Let’s be honest: Perfect blowouts typically only happen in the salon, and if you want super straight hair at home, a flat iron is the way to go. Once you’ve found the best flat iron for you and you’ve got the styling down pat, there are a few other things to keep in mind while straightening your hair. For the best style possible, make sure you’re avoiding the eight mistakes below.

Not Using Heat Protectant Spray: This goes for any heat styling tool, but if you’re not putting a heat protectant spray on your hair before using your flat iron, it’s like asking for damage. On clean, damp hair, spray in a heat protectant to keep your hair from the harm that hot tools can cause.

How you adjust the temperature: The natural thought may be, “If heat damages my hair, I’ll keep my flat iron on the lowest heat setting possible!” Counterintuitive as it may seem, a medium to higher temperature — lower if your hair is fine, higher if your hair is thick — is better, because on a low heat setting, you’ll be going over your hair multiple times to smooth it out. A higher temperature means a better chance that a single pass can do the trick.

Ironing straight down: Getting as close to your root as possible, flat iron each section of hair, but pull the hair up instead of going straight down. This will give you a boost of volume at the crown, so you’ll have straight hair with body instead of your hair falling flat.

Not using a brush: With each section you straighten, brush out the hair first to get any kinks out of the way before you hit it with heat. Doing this will make the straightening go much more smoothly, and can reduce the need to go back over certain areas multiple times.

Not letting your hair cool down: While heat styles hair, cool air works to set it. Allow your hair to cool once you’ve flat ironed it so that it holds the straight style, instead of immediately putting it into a ponytail or a hair clip.

Size matters: Longer or thicker hair requires a larger flat iron (two inches) while shorter or finer hair can go with smaller flat irons (one inch). Be sure to use the proper size flat iron when straightening your hair.

Ironing while your hair is damp: Under no circumstances whatsoever should you flat iron your hair while it’s damp. If you’re in a rush, hit hair with a blow dryer before using the flat iron. When you can, allow your hair to air dry so that you aren’t putting double the amount of heat on strands.

Neglecting to clean the iron: Between using heat protectant spray and any other styling products that may be in your hair, build up can — and will — happen on your flat iron, which can cause it to snag your hair. For a smooth, clean style, make sure you’re cleaning your flat iron regularly.

If it were up to us, everyone would have a good hair day every day. Granted, we can’t all have our own personal glam squads following us around (and for most of us, such things don’t exist), but it’d be nice to walk out our front door every day feeling like we just stepped out of a hair commercial. Alas, we can’t have perfect hair all the time, but we can make sure one thing happens: Never having a bad hair day.

Because bad hair days are the worst, we’ve pulled together 25 tips to help you never have a bad one again. Read on below!

1. Plan ahead on days when you know you need to look especially presentable. Have an interview on Tuesday morning? Wash and style your hair the night before so that you’ll only need minimal touch-ups in the morning.

2. To tame flyaways, spray a toothbrush with hairspray then gently brush your hair into place. The light application of hairspray will give you hold without it being so stiff.

3. Invest in a good shampoo and conditioner combo. Much like your foundation, good hair starts at the beginning. If you use a quality shampoo and conditioner,  you’re giving yourself a head start.

4. Learn how to do a sock bun. Even on your worst hair days, concealing your hair in a sock bun will give you a finished, classy look.

5. Carry dry shampoo with you wherever you go. Keep one in your purse, one in your bathroom, one at your desk and one more wherever you spend a ton of time. Dry shampoo is like an instant root lift and shower in one.

6. Keep up with your salon appointments. Trimming your dead ends on a regular basis will keep your look consistently refreshed, meaning you’ll never have to worry about your ends making the rest of your hair look bad.

7. Know your hair type. If you’ve got oily hair, the products you use should compliment that, not make it worse. The same goes for dry hair. Be sure you’re using the correct products for a dry scalp.

