Tangled: My Hair Care Era, Explained
My journey to repair and care for my strands. Plus, some of my favorite discoveries.
Welcome to the first installment of Tangled, a series dedicated to the lessons learned and unlearned, luscious rituals, tried and trusted recommendations and other miscellaneous delights I’ve discovered on my journey to love, repair and care for my strands. In today’s post, I’ll preview how I went from religiously bleaching my hair every few months for decades to finally letting my natural hair color shine and what made me decide to commit to caring for my hair — aka, My Hair Care Era. And as I enter the second year of my journey to repair and care for my strands, my hair has transformed from brittle and damaged to silky and healthy. But getting here wasn’t easy. My Hair Care Era has been largely defined by seemingly endless trial and error(s), countless questions, comedic misadventures and many lessons still to be learned. Each edition of Tangled is a love letter to my hair and my journey to repair and care for each and every strand. You can find every installment of Tangled here. Let’s dive in.
Programming Note: This post includes more goodness than an email can handle. Don’t miss a thing, read it here!
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Disclaimer
I am not a hair care expert by any stretch of the imagination. And while I’m happy to share my experiences and what’s helped me throughout my Hair Care Era, please note that my opinions should not be perceived as medical advice. When in doubt, consult a doctor you trust.
Everyone’s hair is different. I can only speak to my experience. What works for me may not work for you and that’s okay.
Context
I have a lot (like really, a lot) of very fine hair, meaning that my hair is easily weighed down by products. My hair also looks and feels healthiest when I wash it daily — don’t come for me.
Blonde Colored Glasses
For nearly two decades, I dyed my hair blonde. And despite spending an astonishing amount of time, money and energy to maintain my nearly platinum blonde hair over the years, I never once thought about what it would be like to stop bleaching my hair. Once I moved to New York City, I dutifully followed various hair colorists across Manhattan for my bi-monthly appointments as they moved from salon to salon. No matter how long each appointment took (usually around five hours) or how obscene the prices were, I was willing to do anything in the pursuit of making my hair as blonde as possible.
But despite years of investing seemingly endless time, money and energy into maintaining my hair color, it never occurred to me that I should also invest in products to help care for my (very bleached and very damaged) hair. I had always used whatever shampoos and conditioners that were available to me and never considered expanding my hair care routine (if you could even call it a routine) to include leave-in conditioners, hair oils or other treatments.
However, eventually it became impossible to ignore how damaged my hair really was after decades of bleach. So like any good millennial, I signed up for a subscription to shampoo and conditioner that was “personalized” exactly for my hair. To spare you from a lengthy rant, let’s just say those products made the situation much, much worse. And by the time I realized how damaging those products were, I figured my hair may be doomed but at least it was blonde.
But something changed in July 2022. Maybe it was the hair appointment that went on for seven hours, perhaps it was the breakage that made me consider cutting off the hair I worked so long to grow out, maybe it was that I was shedding and losing more hair than ever before or maybe it was a mild heat stroke brought on by NYC summers. Although I can’t point to a specific moment, sometime in July 2022 I quit being blonde. I canceled my hair appointment for August and then September, and by the time October rolled around my roots had grown out several inches.
Regardless of the reason behind my sudden change of heart, I finally realized that (for me) trying to be as blonde as possible was a fool’s errand and that if I wanted to keep my hair, I had to commit to repairing it. Thus, my hair care journey began.
My Hair Care Era: I Really Should Patent That
Definition: A commitment to a lifelong journey to repair and care for my hair.
Building A Routine
When I somewhat reluctantly embarked on my Hair Care Era, it took all of five minutes to realize I had literally no idea what I was doing. It was the first time I had ever sat down to think about caring for my hair in a meaningful way. And a quick Google search proved that I had remarkably underestimated what it would take to repair my hair. The only hair care brands I could even name were the ones that came as free samples from Sephora. Hair care had never been part of my lifestyle and I had no idea how many products went into a hair care routine. It wasn’t like I was using a two-in-one shampoo/conditioner from Head & Shoulders but it’s hard to overstate how comically underprepared I was.
I was starting from scratch and desperately wanted to build the foundation for my hair care routine (at the very least). So, I decided to dedicate a few months to testing as many shampoos and conditioners as possible — because shampoo and conditioner is the foundation to hair care, right? And trust me when I say that I tried A LOT of shampoo and conditioners from more brands than I can count. If it was available for purchase (and there was free shipping involved), I bought it. Of course, the large majority of those products were not for me — anything heavy immediately weighed down my hair and made it look greasy within a few hours. Everyone’s hair is different. The most popular brands and bestselling products at Sephora ended up being the ones that really didn’t work for me, which made finding the right products even more daunting.
And this, unexpectedly, revealed a pretty considerable obstacle that still exists in my hair care journey today: my hair is healthiest when I wash it daily, which means I go through a lot of shampoo and conditioner — and that gets expensive very quickly. While it can take me months to go through a moisturizer, it only takes a matter of weeks for me to go through a shampoo (reminder, I have A LOT of hair). Still, cheaper than bleaching my hair!
Thankfully, I eventually found a few shampoos and conditioners that performed and worked well for my very fine and easily weighed down hair. The products below are still my most repurchased and loved (reminder, I have very fine hair).
The Best Overall: Shampoo; Conditioner; Detox Shampoo
The Best Experience: Shampoo; Conditioner; The Set
The Best Budget: Shampoo; Conditioner
The Best Splurge: The Set
But it wasn’t until later that I finally and fully realized that my hair care routine had to extend beyond my shower walls. Cue, more trial and error (and some tears).
Building A Ritual: Part I
For someone with a fifty-eight step skincare ritual, I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize that my hair care routine should also be a ritual and include more than just shampoo and conditioner — especially given the state of my hair. So after scrolling on social media and searching the internet (people are really intense about hair), I started to understand the importance of what I like to call the extras. And if you’re building out your own hair care routine, a leave-in conditioner is the first product I would recommend incorporating (after shampoo and conditioner, of course). To this day, I’ve only found one leave-in conditioner that actually works for my hair — despite testing more than ten at the time and continuing to try new releases that appear promising. While my hair isn’t really blonde anymore, it still acts like Goldilocks. A leave-in conditioner that’s too heavy and moisturizing weighs down my hair, while a leave-in conditioner that’s too light is not nearly moisturizing enough for my hair.
The Best Leave-In Conditioner: A Leave-In Conditioner Made for Goldilocks
And then there are all the decadent and exhilaratingly luxurious extras. Including but not limited to: daily and overnight hair oils, dry shampoos that actually work, better and different types of hair brushes (a crucial part of the ritual I long overlooked!), hair towels and wraps, combs (!), all the treatments, great hair spray and scalp care (which I’m still puzzled by)!! But as this post is already longer than I expected (classic), I’ll save those and other miscellaneous delights for next time. You can find many of my favorite hair care products by clicking the button below.
In 2023, we saw the beginnings of the hair care boom and I think the ritualization of hair care will be one of the biggest trends in beauty this year. So it’s safe to say I’ll continue to try all the products I can get my hands on (and report back on what worked, what didn't and who it may be better suited for). And I’ll share all of the other updates with you along the way but for now, I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Tangled.
Is there anything you specifically want to know about my hair care journey? Let me know what your favorite hair care products are in the comments below. And if you’re looking for recommendations, I am filled to the brim with them so please — ask away!
Until next time, follow along on Instagram and browse all of my favorite things. Don’t forget to click the 🤍 before you go! Thank you for being here. Talk soon.
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