Making Your Hair Last Longer Between Washes

Washing long hair has got to be the biggest chore for us girls especially if you, like me leave it to dry naturally. I used to wash my hair every single day to make it look nice without using heat and damaging my hair but little did I know at the time that washing your hair everyday is equally as damaging.

Over the last few years I've come up with a number of tips to make your hair last that little bit longer between washes and I thought some of you might find them helpful.

♥ The most important one I mentioned above and that's not washing your hair everyday. I know it can be hard especially for those who have oily hair and find their hair needs washed a lot but there is a reason for this. Your hair produces natural oils that it needs to stay healthy, when you wash your hair you effectively strip these oils from your hair making it clean. If you're washing your hair too often your hair over produces these oils to replace the ones you're washing away. So if you wash it less often your hair doesn't over produce these oils.

♥ To help train your hair to not need washed everyday your best bet is starting at a time where you know you don't need to do anything for a few days. That way if you have greasy hair so what nobody is going to see it. If you do go out however dry shampoo is a saviour, my favourite at the moment is Batiste's Tropical one because it smells lovely and helps refresh my hair.

♥ Clarifying shampoo is another must for anyone struggling with oily hair. It shampoos hair intensively and clears any blocked follicles and gets rid of any product build up which prevents hair getting greasy as quickly.

♥ Another good tip is to use a hair oil on your hair. I know, I hear you scream "why would I add oil to my already oily hair". Well it works, if your hair is sufficiently moisturised it won't need to overproduce natural oils, just don't go over board with it and avoid applying at the roots because that can leave hair looking greasy.

♥ Don't touch/play with your hair. I know its natural for a lot of us to want to fix our hair constantly or play about with it but by doing that you're actually making your hair greasy quicker. Think about how many things your hands touch a day, are they always nice and clean when you fix that stray piece of hair? Probably not! 

♥ Avoid using excess products. This is quite a big one but also one a lot of people don't really think about. The more products you put in your hair, the more clogged the follicles get, only use the products you really need too and if you can avoid it then don't use any.

 ♥ My favourite thing to do when I find my hair is due a wash is to just wear it up in a pony or a bun with a pretty scrunchy or hair clip which totally distracts from the fact that your hair is due a wash. These are also great for when you're training your hair to not need washed every day.

♥ My last tip is to plan ahead. Those days of "I can't I'm washing my hair" really is a legitimate thing. If you know you're going out Saturday night and want nice freshly washed hair and have a meal on the Sunday then make sure you wash it on the Friday night so that your hairs lovely for both weekend days etc. Washing your hair at night can also be a big help for both saving time and stopping hair getting greasy as quick.

Training your hair does take time but it is most definitely possible. My hairs gone from needing washed every day to being able to last 3 sometimes even 4 or 5 days if I'm lucky before needing washed which has saved me a whole lot of time.

I hope you found some of these tips helpful, let me know if you have any more!

Lots of Love

♥

Beauty & Fashion Haul

 Hellooo lovelies,

 Ooops it's happened again, Abby trying to save money but then walks into a shop and the shopaholic takes over! Believe it or not but this was actually me being very restrained and I actually managed to talk myself out of buying several more unnecessary things that I didn't need!

 The first thing I bought was this gorgeous statement necklace from Primark - Primark actually have a lot of good statement necklaces in at the moment so if you're on the hunt I'd check them out for affordable statement necklaces. I justified this as I have a lot of jumpers that I can't wear without a statement necklace or with a collared shirt underneath and with the warmer weather approaching, statement necklaces are definitely more appropriate. I chose this one because it has gorgeous pastel colours and it contains the peach colour that I have a jumper in the colour of so it will go beautifully with that. This only cost £6 as well which is a bargain compared to the Accessorize ones which cost between £22-£30.

  The next necklace I picked up is a little more simple and will go with literally everything. It's just little gold triangles inside black arrow shapes and I think it would completely bring together an outfit and make it look a little more polished. This was only £3!!

