Highlighting Your Hair

So, as many of you know bleaching your hair is especially bad for it and for those of you who are like me, you do it anyways. Well here's a bit of a better way to get your hair a bit lighter for the summer. Just know that any way you go about lightening your hair will probably cause damage, but this is a bit more natural and better for your hair than bleach in a box.

Alright so you're going to need some things to start off:
>1 cup lemon juice
>1/4 cup conditioner
>1/4 warm water
>hot sunny day
>spray bottle

Step One: 
Mix all of the ingredients together until they are well blended.

Step Two:
Take your spray bottle and pour in the mixture you just created.

Step Three:
Spray the mixture into your dry hair. It is important that you do this an evenly as possible. Continue spraying evenly throughout your hair, roots to ends until it's completely wet, or until mixture it gone.

Step Four:
Sit out in the hot sun for up to 2 hours to allow the Sun to do it's thing on your hair.

Step Five:
Wash out hair using a deep conditioner (or if you only have normal that will do). As I said bleaching hair any way is bad for it and this will dry out your hair so conditioner generously!

Step Six:
Repeat the process until you get your desired look. Only do this once a week, it may take up to 4 weeks to notice a very significant difference.

So there you have it! Just please note that with really dark brown to black hair it can be very difficult to get results, for some people they do it a long time and nothing happens others see slight results. This process works better on people with already blonde hair or people with light brown hair.
I hope this helped you out a bit! Good luck!
Questions? Email damagebegone@hotmail.com

-Ashley

Long Summer Hair!

This has been a long awaited post... lots of questions like this come up over and over again, and although this whole blog will really help you with growing longer hair but this post is just a lot of tips combined to help you with longer hair! Hope you enjoy!

1. Eat more protein!

Your hair is made of protein and so when you don't get enough of it your body stops giving your hair any, therefore slowing down growth. Protein is found in eggs, chicken, red meat, beans and a lot of other foods.

2. Drink lots of water!

This helps keep your hair healthy. If your hair is not healthy and hydrated then it gets dry causing split ends and breaking off of the ends of your hair. When the ends of your hair constantly break off it can't grow at it's full speed.

3. Get hair trimmed every 6-8 weeks.

Although you might feel like this slows the growth it doesn't! It is better to cut off all the dead ends sooner than later. Because eventually the split ends travel up your hair and the higher up they go the shorter you'll have to cut it. And again you don't want split ends because they break off and cause hair to grow slower.

4. Protect hair from heat.

This can be done various ways. For one eliminating all heat tools on your hair is probably the best, but if you must use a heat tool use heat protectant and LET IT DRY before applying heat to your hair. You can find all sorts of hair tutorials not involving heat on youtube or on my blog (see other posts). Also using protectant spray before going out into the hot sun is useful. It's also good to not have your shower too hot (difficult I know). The purpose for this again is to reduce split ends.

5. Keep your hair moisturized!

Again this can be done different ways, like using a deep conditioner about once a week. Using a hair mask once a month (approximately depending on amount of damage). Also being sure to always use normal conditioner is helpful. Moisture in hair is healthy hair, and healthy hair is faster growing hair.

6. Protect from chlorine!

Okay, okay, wearing a swim cap IS dorky. But there are ways you can reduce chlorine damage without the swim cap. Try rinsing out your hair with fresh water before entering a pool, and applying spray-in conditioner to help your hair not to absorb so much chlorine. Chlorine can be very damaging for hair!

7. Get more natural products!

The more natural the better. All these chemicals in the hair products we use can be very handy for our hair but also very harmful. If you can get natural shampoos and conditioners, oils are very good for this. I used Moroccan hair oil shampoo and conditioner for a long time, my hair was so much healthier!

8. Don't stress it!

Reducing stress and increasing sleep can help with hair growth. A lot of times if you are not sleeping well or are very stressed or not eating right, hair can start to fall out and break. So keep your entire body physically and mentally happy to increase the time in which your hair grows. If you struggle with stress/depression/eating disorders see if you can do something about it. Anything from listening to music on your bed, seeing a counselor or doing yoga can help your stress level decrease. Whatever works for you!

9. Do not wash your hair daily!

This will end up drying your hair out. As you have read in former tips, this is not good for your hair. So to keep your hair moist and healthy try avoiding washing hair daily. Dry shampoo or baby powder can really help with being able to go 2 days without washing your hair.

10. Avoid dying and bleaching your hair.

This involves a lot of chemicals and is not natural at all and can fry your hair completely if involving bleach. So do your best not to dye or bleach your hair. Because as I have mentioned lots, dry hair is unhealthy and will decrease the speed in which your hair grows.

