Hot Irons and Hot Rollers

I have already discussed why blow-drying can be damaging to hair, but I’d also like to discuss curling and straightening irons and hot rollers.
  
Straighteners have become more and more popular in the last twenty years or so, and there seems to be no sign of them losing popularity.  Curling irons and hot rollers continue to be ever-popular as well.

I know better than anyone how nice it is to be able to pop in hot rollers or use a curling iron and have nice quick curls.  I also understand that people like the sleek look that a straightening iron can give.

However, there are few things as damaging to the hair, or that causes split ends and broken hairs as hot irons.
There are always going to be people who use them and still have healthy looking hair.  These people are the exception to the rule, though.  They must have some pretty tough hair.

Have you ever put a drop of water on a curling or straightening iron when it’s fully heated?  The water sizzles and evaporates.  That means that it has boiled.

Many people use their irons while their hair is still slightly damp, out of necessity to save time, or because they like the results.  If your hair is damp, then there is still water in the cuticle.  Apply that hot iron to it and the water actually boils inside the cuticle of the hair. This will cause the cuticle to both swell and shrink, and this kind of damage is exactly what leads to breakage and splits.

Hot rollers are rarely as hot as irons are, but they are still hot enough to be uncomfortable when held next to the skin.  They aren’t as immediately harsh as hot irons are, but they do bake any moisture out of the hair, and over time, damage will accumulate.

You may think that if you’re using a heat protectant, you’re safe.  I admit to having bought into that idea for a while myself. However, nothing really can protect hair from such high heat.  You are bound to scorch your hair or to dry out your hair at the very least.

Hair really does need moisture in it in order to stay healthy and heat products eradicate that moisture.
I am not trying to tell anyone never to use heat products.  Everyone should enjoy their hair and do what pleases them. And even if you have chosen to give up heat products, there may be times when you feel you have to use them.

Just be aware of the facts.  Don’t ever use hot irons on hair that is even slightly damp.  Do use a heat protectant, as a slight buffer.  It’s not a cure-all, but it will help.  Don’t hold an iron in one place for a long time.  Use quick passes.

As for hot rollers, again, only use them on hair that is completely dry. It may be of some help to use some sort of heat protector, but try to use them only very rarely.

The best advice is never to use heat products on your hair, but I know that isn’t realistic for many. However, please do know what you’re about to do when you use them.

Giving up heat products was the very first thing that I did when I started my long hair journey, and it was the first thing that made a noticeable positive change in the quality of my hair.

Yes, I’ve made many other mistakes along this journey, which is why I’m not much closer to my goal than I was four years ago, but I’m doing my best to learn from those mistakes.  And I can pass this knowledge along to you, so that maybe, just maybe, you won’t make the mistakes I’ve made.

My Worst Hair Disaster

It's only been about four and a half weeks since I last touched up my colour, and I've been trying to put off doing it again, but the silver roots are really growing in.  So I spent the day with my hair soaking in coconut oil and I'm sitting here now with dye on my roots.


Thinking about hair dye reminded me of the biggest hair disaster I ever had.  It was 1998, and I had been using a high lift one-step blonde colour for several years.  Since my hair is naturally dark blonde, it was easy to get an almost platinum colour without bleach, but by using extra light shades.


I'll never know to this day what possessed me, but one day I decided I just had to have one of those beautiful cool shades of red hair.  I knew that anything orangey wouldn't suit me, but I thought that a cool tone might be nice and brighten up my look.


I remember walking to the drugstore after having made this impulsive decision, and I purchased the dye.  I really didn't know all that much about hair dye back then, and I didn't know that there were special steps necessary to go from platinum blonde to a red shade.


So I applied the dye, and after it was rinsed out and dry, it looked lovely to my eyes. It was a new me.  However after the first washing, red dye was still dripping in the shower. This time when my hair was dry, the red shade was still there but there were blonde patches showing through.  It was a disaster.