 I totally did not mean to buy this purchase so it was a bit of a cheeky one but it was also a complete bargain and I literally cannot resist a bargain! I got all these tea-tree products in a set for £20.50!! The total price of them all is around £34 so I was very pleased. It had been reduced to £23.50 but at the moment if you're a student you get a free Body Shop card which gives you 10% discount off every purchase and you get invited to sales where they have 40-50% off. Furthermore you get a £10 gift card on your birthday and a £5 one when you spend over £10 five times and a £10 one when you spend £10 10 times! I don't know how long this will go on for or if it was just in my local store but it's definitely worth looking into if you're a student who loves the Body Shop! I picked this up because tea tree is amazing for blemish prone skin and I was very interested in trying the scrub, both the lotions and the toner so I was aswell buying the set. I will most likely be reviewing these products once I've had a good trial of them so keep and eye out for that!

 The next shop I went to was Boots and I was personally pretty pleased with myself that I resisted buying any new make-up bits but unfortunately I did not do so well in the hair department. I desperately needed a heat protecting spray because I don't dry, straighten or curl my hair with heat often so I never needed one and when I did I always just borrowed my mums. However, it turns out my little sister and my mum have been using heat everyday on their hair without heat defence for a while now (absolutely horrifying!!) and I've been enjoying curling my hair recently so I needed to pick one up. I chose Tresemme heat defence because it came in a lovely spray bottle and I know Tresemme are a good brand. I also picked up a Tresemme hair spray as they were on a '2 for £7' deal and it claims to do a lot of fabby things on the bottle including 24 hour climate control. I really want to start doing more snazzy styles with my hair so I think a decent hair spray will certainly come in handy. I picked up another of my Loreal Studio Line volumising sprays because I absolutely love mine and it's coming to an end so that was a 'need'. Lastly I picked up a new salt spray as this one claims to give your hair a mermaid look and who doesn't want to have hair like a mermaid?

What hair products are you loving at the moment?

Previous Posts:-
Ombre Blackstar Misty Rock || Review
St Moriz v St Tropez || Comparison & Review
Girl About Town || MAC Monday's

Lots of Love, 

A x x x

Babyliss Hair Curling Wand || Review

Hellooo my lovelies,

Lately I've been loving voluminous curly hair, I have no idea why as I used to love having straight hair and my curlers remained unloved but now I use them for every 'event' I go to. I don't really like using heat on my hair too often in case it damages it so I would never do this more than once a week unless I really had too. I recommend using a heat spray with this too because it does get super hot! I love that it's red aswell, obviously that makes zero difference to how good it is but it definitely looks nicer in my hair tools box. It comes in black too if you prefer it to not be coloured!

Hair straight after using Babliss curling wand

 This curling wand is really great as it's super simple to use, you just turn it on and pick your temperature using the arrows. I always use the hottest setting, 200 degrees, because I assume it works best and produces better curls but to be honest I haven't tried the other settings so I can't say for sure! It comes with a glove as well which I have of course lost because I've had this product for two years now but only started using it half a year ago. Be really careful though because I've burnt myself multiple times with this and it is reeeaally sore! I also don't know the exact price of these because they were a present and I no longer have the box but I think they're around £20 which is reasonable for a curling tool. Every one of my friends who has used this at mine before a night out has went out and bought one for themselves so that vouches for how good this product is!

 Top Tips:- Once I have finished curling my hair, I spray it with any hairspray (I'm not fussy) to set it a bit and then brush it out gently and this will just help you achieve looser curls rather than tight ones. After this I spray a lot of L'Oreals Volume Supersizing Spray which will give you added volume and make your look more interesting and less 'perfect'.

 These curlers are amazing and if anything ever happened to them I'd definitely repurchase. Even up to two days later my hair has good curls still in place that I'm happy enough with to not have to brush out.

Two days after 

Have you tried this product? What curling wand do you use?


