What is a Hair Treatment?
How to use a Hair Treatment?
The Best Hair Mask to Fix Damaged Hair
After weeks upon weeks of stay-at-home orders and self-isolation, diy hair masks and at-home hair coloring, a lot of us may be saying, “Oops!” It’s time to get serious about fixing hair damage and taking control of your hair care by using targeted ingredients to repair damaged hair. Like our friend Deepika says, “Good hair days are just a mask away!”
The one must-have hair repair product you need is a good hair mask treatment. A hair treatment mask is a great option for treating tangled, dry, damaged hair. Hair mask treatments are formulated to be a deep conditioning treatment you'd get in a salon, that contains rich ingredients such as natural oils and lipids in higher concentrations. The benefits of a hair mask includes increasing healthy, shiny hair, adding moisture to your hair and reducing hair breakage. Before jumping on the hair repair mask diy bandwagon (check out our article on DIY fenugreek hair mask) or investing in a high-tech hair mask option, you need to know our 7 tips for perfecting your scalp + hair treatment application. Read on…
1. Choose the Right Ingredients: Whether you’re opting for a homemade overnight coconut oil hair mask, a hair mask made with avocado, or you’re purchasing a mask clinically proven to repair hair damage, always know your ingredients. Hair masks should contain a mix of ingredients like proteins to help strength, lipids and oils to help moisturize, and antioxidants to help defend the hair. They should also include ingredients that may not sound as familiar, such as cetearyl alcohol, a long chain fatty alcohol naturally derived from plants like coconut or palm that can help soften the hair and heal dry skin.
2. Use a Clarifying Shampoo Before Applying the Hair Mask + Scalp Treatment: We get this question all the time. Do I need to wash my hair before applying my hair treatment? We know you barely made it to day-3-hair and now we’re telling you to wash before your treatment. We’re sorry to break your no-wash-winning streak but if you want your hair treatment to perform at its best (and we’re going to go out on a limb and say you do), then YES, you need to wash. Not only do we recommend to shampoo first, we recommend using a clarifying shampoo. The reason- clarifying shampoos are a deep cleanser that aim to remove residue and buildup. You don’t want dirt, grease, and build up to get in the way of healthy nutrients penetrating your hair. Wash first and, if possible, install a shower filter to keep minerals that can build up out of your water and off your hair. Here are some great recommendations for the best clarifiers.
3. Section Damp Hair: “Should I apply a hair treatment on dry or wet hair?” When the hair is wet, cuticles open, making product penetration better. Some people like applying their hair treatments to dry hair, but we recommend applying hair treatments to damp hair for best results. Depending upon your hair thickness, length and texture, we also recommend dividing your hair into 3 to 6 sections to make product application easier and evenly distributed.
4. Apply Tip to Root and Evenly Distribute with Wide Tooth Comb: It should come as no surprise that the ends of the hair are more damaged than the hair at the roots. Hair tips are older and have more exposure to damaging sources. We want to pay special attention to hair from midshaft to the ends BUT we also don’t want to forget about damage that occurs and can affect the condition of the hair from the scalp to midshaft. Depending upon how concentrated your product is, you’ll apply about a pea size per section, up to a walnut size in total. Wet fingertips with warm water, pump a pea size of product, blend between fingertips to warm product between hands and start from ends of hair, use downward motions while inch by inch you work your way up to the scalp. In essence, you’re applying more to the ends (where the hair is more damaged) and less at the scalp. Gently comb each section as you go for even distribution. After you’ve repeated this process per section, apply just one more pump and twist each section to help close the cuticles. Now, you’ll want to note, we’re suggesting you apply your mask all the way to the scalp to offer rich nutrients for a healthy scalp but if you’re not using a SAVE ME FROM Tip to Root Hair Reboot, check your label if scalp application is recommended.
5. Apply a “Little Heat”: Yes, high heat can cause damage (if you’re obsessed with straightening or curlying your hair and have heat damage, check out SAVE ME FROM Thermal Obsession), but light heat can help aid in nutrient penetration. After your mask is applied, set your blow dryier on a low heat setting and gently blow dry the hair to allow for product penetration. Or you can use a steamer for about 10 minutes if you have one available.
6. Leave on Overnight: Overnight hair treatments are a great way to get the results you’re looking for. This allows for your high-quality ingredients to penetrate, repair, and restore the hair. If applying your hair treatment overnight is just not an option for you, try following the above steps and leave your hair treatment in for as long as possible. We like to leave it in while cleaning the house or while we’re on a long run (try SAVE ME FROM Sun + Sweat for this). When applying the right amount of the right product, your hair treatment could double as a styling cream that creates amazing braids like those created by the talented team at Twiggs Salon. This takes multi-masking and your hair repair at home to the next level!
See here how we use biomimetic keratin proteins
7. Shampoo your Treatment: Many people believe that if you wash your treatment out with a shampoo, you’ll lose all the beneficial ingredients. This may be true for masks that only coat the hair, but if your hair treatment is formulated with right mix of active ingredients proven to penetrate the hair shaft, it's best to shampoo. Ingredients like coconut oil have a high affinity for hair proteins and offer protection within. They are straight chained with a low molecular weight and can penetrate the hair shaft to provide this protection. This penetration can take up to 4 hours (hence our suggestion to use it overnight). If you’ve left your mask on overnight, you can feel confident shampooing and conditioning the next morning. The ingredients that have needed to penetrate are present and doing their job.
We can’t wait for you to witness the results that your miracle hair treatment can make – when applied following these important steps. Watch how Diane Mary demonstrates just how potent and concentrated our hair masks can be, using only 6 pumps in all to treat her long, curly, thick hair.
Before you get started, we want to make sure you’re investing your time and your hard-earned money in the RIGHT hair treatment. There are just a few more things you need to know about your typical hair treatment. Read more about what you need to know here.