I then walked back to the drugstore. I met a friend who worked there, and she said to me, "Franny!  What happened to your hair?!?!". I was mortified.  I spoke to the cosmetician and I was told that in order to dye my light blonde hair dark, I should have used a filler.  A filler is a deposit only colour that fills the hair shaft with a darker tone, and then you apply the shade of your choice over top of it.


There I was with shoulder length hair that had already been mercilessly dyed so light and for the second time in just a few days, I was applying colour all over my head yet again.


The colour held well after using the filler, but it didn't take many washings before the nice red tone faded, and I was left with dull, brown hair.  And it wasn't a pretty brown.


I knew I had really made a mistake.  I had to have my blonde back, so back to the drugstore I went, to buy a box of bleach, (yes, bleach!) and a new shade of blonde to put over top of it.


I did do a strand test as suggested, but it took a very long time to get the colour light enough.  So I applied the bleach to my hair for as long as I did with the strand test and followed with a medium blonde shade.


Well.  I don't even know how to express my horror at the condition of my hair.  When wet, it felt sticky and mushy.  It really didn't even feel like hair at all.  It felt like an old doll's hair.  I was going crazy, but I thought that some good conditioners would help restore my hair.  However, no matter what I did, my hair was beyond repair.  I simply couldn't live with it.


Every time I combed or brushed my hair little pieces of hair would fly out.  I needed to get a haircut.


So I got my hair bobbed to about chin length.  But I found that I still couldn't live with the damage of the hair that remained.  


Off to the hairdresser's again, and I got just about every bit of that damage out.  However, it left me with a very, very, very short haircut.  It was so short that my hair stuck straight up in the air in some places.  It wasn't pretty.  I just wanted to hide.


Finally, it did start to grow out, and I began to feel like myself again.  But wow, what an experience.  


Having gone through that, I'll never understand why I allowed myself to dye my hair brown in 2007.  You would have thought I'd have learned.   But I hadn't.  I think that I believed that since I had a better understanding of hair care that I'd be okay.  I also thought that I would stick with the brown.  However brown was not me, and it never was.  As well, with a dark shade, the silver roots started showing in less than a week.  At least I didnt' completely destroy all of my hair when I removed the brown dye in 2008, but I did have to sacrifice almost 2 years worth of growth in the end.


I guess in some ways I'm happy that I had these experiences because I finally know that I'll never do it again.  At least I'd better not.  


I've finally found the shade that suits me, and the hair care that works for me, so I'd best not be trying any new colour experiments.  If I ever get the urge to do any crazy colouring to my hair again, I'll make sure I write about it here first, so that you can yell at me and tell me to stop!  I promise I will listen.

Remembering 80's Hair

The 80s was a fun time to be a teen or a young woman.  It was a time of some interesting fashions, a lot of bold makeup and most importantly, big hair.


I wonder just how much mousse, gel and hairspray was used back then, by both young men and young women. I know I used more than my share.


I turned 18 in 1979, and it was not long after when most of the girls my age finally gave up our Farrah Fawcett hair attempts and started emulating the New-Wavers.  The disco generation was ending and New Wave was king.


I started the 80s with a pageboy, with full bangs.  Both my bangs and the ends of my hair were turned under with a small barrelled curling iron.  Not the most natural look.  To get more volume, often I would make several tiny braids in my hair, pre-coated with gel, before bed time.  It gave a slightly fuzzy but definite fullness to my hair.


Once finished off with both heavy eye makeup, lipstick and bold slashes of blush on my cheeks, I was ready for action.  Photos of me at that time make me blush for real now, but at the time, I felt quite glamourous. I was a cosmetician in a high-end department store back then, and neither my co-workers nor my clientèle seemed to think that I was overly made up.  It's only now that I see how truly hideous the makeup styles in those days were. 


I began getting light blonde highlights on my naturally dark blonde hair when I was 20.  I really felt like a blonde now. This was getting good.


After my pageboy, I had my hair cut and permed into an Olivia Newton-John styled mullet, which required a lot of care.  The perm on its own was not enough to keep up the style, so I had to curl every bit of my hair with a curling iron every day, and touch it up again for an evening out.


