Hair isn’t like skin. Skin is alive, it’s an organ of the body, and your body makes skin cells to replenish old ones that tire, die, and shed. Your skin can absorb nutrients (or free radicals and other trash) and they can benefit or harm, but the important thing to note is that skin is alive. It will rejuvenate and turn over a new layer of it’s best self.

Hair is deader than a doornail once it’s outside of your head. It won’t replenish itself, and there are no new cells to replace crackly ones at your ends. You need to treat hair like a dead, lifeless, rotting, decrepit thing that you are just begging to cling to your head for a little longer. It’s old, people. The average head of adult hair grows 1/2- 1 inch per month. My lucky head barely squeezes out 1/4 of an inch. So, if we do some intricate second grade-level math; that makes our ends past our shoulders oh — 2,976,756 years old, or something like that.

Hair is just a tinsy tube of protein and water, getting whipped around all day, pulled up, holes shot into it’s sides with chemicals and such, blasted with heat- and we give it no protection in the way we feed our faces with moisture when they are dry, zit cream on a breakout, eye cream for that delicate undereye area, chapstick so our lips don’t crack.

If your hair is past your shoulders, you should use a leave in conditioner IN ADDITION TO YOUR RINSE OUT CONDITIONER. I’m sorry to yell and get gruff, but your ends need you, and you’re ignoring them. The longer your hair, or the more chemical processes it has endured, the creamier and more intense the formula. Some are heat-activated, some are super lightweight- just a whisper of dew for barely parched tips.

My pinterest page has suggestions for all different hair types- and I hate being a product pusher, but I’m tired of hearing how attached to your long (or in some cases “long”) hair you are, yet you don’t care for it at all. That’s just abusive! Clients always treat me like I’m the enemy when they have long hair that hasn’t been trimmed this decade and the ends bend and crack like straw. I can’t help you if you don’t help yourself, guys.

If you protect your ends, you can keep more of them at your next cut if you wish, therefore your hair will retain more of it’s length and grow longer quicker than having to whack of a bunch at each ‘trim.’

Shoulder length hair that you aren’t trying to grow? Keep in mind ends should always look slightly shiny and slightly moist, root area should look slightly matte. Healthy-ish hair styles better and is so much easier to comb through as well. I have a baby-fine bob and I use a few spritzes every time my ends are wet.

Just use the leave in.