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10 essential summer hair care tips – how to protect your hair from sun damage, salt and chlorine, stop the frizz and keep your strands beautiful, healthy and glowing all summer long…
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- The UV rays, salt, chlorine and humidity that create havoc on your skin also negatively affect your hair.
- Try to protect your hair as much as possible by using hats, scarves and sun-protective products.
- Don’t shampoo too often, embrace the natural, no-heat styling and give your hair love and care whenever possible.
Summer is a perfect time for your hair to get that sweet revenge for all the blow-drying, ironing and dyeing you put it through during the year. It can be so frizzy, it can drive you crazy even on good days and the bad hair days are really bad.
The hair itself suffers, too. The frying sun, salt in the ocean, chlorine in the pools, harsh products, the humidity… No matter where you are and what are you doing, there is something that is drying and damaging your hair, making it frizzy and dull and messing with the color.
But that doesn’t mean you are doomed to walk around with straw instead of hair. You just need to keep a few summer hair care tips and tricks in mind, embrace a few simple rules and step up your hair care game a bit.
Nothing complicated or time consuming. Nothing that will empty your pocket. Just a regular hair care routine adjusted to what your hair needs during the summer.
10 Best Summer Hair Care Tips
When you think about it, it makes sense that summer hair care routine can’t be quite the same as winter hair care. Your hair is now exposed to a different set of conditions and challenges, so it requires a different care.
However, that doesn’t mean you need to go into some crazy extremes. Just small changes and one or two additional products are all you need to keep your hair silky soft and smooth through the heat and humidity.
So, here are 10 essential summer hair care tips you should follow for healthy, protected and manageable hair:
1. Protect your hair from the sun damage
Obviously, during the summer, protecting your hair from the sun damage should be at the top of your beauty tasks. Just like you use sunscreen to protect your skin, you need some product that will block the UV attack to your hair.
When often exposed to the sun, hair easily becomes dry and dull. It feels damaged to the touch and the color might change as well. The strands become brittle and lifeless and split ends easily occur.
Just like with your skin, there are sunscreens meant to protect your hair against the damaging effect of sun rays. In fact, there’s a wide variety of these products, so you can find hair sunscreens in form of spray, cream, oil, leave-in conditioner and even dry shampoo.
Also, the great thing about summer is that you can get very creative with accessories. So, use hats and scarves not only to look stylish, but also to protect your hair from the heat and radiation.
2. Stop the frizz before it even starts
If your hair is even slightly dry or damaged, it can be very challenging to keep it smooth when the air is hot and humid. Dry hair will always try to absorb as much moisture from the air as possible. And during the summer – there is a lot of moisture around us.
Before your hair gets a chance to swell up, there’s a lot of things you can do to hydrate and moisturize your hair and prevent the frizz. And the best thing is – all you need are a couple of inexpensive, natural ingredients. You probably even already have some of them on hand.
Natural oils and butters are especially good in taming and nourishing dry, damaged hair. You can use castor, olive, avocado or coconut oil – they all coat your hair in a protective layer and prevent drying out and frizziness. Avocado, banana and aloe vera gel are also a great choice for frizzy summer hair.
You can find here in more detail how to use natural products to combat the frizz and get silky smooth hair.
3. Don’t shampoo too often
Taking care of your hair during the summer can be challenging in many ways. One of them is definitely the fact that we sweat more, so the scalp and hair roots get oily more often.
Washing your hair every day may be your first instinct, but that is how you can make the problem even worse. When you too often remove the oils and sebum of your skin (and this works for the scalp skin as well), your skin is trying to compensate for the loss of moisture by producing even more sebum.
So, as hard as it may be, try not to wash your hair every day. If you have to, you can use a bit of some organic dry shampoo (preferably some that contains oatmeal powder) and that way delay washing your hair for at least one more day.
Also, find a quality mild shampoo for summer. That way, you can shampoo your hair more often without drying it out too much.
4. Always use a conditioner
Some girls see conditioning as an optional, extra hair care step, but that is simply not true. A quality hair conditioner plays a huge role in maintaining your hair healthy and beautiful.
Conditioning makes your hair soft, smooth and manageable. It smoothes out the cuticles and coats your strands in a protective layer. That way, it prevents hair damages and drying out and it even helps control frizziness.
Use the conditioner right after shampoo. Just squeeze out the excess water first – it might prevent the conditioner from nicely coating your hair. Apply the conditioner and leave it on for 2 – 5 minutes, then rinse off.
Use a hair conditioner every time you wash your hair, to detangle and soften it, make it smooth and manageable, improve its elasticity and add glow.
5. Some extra hair care every once in a while
At this time of year, your hair usually needs all the help it can get. Every once in a while (ideally 2 – 3 times a month), use some extra rich, nourishing and moisturizing hair pack.
Hair pack can quickly provide your hair with many nutrients, fats and antioxidants. It hydrates and softens the hair, regenerates it and adds shine.
