When entering quarantine, I knew that my skin and hair would thrive like never before. No makeup, just skin care. Not flat iron, just au naturale.
That being said, 30-something days later, the trend of dying and cutting your hair at home is on the rise, and I for one feel like this must be controlled. The box dye you once bleached your hair with in seventh grade is no longer acceptable, and cutting your bangs with kitchen scissors WILL ruin your life.
While I’d like to think I know everything, I turned to Joico’s Larisa Love for some DIY hair advice. Love has been in the industry for 10 years, has a casual half-million Instagram followers, and owns Larisa Love Salon in Studio City, CA. So basically, she knows a little more about hair than me.
When I asked Love the “dos” of coloring and cutting hair at home, her answer was simple: Don’t.
“There are many things I would recommend for people to try out with their hair while being quarantined, but coloring or cutting their hair is NOT one of them. I say leave it to the professional when it comes to those two categories, but there are so many other things you can do to experiment with your hair.” Love explains. “Hair trends online that are making me cringe are the people who are not professionally licensed trying to cut and color their hair! It almost always doesn’t come out as successful as you want, and you end up with more of a mess than what you started with,” she added. I mean, where is the lie?
So, how does one refresh hair without permanently butchering your precious locks?
Dry Shampoo
The less you wash your hair, the less oils are stripped. Giving your hair a break can result in less breakage (see what I did there). Love recommends adding dry shampoo to freshly washed hair (which is new to me) to add volume at the root and soak up oils before the oils have time to get the hair greasy. Volume allows the hair to not lay as close on the root, which contributes to hair staying oil-free for longer periods of time. Of course, you can also freshen up between washes with dry shampoo. Basically, what I gather from this, is when it comes to washing your hair, less is more.
Joico Weekend Hair Dry Shampoo
Ditch the Heat
This feels kind of obvious, but some people are ~ addicted ~ to maintaining the perfect blowout or using a flat iron even when nobody can see them. But, the only thing you’re maintaining is the consistency of damaging your hair, so stop that. Love recommends falling in love with your natural hair (probably because she’s never seen mine) and finding the perfect products for you. If you’re naturally a frizz ball (hi) a zero-heat styling cream like this one from Joico can help tame the beast. If you’ve got naturally straight hair, or perfect curls that don’t result in frizz, just keep on keeping on and consider yourself #blessed.
Refresh Your Color (Safely)
If you just CAN’T with your hair color anymore, I get it. Personally, my beachy blonde has turned yellow, and my roots can be seen from 10 miles away. Love has a solution for every color to take you from drab to fab without changing your routine one bit.
For the brunettes: Use a blue color balance shampoo to add a cool tone. Love recommends Joico’s Color Balance Blue, but for a more affordable alternative, we love Fanola’s No Orange Shampoo.
For the redheads: Use a shampoo dedicated to you that embraces the red. Love recommends Joico’s Color Infuse Red. John Frieda’s Radiant Red Boosting Shampoo is also an affordable alternative with over 500 five-star reviews on Amazon.
John Frieda Radiant Red Boosting Shampoo
For the blondes (we’re the difficult ones): Use a purple shampoo if your hair tends to get brassy and you want to cancel out the warmth. Use a violet shampoo if your hair tends to get golden and you want more of a white tone to your hair. Try this shampoo if you want to detox AND brighten your blonde.
Kérastase Blond Absolu Anti-Brass Purple Shampoo
Joico Blonde Life Brightening Shampoo
For all the above, Love recommends leaving on wet hair for 3-5 minutes to allow shampoo to absorb.
No matter your color: If you color your hair, Love recommends washing in lukewarm to cold water. Adding heat to the hair strips the color off faster (which is quite inconvenient when every salon in the country is closed).
If you’ve reached this point and still want to color your hair at home, don’t act yet. There is still one more acceptable do, so that you don’t ruin your hair (after all, there’s still some hope of hot girl summer).
Garnier Nutrisse offers a color-care mask, Nutrisse Color Revivers, that refreshes color while also restoring softness, smoothness, and shine (it only takes five minutes). This mask is nice because it only needs to be used once every two weeks, which speaks to lazy people like myself. It’s also extremely affordable ($7.99), and in a pandemic, that matters. In case you weren’t already convinced, it comes personally recommended by Selena Gomez’s hair stylist, Nikki Lee. “Right now, I am all about the Garnier Nutrisse Color Revivers. They restore vibrancy and smoothness and work great for a refresh of color and shine at this time when you can’t get in the salon,” she says. I trust her.
Garnier Nutrisse Color Reviver Masks
So, in a nutshell, there is no room for DIY hair coloring or cutting at home. It might look fun on Instagram, but the reality is simply *not* as pretty.
Images: Ulta; Amazon; Garnier; Element 5 Digital / Unsplash
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