VAIN hairstylist Scarlet is known for 1. being awesome and 2. her expert skills in cutting, coloring, and generally beautifying fine hair. Here she stops by the VAIN Blog to share her story of going from flat, lifeless, oily, frizzy, lackluster locks to happy, shiny, healthy hair that has volume and will even hold a curl if she treats it right. Take it away, Scarlet:
VAIN hairstylist Scarlet: fine hair, fine lady.
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A lot of people out there have fine hair, including me. Some of the lucky ones have a LOT of it, and others, like myself, not only have fine textured hair, but it’s also thin or sparse. Even the lucky ones with more densely packed follicles share many of the same fine hair complaints. Fine hair has its challenges for everyone who’s got it.
When I was younger I always wanted thick, luscious locks. My fine, thin, flyaway hair seemed to absolutely defy all my attempts at styling it, flatly (pun intented) refused to hold volume or curl, and seemed to get frustratingly both oily and frizzy within hours of shampooing it. Like many fine-haired folk, this led me to the destructive mis-belief that I need to shampoo the living daylights out of my hair. This continued until I started beauty school in 2004. Since then, my hair has made a miraculous recovery due to what I learned there and what I’ve learned since working with fine hair of all kinds, including my own.
The first thing I quickly became aware of is that having fine hair definitely has its advantages!
- It dries super-fast! I’m grateful every time I dry my hair that it takes no more than 7 minutes to get it completely dry.
- Curling it is easy! I can usually curl all my hair in 6 quick sections.
- We fine-haired folk can use less of all our products, because we simply don’t need as much. Instant cost savings!
The next thing I learned was that I had been doing everything wrong to my poor stressed-out tresses…
- Shampooing too often was drying out my already fragile ends, making them look damaged and frizzy, while simultaneously stressing out my scalp, which caused it to create MORE oil, to protect itself from the harsh shampoos I was using, not less.
- I was using products that were too heavy for my hair, to combat the frizz I’d created with all that shampooing, which was contributing to the constant oil slick near my scalp.
- Professional grade hair products (vs what you might get outside of a salon) really do make a huge difference in how fine hair behaves and looks.
So how did I go from flat, lifeless, oily, frizzy, lackluster locks to happy, shiny, healthier looking, (despite all the traumatic coloring services I’ve put it through!) more voluminous hair that will even hold a curl?
