life. I gave the famous 'Morrocan Oil' a go but I didn't see the massive improvement so many people claim it has on their hair and this has always hit the mark for me so I see no reason to pay for more hyped up products.
'The Tools'
I use the wide toothed comb to comb through conditioners and then again when I get out of the shower to get everything in place so I don't look quite so much like Gollum. I hardly ever just let my hair dry naturally because it's so high maintenance what with the fluff and frizz and flyaways and the unpredictability eg. is half of it going to go in corkscrews and the rest barely wavey? It's just too much to think about. So I tend to do my make up whilst I wait for my hair to semi-dry naturally then I get out my hairdryer and brush and smooth things over. My hairdryer is from 'Remington' and about £28, I liked it because it was pretty lightweight and there was a lot of waffle about reducing frizz by 90% on the box and I was impressed that it cut my blowdrying time down by a good ten minutes. It's still in 'Boots' if you're looking for a new one, I missed out on their sale by one day (just my luck) but my old 'Toni and Guy' hairdryer had blown up and I couldn't survive without one.
My friend left her brush at my house and I'm glad she did because this one is soft but sturdy with plastic bristles. I used to use paddle brushes but this smaller one means more room to maneuver and isn't as heavy to use plus this one has a round bouncy pad on the bottom so it literally bounces off your head which is pretty brilliant.
I'm a bit obsessed with backcombing at the moment so I always keep a backcombing brush in my bag for a bit of extra volume at the roots.
When it comes to straightening I've nearly always used 'GHD's' (which stands for Good Hair Days) which retail at £99 for the basic ones i.e. not coloured, shaped, sized, encrusted in gems etc but before I cottoned on to how good these are I used to use 'Remington' straighteners which are less than half the price of 'GHD's' or even less if you look out for the sales. They were just as good as 'GHD's' but now straighteners average at around £80 so I thought why not just buy the real deal for an extra £20? They also have a five year warranty which is good as this is my third set (the first died a long slow death over my teenage years and the second were stood on by a boy who didn't know better but should have done and will never be forgiven).
I usually use my 'GHD's' to create wavy hair as I'm a bit of a perfectionist and if there's a single kink I'm straight on its case which means I could potentially spend a whole day getting annoyed and running back to my straighteners which just isn't practical so creating waves is less time consuming. I fix it all into place with a few spritz's of 'Wella's Silvikrin Hairspray' which doesn't make your hair sticky or crispy and can be easily brushed out and doesn't have that horrible hairspray or old lady smell like 'Elnett'.
For second day hair that you don't want to use heated appliances on I always use a bit of dry shampoo at the roots with 'Batiste' being my favourite and then spritz this 'Toni and Guy Sea Salt Texturising Spray'. I don't know how this would come out on naturally straight hair but this brings out my natural wave and creates volume. My boyfriend is always robbing it as he loves that 'just got out of the sea' look but I still haven't forgiven him for putting my almost full aerosol version in his hand-luggage and getting it taken off him at customs in Prague! The spray version can be found in 'Boots' whilst the white aerosol version can only be found in salons and the last two 'Toni and Guy' salons I asked at had sold out and were waiting for a delivery.
And here is the result of all my hard work. I'd use a bit of serum to get rid of the flyaways and because my fringe has got so long I don't know what to do with it anymore I usually just twist it to one side or create a quiff. I'm thinking of getting a choppy fringe put in but it always seems like a good idea until you sleep funny on it and spend the rest of the day trying to flatten the cowlick down.
Here's to good hair days, however few and far between!
Bella
x
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