Hope you found this helpful! Good luck with growing your long hair!

Feel free to e-mail me with questions or suggestions for future posts:

damagebegone@hotmail.com

-Ashley

Post Requests and March Favorites!

Hey everyone! March favorites is in next paragraph if you want to skip ahead! I'm sorry I haven't been blogging much lately, I know it sounds lame but I have been very busy. I am obviously off my once a week blogging schedule, that has just been too much for me so I'm going to try to post once a month and hopefully more if everything goes well! I REALLY WANT YOUR HELP. I'm looking for ideas for new posts, or requests of what you'd like to know about! So please if you have ideas, tips, requests or questions please e-mail me at damagebegone@hotmail.com I would appreciate it and would be more than happy to reply or make a post about it. So feel free to e-mail away! I will also start putting up polls again, it stopped working but I'm going to see if that will work again. Also feel free to let your friends know about my blog! Would you like more product reviews, videos,  pictures? Feedback is always appreciated!

Now for my favorites! These are more my favorites from the past 2 or 3 months but let's just go with March favorites. Recently I've been very happy with the way my hair has been going. I've tried 2 new shampoo/conditioners and I am really pleased with them!

The first I tried was Dove Therapy Volume Boost Shampoo and Conditioner (link below). I really liked the product, I thought it made my hair feel a lot more smooth, which I really like, I'm not sure if it helped for volume at all but most of the shampoos I try for volume don't really work. (If you know one please comment or e-mail!) But I was happy with the product and thought it worked fairly well. You can probably buy it at your local Wal-Mart!
http://www.dove.ca/en/Products/Hair/Dove-Volume-Boost-Shampoo.aspx

The next shampoo and conditioner I tried was from the new Clear brand. I had heard a lot of good things about it but still wasn't sure if I wanted to jump into it, but then my mom bought some and I figured, why not?
She purchased the Volumizing Root Boost Nourishing Shampoo (and conditioner). Okay I LOVE this product, like it's actually amazing. To start off it smells AMAZING, like actually I've gotten a bunch of compliments about the smell. Also it really helps my hair to not get greasy so fast, usually I have to wash my hair every day to make it not greasy, or at least use dry shampoo because you're not suppose to wash your hair everyday but with this stuff it's not even greasy on the second day! I'm super impressed with this product so far, have any of you tried Clear? I would recommend it because it worked great for me!
http://www.clearhaircare.com/women/212394/volumizing-root-boost-nourishing-shampoo-conditioner

The last product for today is my "It's a 10 Miracle leave-in Product" I got a bottle of it from my hairdresser because she didn't need it anymore, I was so excited because I've been wanting to try it but it's slightly pricey! However now I know that it's absolutely worth it! On the back of the bottle it lists 10 things it's supposed to do, I will list them and let you know how I think it actually did with my hair!
1. Repair dry, damaged hair ~ well I don't think my hair can be repaired within a couple of days but I think it's definitely feeling more healthy than before!
2. adds shine ~ I would agree with this one, if I spray it in after my shower while my hair is wet, it dries shinier.
3. Smooths and Controls Frizz ~ Definitely! My hair is a lot smoother.
4. seals and protects hair color ~ I could not say, my hair isn't dyed, sorry!
5. flat iron spray & thermal protector ~ I can't say for sure but I'm pretty sure it does this pretty well because my hair doesn't feel as "blow dried" when I'm finished blow drying it. (Shame on me, I know.)
6. Detanlges ~ this is actually one of my favorite parts, I feel like it detangles my hair so well! Which I need because my hairs curly and I must only brush it when it's wet so I need a good dentangler to really reduce the damage, this works amazing!
7. stops hair breakage ~ It's not stopping all the breakage but I think it's making my hair stronger!
8. Creates silkiness ~ I feel like this is a lot like smoother hair and yes it's silkier!
9. enhances natural body ~ I'm not sure I agree with this one because my hair is still pretty flat however I only really spray it on my ends.
10. prevents split ends ~ This I can't really say for sure off hand. Sorry.
So that's how it's been working for me. All in all I feel like it's a really good, healthy product for my hair and I  encourage you all to try it out! Oh and it also smells DELICIOUS. It smells like a hairdresser, kind of. Maybe all hairdressers smell different but I love the smell of stuff my hairdresser uses in my hair and this smells like a profession product to me!

I hope you enjoyed, comments and feedback are always appreciated and encouraged!
Any products you've been loving or wanting to be reviewed? Feel free to e-mail me. Have a great day!

damagebegone@hotmail.com
-Ashley

December Favorites!