8. Always use a heat protectant. Forgetting to use it once is fine, but if you’re flat ironing your hair on a regular basis with no form of protection, your hair will become fried, leading to more bad hair days than good.

9. Utilize the cool setting on your blow dryer. While heat styles hair, cool air sets it. Spending 20 minutes blow drying your hair can go to complete waste if you don’t set the blowout with colder air.

10. Consider taking biotin or fish oil supplements. Typically used when girls want their hair to grow, these supplements help bring strength and shine to your hair on a regular basis.

11. Never be without bobby pins. Some mornings when you leave your house your hair can look amazing, and then a rainstorm hits. To make sure you’re never without bobby pins, stash 10 or so in the coin purse of your wallet.

12. Know what kind of maintenance you can handle before you get a cut. Those long bobs that are everywhere now? They take some work if  your hair’s natural texture doesn’t work with the cut. The lowest maintenance hair is long, layered cuts. Short hair requires styling just about every day.

13. Find a headband that goes with everything. Whether you wear mostly black, brown, white or otherwise, find a simple, plain headband that can be used to jazz up your hair on a morning when you’ve got no time and a big hair problem.

14. Learn three hairstyles you can do in under five minutes. Whether it’s twisting hair back from each temple and securing into a bun, a fishtail braid or a sleek ponytail, having go to styles in your hair arsenal will cut down on stress when your tresses just won’t behave.

15. Go for deep conditioning. It doesn’t need to be at the salon, or even very frequent, but especially if you’re heat styling your hair, a deep conditioning treatment will help keep moisture in your strands, which will keep your hair looking healthy.

16. Use product before you style your hair. If you’re curling your hair, apply mousse first. If you’re straightening it, use a balm. For blowouts, use a spray. Applying a product before you style gives the end result a way longer chance of lasting, so you can either do your hair less frequently or just rest easy knowing your hair will make it through an entire day.

17. Get yourself a good serum. If you’ve got fine hair or thick hair, look for serums specifically formulated for your type. Frizz, dryness and generally unruly hair can be tamed with serum.

18. Unless you absolutely need to, don’t wash your hair every day. Shampooing hair every day can dry out your strands and, if you’ve got color treated hair, fade your color much more quickly.

19. Get into a routine. For ladies who never have a set time to do their hair, it may always seem like a chore. But, if you know that you’ll always be doing your hair every other night of the week, you’ll be less likely to get lazy about it.

20. Research styling tools before you buy. There’s a world of difference between a good blow dryer and an awful one, and learning which is which before the purchase is key.

21. Make sure you’re going to a good hairdresser. If you’re wasting your money on a bad cut, you’ll also be wasting your time on trying to style it so that it looks good.

22. Try a DIY hair mask at home to put some shine and hydration into your strands. For a fraction of the cost of a salon, you can treat your tresses to some major TLC.

23. Drink tons of water. Hydration starts at the inside out, and keeping your body hydrated will help your hair stay healthy.

24. Use a wide-tooth comb when hair is wet and a brush when hair is dry. Brushing wet hair causes major breakage, which can leave your hair looking dry and unhealthy.

25. Try texturizing spray. Textured hair (or dirty hair) is much easier to work with because it holds style better. On days when your hair needs to be put in a braid, bun or ponytail, the style will hold all day long if you use a spray first.

We’ve all got a few habits we need to break. Waiting until we’re out of socks to do laundry and going for that cupcake after dinner are harmless enough, but there are certain bad habits that really effect us in a negative way, and coincidentally enough, a lot of these habits go on at night.

Stopping these habits is possible, and if you grab a friend and make it a team effort, your bad beauty habits can be a thing of the past. Below we’ve pulled together eight nighttime habits that aren’t doing you any favors. Learn to identify the issues now so you can stop them and go on living a more beautiful life!