When that started to grow out and look damaged, I went for a bobbed style. By 1985 I grew that out to just about or below shoulder length, and my stylist cut long layers into my hair and piecey layers around my face.  This style would be my signature look for the rest of the 80s.


I have to admit, it was a good cut, and if worn today without 80s embellishments, it wouldn't look out of place.  However, of course I had to add my own touches to it, which meant using a curling iron on every layer of my hair and my bangs.  My every day look was relatively conservative and really not over-the-top.


Nevertheless, being a flathead just didn't do for going out to nightclubs or parties. I can't even recall all of the heat appliances and tricks with curlers that I tried back then to achieve big hair for a night out.


The greatest revelation was the crimper.  There is nothing that says '80s quite like crimped hair. The good thing about crimping was that it really did stay in until the next wash. That was something that my fine, straight hair had never really experienced before.


Of course, hair isn't meant to be bent at right angles, so there's no point in even mentioning how damaged my hair was.


Then a new product came out.  The waver. It was just like a crimper, except instead of a zigzag pattern, there were small S-waves. This was my holy grail. Like the crimper, the waver made patterns in my hair that held. Of course my post-wash glob of mousse and final touch of hairspray helped.


Honestly, when I think of the hours I used to spend to get my hair ready for a big night out, I roll my eyes.  When I think about how much I abused my hair with blow-dryers hot rollers, crimpers, perms, highlights, back-combing and styling products, I can only laugh.  I do recall using a "heat protectant" before using my heat appliances, and thinking that it would prevent damage, but naturally it didn't. Even at shoulder length I would already find split ends and often there would be breakage--tiny hairs falling--when I brushed my hair.


Of course I didn't do all of that for every day, but I can say that I don't think I went a day in the 80s before my daughter was born in late 1988 without putting at least a curling iron to my hair.


I honestly didn't think I was fit to walk to the corner store without full makeup and my hair done.


Were there self-esteem issues at play?  Undoubtedly. But I can honestly say that I had the time of my life playing with makeup and getting my hair as big as it could get for a night on the town or a swanky party. Good times


Sadly, I don't have any photos of me decked out for the clubs. We didn't have digital cameras then so we didn't take pictures as frequently. Most photos I have from that time are just of my everyday self.


I'm happy that I had that time to just do whatever I wanted to my hair and with makeup.  It enabled me to get that need to be like the glamourous girls out of my system.  I don't ever see a perm in my future or a renewed relationship with my blow-dryer or any of my trusty curling irons.


Now I'm content to just let my hair be my hair. While I still love makeup, I go days at a time without it.  I do wear it to varying degrees depending on where I'm going or what I'm doing.  I still do feel much more put together when I wear makeup, but I'm not a slave to it anymore.


Yet back in the 80's, the fun I had experimenting with too much makeup and with glamourously damaging my hair in the name of beauty!  I wouldn't have missed out on it for anything.

Blow Drying

Blow drying can really impede the healthy growing of long hair.  Of course every head of hair is different, and some hair types can withstand blow drying more than others.

However, generally speaking blow-dryers need to be used with caution.  

My own personal experience with giving up heat styling in general has resulted in a difference like night and day with my hair.  In my heat styling days, I would frequently have many split ends when my hair was not yet shoulder length.  My hair is at least 8 inches longer than that now, and I don't yet have a split end.  I imagine that as my hair gets longer again, splits will be inevitable, but right now, I am split-free.

There are reasons why heat is so dangerous that people don't sometimes don't take into consideration. If your blow dryer is blowing air hot enough to burn your skin, you know it's hot enough to scorch your hair.  Skin heals.  Hair doesn't.  It will likely fray, then break off at the scorching point.

Too often people will put a hot dryer much closer to their hair than they would to their skin because obviously, your hair doesn't have nerves that could tell you, "ouch".  If the blow dryer is too hot to use 6 inches away from your skin, then you can bet that it is too hot for using 6 inches from your hair.