So although the cold dries out your hair a lot, I've been having a pretty good hair month after the discovery of some awesome products! Mostly my new shampoos and conditioners. So let's begin.

This is my new shampoo and conditioner, well some of my new shampoos and conditioners, I have a few. They are moroccan argan oil products as you can see. These products have done amazing things in my hair! I have a slight obsession with soft hair and these products made my hair UNBELIEVABLY soft and luscious  I would highly recommend them. Not only do they make your hair look and feel awesome but they are also very healthy for your hair because they're based on natural oils. So feel free to check them out!

Another shampoo and conditioner I've been using on my hair at the beginning of this month was my TRESemme Naturals Nourishing Moisture Shampoo and Conditioner. They also made my hair softer but what they really did for my hair was helped regain strength and moisture in my hair. I feel like they really brought back some life to my dead hair and helped to reduce dryness during the cold winter season. So if you're having trouble with very damaged hair I'd highly suggest these products. Also the conditioner is silicone free and shampoo has lower sulfates. 

I'm continuing to enjoy my Chi Shine Infusion spray. Especially for when my hair dries out in the winter months it really brings life and moisture back into my hair! I would highly recommend this product as a shine spray, it works very well.

This is the last product I'll be listing today. It's one of the shampoos I'm really loving this last month. It did the same as my other Argan shampoo. It really made my hair a lot softer and nicer to work with, and again it's really good for your hair!

Hope you enjoyed! 

Tip 16 and 17: Break Bad Habits and Avoid Rain

These will be very short tips, so I put them together. First I apologize for my lack of blogging- December is a little crazy for me. But I'm back.
First of all for breaking bad habits you may be thinking, eating junk food, using heat on your hair, brushing it when it's wet- well yes those are all bad habits you should break in order to keep your hair healthier. But I'm talking about a specific habit, which may seem rather weird to some of you. And that is sucking or chewing on your hair. Weird, I know. But if you have this problem I would suggest stopping. Sucking or chewing on your hair can actually cause split ends! So just a heads up if you're a hair chewer- DON'T DO IT!

The next tip is also pretty straight forward as well. As much fun as running or dancing in the rain can be it can actually make your hair greasy! So if you're on your way somewhere, or already are somewhere, where you don't want greasy hair and may not get the chance to wash it, avoid running around in the rain!

-Ashley
damagebegone@hotmail.com

Oily/Greasy Hair Solution

So last weekend was the dry hair solution, today is the greasy or oily hair solution! So if you have this problem, keep on reading!
So this first idea, is slightly different than getting rid of grease for good. Use a dry shampoo. Doing this will absorb the grease already in your hair, and will make your hair less greasy that day, but it does not change how fast your hair will get greasy. So if you're just looking for something to spray in, in the morning to reduce the greasy look then try purchasing a dry shampoo. I like the Dove Dry Shampoo and TRESemme Volumizing Dry Shampoo is also pretty good. But that's just for my hair, so try out some different kind and see what works best for you! All you have to do is spray it into your greasy roots and sometimes rub it in a little if it gets a little white looking (generally not a problem for people with lighter hair). Another thing to consider if you don't want to use dry shampoo is baby powder. It will also absorb grease from your hair. The cons to using baby powder though are that it's harder to apply to your hair, you can either shake it straight onto your hair or brush it in, but it's rather difficult. Also it tends to make your hair a little staticy and can leave more white in your hair than dry shampoo will, again, not a problem for people will light or blonde hair.
So that being said let's look at ways that will actually help eliminate grease all together! Try purchasing a clarifying shampoo and rubbing your scalp vigorously. Often the problem is the oily build up at the roots of your hair that causes it to be more greasy so if you have a shampoo that is to clean really well the top fo your head, and if you scrub it into your roots well it will get rid of some, or all of the build up and your hair will take longer to get greasy.
Another thing that will really help is avoiding conditioning at your roots and scalp. Conditioner adds moisture to your hair and if your roots are generally getting greasy fast, you won't need any extra moisture there. So when usuing conditioner only condition the ends of your hair, that's where it's needed most!
Also to get rid of build up on your scalp, once a week use a scalp scrub. You can either buy one in the store, or make one using things you probably already have in your house. I'll post one idea below, however I have never had a need to use a scalp scrub, therefore it's just an idea from online and I haven't yet tried it so I couldn't tell you whether it worked well or not. But basically you just take the scrub and scrub it onto your scalp... pretty straight forward, right? I will post the link from where I go this recipe below. Here's a recipe:
Step 1
Combine 2 tbsp. brown sugar and 2 tbsp. finely ground oatmeal in a small bowl. Add 2 tbsp. hair conditioner to the mixture and knead the ingredients together with your hair
Step 2
Add 15 drops of the essential oil of your choice to the scrub mixture. Work the oil as evenly through the mixture as possible
Step 3
Shampoo the hair before beginning the scalp scrub if you have styling products such as gel or mousse or hairspray in it. If no styling products are in hair, wet the hair and scalp thoroughly.
Step 4
Get a few tablespoons of the scalp scrub mixture onto your fingers, but not all over the palms of the hands. Put your fingers on your scalp and begin to work the scrub into your scalp, using a circular motion.
Step 5
Add more of the scrub mixture, as needed. Continue to massage your scalp in a circular motion for a few minutes, until you have covered the entire scalp area.
Step 6
Rinse the scalp scrub from your hair, shampoo and conditioner as normal.

