Today’s trend is moving away from mainstream haircare brands, with too much overwhelming choice, to more focused niche brands. Less is best, product performance is everything for all hair types.
Are you a consumer that is just overwhelmed by all the choices for different hair types, provided to you by mainstream brands? Even those that class themselves as a luxury brand can overdo it. Let’s face it, an honest salesperson would confirm to you, within a wall of 36 items from one brand and 42 from another brand, that on average there are just 1 or 2 items that are repeatedly purchased the rest is just marketing noise.
Did you know the average drugstore hair-care aisle displays more than 600 products in comparison to a skin-care aisle that only has about 400.)
I’m more convinced than ever the more mass-market a company is, the more ordinary are the items, hence they keep producing new products in the hope the client will return.
Times are changing. Niche brands are becoming the new trend. The consumer today is very well-read on ingredients, they care what they use on their hair and they absolutely demand performance from their products. Niche brands have one chance at success and therefore their product had better be high performant. Integrity is everything and the new trend today has the consumer searching for that.
Less is always best. No matter what hair type you have, do not become a product junkie. Who wants to have oily, sticky or stiff hair over healthy, sumptuous and lustrous hair?
The way you style your hair is a matter of preference, but you probably already know that your hair has some limitations. Perhaps it tends to frizz easily or doesn’t want to hold a curl. These are qualities that you can’t control, but you can learn how to work around them.
How to tell what hair type you have.
Compare one of your hair strands in your hairbrush to a piece of sewing thread about 6 inches long (choose a similar colour to your hair if you can). Place it next to the thread on a flat, plain surface. Thick hair will look thicker than the thread. Medium hair will have about the same thickness as the thread and fine hair will be a lot thinner than the thread.
What’s your hair’s porosity?
Porosity means your hair’s ability to absorb moisture, water, and products overall. It is directly related to the condition of the cuticle layer of the hair, which acts as a shield to the inside layers of your hair. Your level of porosity comes from both nature and nurture. You’re born with a certain amount, but outside factors like environment, chemical processing, and heat styling make a major impact.
How to know your porosity Take a couple of strands of your hair and drop them into a bowl of water. Let them sit for 2-4 minutes. If your hair floats, you have low porosity and if it sinks, you have high porosity. High porosity often shines much less and can effect perfect colour results, either not accepting colour at all or over accepting colour pigment. Best to give the colour task to a professional.
Your Hair Texture Many people don’t think of texture as a separate factor from hair type, but it strongly affects how well your hair will hold styles and colour. Texture relates to thickness/thinness of each strand, also if its curly, wavy, frizzy or straight.
Thick hair has the largest circumference and is slower to absorb colour, which means that it usually requires more processing time. It can also be resistant to chemical treatments like perming and straightening. Medium thickness hair is the easiest kind to work with and fine hair will usually process quickly and lightens very easily. Because of that, it runs the risk of getting over-processed and is susceptible to damage from chemical treatments. Less is more if this is your texture.
BEST PRODUCTS
Without a doubt, less is best. Spend the extra cents on high-performance homecare. Search for a shampoo with a PH of 5.50 to 6.50 and a conditioner with PH 4.0 to 5.0. These will work for ALL hair types.
Flat, fine and thin hair types
Keep it clean. Shampoo with a high performant sulfate-free, paraben-free, silicon-free shampoo with a PH of around 5.50 to 6.50. This will clean hair and scalp perfectly giving naturally a good root lift and should ensure the customer who needs to shampoo every day for volume, may even extend to 2 or 3 days before her next wash. Check ingredients avoid silicon-based products they will weigh your hair down.
When blow-drying avoid placing any product like serums or mouse on the roots, instead, blow dry them against the grain so to speak, either by holding each section up and away from the roots and placing hairdryer nozzle right at roots or simply throwing head upside down and again concentrating air just on root lift. Be sure your dryer has its nozzle attached to direct air directly to root area only.
A wonderful serum to use is the Iles Formula Finishing Serum. This serum has the power if blow-dried into every section to make thin hair feel thicker. It’s an organic type of thickness, luscious and silky not crunchy or crackly. It also contains a soft memory keeping naturally whatever form you give the hair. It has heat protection, UV protection and protection against humidity.
This image below is testimony to the magic this serum delivers. It took me 40 mins to create this before and after look. I shampooed, conditioned and blow-dried with the serum. The magic you see came from the serum. No extensions added no retouch!
Thick and Coarse Straight Hair types.
Possibly the easiest hair type to manage is this one. Perhaps placing curl can be bothersome. It all depends on elasticity in the hair shaft. Good elasticity will curl quickly and last long.
This hair type is often very thirsty. Conditioner and Masks are mostly always necessary. I always place the mask before the conditioner. As a good conditioner should always shut the cuticle down tight so one needs to apply the mask to add nourishment before closing the cuticle.
Textured curly, wavy hair types including coarse straight hair
I use a heavier serum on hair like this, one that delivers a weightier cashmere texture to hair opposed to a light silky texture as the finishing serum we just spoke of. Curl Revive is my favourite for coarse thick hair whether it be wavy curly or straight. Don’t be fooled by the word curl, this serum is phenomenally blow-dried into thick coarse straight hair too. This serum also contains protection against heated tools, UV damage, colour fade and humidity.
