Lifestyle Choices

When Hair is too Fragile

You need to stop any processing you have been doing to it (such as coloring with permanent tints or permanent waving) for several weeks and go on to a pH-balanced protein shampoo plus a protein conditioner. You can use a heavy protein pack on the hair for twenty minutes twice a week. This will close the imbrications of the cuticle and help heal whatever damage you have done to the cortex, which is the cause of fragility. You should have split ends cut off and steer clear of very hot blow drying, overbrushing, and heated rollers. Wear your hair in a simple, easyto-care-for style until it has responded to the treatment and healthy hair is showing at the roots (usually about three months). Then you can consider having a gentle permanent (but it should be professionally done). Stay out of the sun.

If Your Hair is Dull, What are the Remedies?

This depends on the cause. Some hair has become dull as a result of pigment changes associated with age or illness. Some is dull because of raised cells in the cuticle, which poorly reflect light. Usually dull hair is dry hair, so much of the problem and advice for dryness goes for you, too. If the dullness is a color problem, it is best to seek professional advice, since correcting it is usually easy, provided you know how. The hot oil treatment can help dull hair, as can an intense protein treatment every two weeks. (more…)

What can be done for dry Hair?

That depends on the cause of the dryness. If your hair is naturally dry due to there being fewer than normal oil glands in the scalp, then it will still be strong and healthy hair—not at all the same thing as a head of hair that is dry from overprocessing (permanent waving and coloring), overexposure to the sun, or overuse of hot-air dryers and heated rollers. Then the individual hairs are weak and fragile. Naturally-dry hair needs an occasional oil treatment to coat the cuticle and help protect it from further moisture loss—in other words, to replace the hair’s natural oils, which should be doing the job themselves.

Here’s how to give an oil treatment: Place 2 ounces of olive oil in a blender and add to it the same amount of boiling water. Turn on high for a few seconds, until all the oil has been broken up into little droplets, and then immediately put it on your dry hair, massaging it in well all over. (more…)

By the seventies, fragrances had invaded every area of our lives, from the smell on the paper tissue or kitchen towel to the myriad of perfumes we can choose from for bath products, shampoos, colognes, laundry detergents, and fine scents at almost any price. Now we are also witnessing the development of new psycho-scents–essential oils used for their effect on mind and body, and carefully chosen incense that smells the way it does to clear the mind for meditation or to soften the edges of reality more gently than the mind-bending drugs of the sixties did. Whether we are aware of it or not, we live in a world of scent that affects us on almost every level of response. (more…)

Trends in scent are all very well, but no woman selecting scent for herself should give too much consideration to them. When choosing a scent, remember that it should be an extension of your own personality. Select it as you would a piece of music to complement how you feel or what you want to do while wearing it. Here are a few basic guidelines for choosing.

1. Go shopping alone; friends can influence you wrongly either by telling you what you want to hear or by giving an opinion about what they like for themselves. Your scent is the most personal of all your purchases.
2. Shop for scent only when you are in a good mood. One’s judgment about the subtleties of fragrances can be severely clouded by fatigue or by being in a bad mood.
3. Don’t wear scent when you are going to buy some. It will only distort your judgment.
4. Give yourself enough time. Choosing scent is not something to sandwich between buying bedspreads and meeting friends for lunch. (more…)