You could also just use your fingers to massage your scalp which can help loosen the build up but may not be quite as effective.
As much as you try to minimize the grease in your hair it's usually hereditary, meaning it runs in your family, so there's not a bunch you can do about it. But I hope you found this useful and will try out some of the ideas!
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to e-mail me: damagebegone@hotmail.com
-Ashley

Dry Hair Solution

Alright so a lot of people either struggle with dry hair or overly greasy hair. It's not uncommon and often questions are asked, begging for advice on how to prevent your hair from being this way or at least make it more manageable, so I would like to do a post on dry hair, and hopefully soon greasy hair. I'll give you the best advice that I can!
First of all what causes dry hair? Well there's not one 'right' answer, it can be brought on by dandruff, your diet, chemically processing your hair, or being in the sun too long. So those are things you want to watch out for by taking care of dandruff right away, keeping yourself on a healthy diet and drinking plenty of water, not bleaching or dying your hair and if so doing it as healthily as possible (see post on bleaching and dying hair) and using heat protectants while going out for a long day in the sun or using heat tools on your hair!
Now you know some of the ways you can prevent it, but what about those who already have dry hair? Well first of all, all the ideas listed above are still relevant in helping restore moisture in your hair but there's even more you can do for your dry hair.
Number one being, doing everything you can to make the rest of your body healthier through exercise, healthy diets, drinking plenty of water (8 cups a day) and trying not to get overly stressed. Next you do not want to be washing your hair every day, which could very likely be the cause of your dry hair. You want to wash it only every other day, even longer if you can without it looking too greasy. Washing it everyday will strip it of its natural oils making it dryer and dryer. Although the ends of your hair might be super dry at the ends you may feel like your hair gets greasy at the top so you need to wash it everyday, well try purchasing a dry shampoo to absorb grease so you can go longer without washing it, baby powder also works but tends to need to be blended in more that dry shampoo as it makes your hair white, which is generally not a problem for blondes.
Next I would suggest looking into the shampoos and conditioners that you buy. I would always encourage getting a moisturizing shampoo, whether your hair is dry or greasy, it's just simply the best for your hair. So always look for a shampoo that says something about moisture or moisturizing. Apply shampoo to just your scalp and roots and conditioner to mostly your ends. You can also look into buying a deep conditioner and using it once a week, applying it to your hair (but not scalp as it will generally get greasy easier) and then leaving it in for at least 5 minutes, longer is always better, then rinse it out. When rinsing out the deep
conditioner or normal conditioner start with warmish water (not hot water, you should never shower in hot water as heat is bad for your hair) the warm water will open up your hair cuticles and let the moisture from the conditioner in but then rinse with cool or cold water to close the hair cuticles and trap the moisture within.
Also look into buying a natural oil product for you hair such as coconut oil or olive oil. The product will generally say whether to apply it to wet, damp or dry hair and how much but I wouldn't apply it to scalp or roots because it's oil so it tends to be slightly greasy and could make your roots look greasy quicker. Another really great thing for your hair is hair masks! You may or may not have heard of them but they're extremely good for you hair and you shouldn't have to buy anything for it, generally the masks are mixed with things you would find in your house. You can see more on hair masks if you go to my blog post about it, there are different hair masks to try out there. I'm pretty sure it's just titled "hair masks".
And almost anything suggested for getting "healthy" hair on this blog should help with dry hair considering, dry hair is generally damaged and damaged hair is generally dry. So feel free to flip through the rest of the blog to get even more ideas!

I can make another post on this with more ideas if you guys would like that, feel free to e-mail me with comments, questions and suggestions at: damagebegone@hotmail.com
Thanks for reading,
Ashley