Does this mean that under no circumstances can you use a blow dryer on your hair?   That is not realistic for everyone, I well know.  There will always be a time that you may need to use a blow dryer if the weather is cold and you have a wet head.

The key to using a blow dryer when necessary is to make sure that you have absorbed as much water from your hair as possible with an absorbent towel.  When you use the blow dryer use a warm or cool setting (not hot) and hold the dryer well away from the hair.  Do not attempt to dry your hair 100%.  Stop the blow drying before it's absolutely dry.  If you keep blow drying when your hair is already completely dry, you will dry your hair out far more than necessary.

Also, I know that many people have slightly wavy hair and blunt bangs.  It's okay to tame them with a round brush and a blow dryer, but again, don't use a hot setting.  A warm setting, finished by a blast of air will do the trick.  While you may not be concerned with damaging your bangs, as they are trimmed so often, you never know when you may want to grow them out.

So the bottom line is to use common sense.  And as with everything, moderation is the key.

My Mission

When I was approaching my 45th birthday in the summer of 2006, I made a decision to grow my hair as long as it would grow. Why? Well lots of reasons. First of all, I'd always wanted long hair, but all my life I'd been told that my fine hair was "thin" and wouldn't look good long. I was inspired by some of the older women who were sporting long hair and I decided that I was going to do my own thing and just see how long I could grow it. I wanted to have the hair that I always wanted, and I decided that the social conventions of women having shoulder length hair or shorter after the age of 40 was irrelevant to me. I had a notion of me as an old lady with very long hair which my grandchildren would ask to see take down out of a bun or braid. I also had a sense of the growth of hair as being a measurable way to somehow chart the growth of wisdom that I hope to gain with maturity. Some reasons might seem silly, but they're all very meaningful to me.

In trying to learn not only how to care for my hair, but also to learn how to style it, without blow-driers or curling irons, I joined a long hair forum, The Long Hair Community. I began learning how I had been previously abusing my hair with heat styling products, using ultra light blonde shades of hair dye that were far too harsh on my hair, and not even brushing and combing my hair properly.

I came into my long hair quest with fairly damaged hair, but I vowed to change all of that, and I was doing pretty well with it. However, there were a few things I goofed up on.

First of all, about a year into my journey with my hair closing in on waist length, I had the--ahem--bright idea to dye my hair medium brown. It was almost immediately that I knew I had made a mistake. My predominantly white natural roots popped out almost immediately after colouring. This made it necessary to colour far more often than I had been with a medium blonde shade. Oops. So it wasn't long before the previous damage became more apparent than ever. So I chopped off 5 inches. Back to square one.

My hair was actually looking great at this point, because the hair that had been previously damaged by "ultra light" blonde hair colouring was just about gone. However, now I was stuck with this brown shade that in some places was almost black. While I enjoyed being a brunette for a change, it really was far too dark for my colouring. I hung in with it until March of '08.

Now, how does one safely go from dyed dark brown to blonde without damaging one's hair. Well, the short answer is it really can't be done. So I bleached out (ouch) the brown, and started colouring with medium blonde again. But the damage! I couldn't live with it. So another 5 inches cut off. And there was still plenty of damage. Another 3 inches off. Still more damage. I just maintained my length until January of this year 2010, when most of the damage was cut out and I decided to start growing again. By February, the length of my hair was back to where it was when I first decided to grow it. Back to square one yet again.

It's now April of 2010, and my hair, when measured from the hairline on my forehead to the tip of my ends is 24 inches, as pictured above. My current goal is to reach BSL length, which means "Bra Strap Length". I hope to be there before the end of this year. By summer of 2011, I'm hoping that my hair will be at waist length.

I'm on my way again. I'm still dying my hair, but in my low-maintenance medium blonde shade. Now I have the knowledge of hair care, and I've learned my lesson about trying wacky colour experiments (I promise). I've learned lots of protective hairstyles, which are featured in my hairstyle/haircare website. This time, I'm going to do it!