Not Removing Makeup: This is the number one rule we beg you never to break. Throughout the day all kinds of gunk and grime builds up on top of your face (and the makeup you have on), making it the prime environment for bacteria to fester. Not only that, but your pillow will also get a good hit of all that bacteria, so you’ll be putting your face in it for nights to come. Just take a few minutes to give your face a good clean or at least a swipe with a makeup wipe. You’ll see less breakouts and more evenly toned skin once you break this habit.

Pulling Up Your Hair Tight: By doing this you can cause your hair to have serious breakage, and in some extreme cases, you can encourage a receding hairline over time. Let your hair relax and be free while you sleep, and if you think there’s a lot of breakage happening, invest in some silk pillowcases so you won’t break hair as you toss and turn in the night.

Checking Your Phone: Yes, we all do it, the last scroll before we hit the hay. In order to get to sleep and stay asleep soundly, we need to put the phone and other devices away and off. Studies have shown that looking at a bright screen so close to your face less than two hours before you go to sleep puts your brain into a state of not being able to shut off, so going to sleep will be much harder if you start scrolling through Facebook and Instagram. Plus, you’ll get less sleep and wake up with bags under your eyes, so it’s a bit of a lose-lose situation.

Skimping On Brushing And Flossing Teeth: Not only will this allow for some serious morning breath, but you’ll also be allowing all of the foods (and sugars in them) to sit on your teeth and gums all night long. In short, you’ll end up with cavities that could turn into way worse situations. Just brush your teeth.

Staying Up Too Late: Skimping on how much sleep you get will cause red eyes in the morning, irritability, inflammation and increased stress. All of this can lead to puffiness, uneven skin tone, bags under your eyes, increased appetite throughout the day and more problems that will simply lead you to Google solutions for getting rid of them. Do yourself a favor and slip into bed around the same time every night to avoid staying up too late.

Drinking or Eating Sugar Right Before Bed: Besides the fact that you’ll spike your blood sugar and experience a rough crash shortly after, you’ll also be putting an acid (sugar) into your body that will sit in your body all night long. Combine this with not brushing your teeth and you’ve got a real situation on your hands. Put the soda back in the fridge and save the candy for the next day (if you must).

Not Switching Your Pillowcase Often: Between your face and your hair, there are a lot of oils (and subsequently, bacteria) that can gather up on your pillowcases. Switch out your pillowcase for a clean one about once a week to minimize the bacteria that your face sleeps on each night.

Not Applying Hand/Cuticle Cream: Considering your hands are constantly busy during the day, the nighttime is the best time to slather on hand cream and cuticle cream so that it can sit and really soak in while you sleep. You’ll be waking up with moisturized fingers in no time!

5 Major Hair Do’s That Used to be Total Hair Don’ts
October 17, 2012

“ Hair trends are most obvious when looking back over past decades. For example, celebrity hair stylist Vasken Demirjian –  whose client list includes the Kennedy family and whose salon has been named one of the country’s top three by Salon Today Magazine — says that the ’60s are “clearly identified as the decade of change, the coming out of structured, heavily sprayed hair of the 50s.” The ’80s were big, the ’90s were grungy and the ’70s were free flowing and hippified. While many hair trends of these decades past (thankfully) never see the light of day again, some make a comeback later down on the road. I spoke to Demirjian and NYC hair stylistColin Lively — 10-year artistic director for Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salons — about former hair don’ts that are making a mean comeback in today’s salons. Micro Bangs “Women in the past would have screamed bloody murder if their bangs had been cut all the way up to the hairline,” says Lively. Now, micro bangs are back with a vengeance. If you decide to go with them, note that you’ll have to do consistent upkeep to keep them looking good. Messy Hair
Anton Oparin / Shutterstock.com The ’10s are moving away from the pin straight hair that was fashionable in the late ’90s and early ’00s. “It is now sometimes chic to have a hairstyle that looks a little bit less than perfect and more undone,” explains Demirjian. “This look takes its cue from the runways, where the tousled look reigns.” Roots Think back to beauty icons such as platinum blonde Marilyn Monroe and redheaded Rita Hayworth. It would have been a hair sin for either of them to let their dark brown roots peek through. Today, though, the look of regrowth is actually a hair do, especially for longer coiffures. “I often have clients come in requesting to have their color start further down their strands,” says Demirjian. This makes maintenance easier, too. Razor Cuts “The blunt, conspicuous layers a la Joe the Barber precision have given way to haircuts that are more unplanned,” says Lively. Razor cuts giver hair a lighter, softer quality versus the super heavy and blunt looks that used to be fashionable. “I find myself doing many haircuts totally with razors and no scissoring,” he says. Braids Many years ago, braids were restricted to heads belonging to girls 13 and under. Today, though, braids are one of the hottest (and easiest) hair trends that women of all ages are partaking in. “This relates to our current times,” explains Demirjian. “Possibilities are getting exhausted for styles, so we go back and reinvent, revisit previous ideas, put a spin to it and call it trendy. Who knew braids would be a thing of trends?” From french to fishtail to basic braids, they’re all in.