You can make your own natural hair packs quickly and easily. Check out these recipes for hair packs with coconut oil or these DIY hair packs for curly hair.
You can also make a restoring and regenerative hair spray by mixing some water, aloe vera gel and any natural oil (olive, argan, castor, avocado, coconut…)
6. Keep blow drying and ironing at minimum
This one’s a no brainer. Of course, you should always keep the use of hot hair tools at minimum, but that is especially important during summer, when there are so many other things that are damaging your hair.
Blow dryer, flat iron and hair curler strip your hair of the necessary moisture and proteins that keep your hair healthy and elastic. Soon, the hair becomes brittle, dry, dull and gets that fried look and feel.
Try to dry and style your hair naturally every time you can. And when you have to use the tools, use some hair product that protects the hair against heat. Also, remember to show your hair some love afterward. Maybe with some quality hair pack or an oil treatment.
7. Embrace that natural look
Make some mess and don’t overthink it – that is literally the best way to style your hair during summer.
Too much ironing to create straight, neat lines is not just drying and damaging to your hair, it also doesn’t look very good at 90-plus. Messy locks and beach waves are still in and they can make anyone look trendy, relaxed and comfortable in their own skin.
To make beach waves, tie your wet hair into a bun or a couple of braids and leave it like that overnight. A beach waves spray will help the hair stay “wavy’ for longer. You can make it by simply mixing some water with sea salt and coconut oil.
If you are not a fan of beach waves, you can always curl your hair some other way, braid it or tie it up into a messy bun. Pro tip – use big, attention grabbing hair accessories. Even if you just use them to lightly tie your hair, it will look like you’ve spent hours styling it.
For some more ideas, check out this video – TEN Medium Length Hairstyles!!!
8. Soak your hair before swimming
Apart from the sun, the pool and ocean water are your hair’s biggest enemies during the summer. Both sea salt and pool chemicals can dry out your hair, make it rough and frizzy and strip away its shine.
However, if your hair is already saturated, it won’t be able to absorb as much pool or ocean water.
It may seem like a weird advice, but it really works. All you have to do is soak your hair in clean water right before going for a swim. You can also coat it in a leave-in conditioner instead.
Also, rinse your hair with clean water as soon as you are out of the water. Prevent the damages before they occur and you’ll have a much easier job to keep your hair healthy and well-nourished.
9. Keep the green hue away
If your hair tends to get that awful green color after swimming, avoiding pools is not the only way to preserve the color you like. There are a couple of things you can do to prevent the color change.
First, wash your hair as soon as you are done with the pool. Don’t give the chemicals a chance to affect your hair for longer than absolutely necessary.
Use a shampoo that is specifically formulated for swimmers – it will remove the metals from your hair. However, use this shampoo only until you get rid of the green hue or it might damage your hair.
Out of the natural remedies, you can use vinegar or tomato juice diluted with water. The acid will remove the copper out of your hair and help fade the green hue.
10. Get rid of the split ends
Simply put, split ends just don’t look good. During the summer, your hair is constantly exposed to the conditions that lead to split ends and hair breakage. And the irony is – they are even more noticeable under the bright sunlight.
There are many things that cause split ends, including unhealthy diet or treating your hair aggressively, whether with chemicals or heat styling tools. Even washing your hair too often, not using a conditioner or detangling it while it is still wet can all lead to damaged, brittle hair.
And, of course, the sun exposure, sea salt, chlorine and all other conditions we already talked about.
Even if you are trying to grow your hair or you are happy with the current length, regular trims are very important. Long hair looks beautiful only when it is completely healthy.
So, make sure to trim the ends once or, if necessary, twice during the summer. And better let the professional do it if you are not absolutely sure you know what you are doing.
You can find here some additional tips and products to help you deal with split ends.
So, these are the 10 essential summer hair care tips. Stick to them and your hair will never get the chance to become dry, lifeless and damaged. Cheers.
Perfect timing for this post! Appreciating the time and effort you put into your website and in-depth information you offer. You’ve really covered up almost all the possible info that every female should follow. Worth sharing! Please do continue sharing updates! Thanks!
Thank you so much, Brooke! ❤️️❤️️❤️
I never knew that using a leave-in conditioner can help in protecting my hair from being exposed to UV rays. My hair gets extra-frizzy during the summer season and I find it hard to style it every day. Maybe I can visit a hair salon and see if they recommend some products and treatments for my hair type.
Yes, just keep in mind that not all leave-in conditioners protect the hair from UV rays, so make sure is states on the package that it provides sun protection.
You shared some amazing tips for summer season. And I agree with you we should use conditioner to keep our hair shinny.
Yay! 🙌❤️️
Lots of good pointers here. Your hair needs to be treated well, every season, and you can’t take them for granted. I hope this post will help a lot of women out there!
Glad you liked it! ❤️
These tips are literally for me especially the split ends one. Because I have a lot of split ends and haven’t trimmed for a while because I have been longing to have long hair. But seems like there isn’t any other way.
Glad you liked my post!