Read more at

The importance of the care of the hair is every bit as important as the cut or the color. “All products are the same” is something I hear regularly. “Why should I use a more costly product when Fill-in-the-Blank brand does the same things the other products do.

Certain aspects of “all products are created equally,” do hold true. Shampoos need to lather. (Some would argue that), but from my point of view, I prefer a shampoo that lathers.  Shampoos that lather need to contain surfactants. The surfactants create the lather, which is important in breaking up residue on the hair and scalp. Some of these surfactants have been given bad raps, but in reality they are not damaging to hair. If they were, no one on the planet earth would have strong, shiny, beautiful hair.

Many more ingredients go into the finished product; therein lies the difference between luxury brands and economy brands. When it comes to haircare, what you do not pay for does, over time, show up in the hair.

To keep hair strong, shiny, and beautiful, cheap ingredients do not make for luxurious hair. Hair care is not where we should cut back, after all, the most costly products, are in essence, not costly. When we consider that a normal size shampoo gives us many, many uses, it is well worth the extra dollars.

Most luxury product lines have price points under $30, which is certainly more than budget brands, but we only have one head of hair, and if not properly cared for, can be a head of hair that can be remedied by only cutting it off and growing it again.

Hair extensions are a great option for adding low-commitment, trendy styles to clients. Want your extension work to shine brighter than a Fourth of July firework? Follow these tips from Hair Locs Specialist Yvonne:

Talk it Through—Extension consultations are critical and they must be thorough. This is often an emotional decision and a significant investment. Be sure your client

understands the service and care completely, and be sure you understand exactly what she wants and expects.

Color First—Hair Locs are custom matched extensions before you apply them to the head. No damage to you own hair!

Pick Your Pattern—Extensions are always placed in a pattern, i.e. a triangular pattern. Determine the pattern you will follow before you begin applying the extensions.

1. Mister Clean
Don't wash your hair so much. One of the biggest mistakes people make is drying out their scalps with too much harsh shampoo. You know how you scratch your scalp and get little white flakes? That's not dandruff. Dandruff causes big, wet flakes that fall down in chunks. Those drifts of white are caused by dry skin on your scalp, but people think they have dandruff so they use harsh, medicated shampoos that only make the problem worse. And the worse the problem gets, the more we wash, not realizing we're stuck in a negative feedback loop. Try switching to a milder shampoo, like a professional Redken brand, and washing no more than every second day. You'll be amazed at the difference.

2. Clear your head
Use a clarifying shampoo once a week. You know all that stuff you put in your hair every day to make it behave? Even if you wash your hair regularly, it leaves behind residue that can make hair dull and heavy. Clarifying shampoos are specially formulated to cut through that residue and restore your hair's natural shine. Don't use them too often, though. More than once a week and you're liable to end up with a flaky, dry scalp and flyaway hair.