Previous Posts:-
Sleek New Blush Palettes Review
Skincare and Fashion Haul
Benefits Watts Up Review

Lots of Love,

A x x x 

My Haircare Routine

Left to right:- Paul Mitchell Clarifying Shampoo, Aussie 3 Minute Miracle, Mane n Tail Shampoo and Conditioner and Tigi Serious Conditioner.

Hellooo my lovelies!

 Today I thought I'd do a blog post on my hair care routine and a mini review of the products I use in it. The first most important products are shampoo and conditioner. The ones I use are the Mane n Tail shampoo and conditioner which are for both animal and human use. No I have not gone mad like my family thought when this arrived through the post! It is actually great for humans to use for hair growth or so I had heard. Now I already had and always have had extremely long hair so it's understandable why people would be confused as to why I needed a hair growth treatment. However, the truth is I had just ran out of my Bedhead shampoo and conditioner and I love having long hair so longer hair can never be a bad thing right?! To be quite honest I was really intrigued to see if it would actually work originally being for animals and what not. Having long hair to begin with did make it slightly harder to notice the growth but I definitely thought it had grown a little within the first week. I have been using it for about two months now roughly every second wash and I wash my hair around three times a week. Inbetween using this I just use any shampoo/conditioner my mum or boyfriend have in the shower, usually an Aussie or a Head and Shoulders one. Friends and family have also commented that my hair seems alot longer and I feel myself that it does too. Before it was roughly the length of the top of my belly bar and now it is about an inch below the bottom of it so it's definitely an effective hair growth treatment. What's even better about this duo is that they can be picked up relatively cheaply on Amazon (definitely much cheaper than other hair growth treatments on the market). I'll leave links to Amazon sellers below.

 Another shampoo I like to use once a month or after I've used lots of product in my hair is a clarifying shampoo. You know those days when you wash your hair yet it still doesn't feel clean enough? This is what you need in your lifand the one I really like is the Paul Mitchell clarifying shampoo and I think you can pick it up on Look Fantastic for around £7 and it's always easy to get discount codes for these sites! It comes out a clear liquid and it just smells really clean and you don't need lots of it. This bottle has literally lasted me since around March last year (no exaggeration!!) After you have used this bad boy your hair just feels so much cleaner and fresher and you can rest assured knowing all that hairspray, heat protector and volumising spray is all out your hair! It only costs around £10 too so not breaking the bank.

Serious Conditioner and Spatula.

A deep conditioner is one thing that anyone with long hair desperately needs in their life or anyone who has dyed or damaged hair, this is a life saver. The one I use is Tigi's S factor "Serious Conditioner" and it is maaaaaassive (750ml to be precise) and it lasts a very long time and I have had this one since March aswell and as you can see there is plenty left. When I have had a bit of a wild night and I've had my hair all backcombed, waking up in the morning feeling delicate and having to deal with knotted, tangled hair is not ideal as I think anyone will agree. With this I've been able to jump straight in a shower, slather it on my hair generously and it makes brushing knots and tangles out a MILLION times easier and less painful. Many tears were shed before I bought this baby but thankfully those days are gone. It is pricey (eeek) I paid around £27 for mine but it does last a long time and it's usually available on sites like Feel Unique and Look Fantastic where discount codes are alwaaays available on the interwebs! The best thing about using this conditioner is you leave it on for 3 minutes and once you rinse it off your hair is sooo soft and silky that people will be wanting to stroke it! A really cute thing about this product is the little spatula it comes with which comes in handy when you're all wet in the shower and you don't want to dip wet hands into the whole product. As if the reasons above aren't enough to convince you to buy it, it smells like a mixture of strawberries and mint choc chip ice cream and I have to try very hard to resist the urge to taste it when I'm in the shower. Oh and the product is a light pink (plus 10 points from me) and it has a very thick consistency which gives a luxurious feel that I really like.

Serious Conditioner and Spatula.

 Aussie 3 minute miracle is another product I really love for when my hair is matted or just feeling like it needs a bit of TLC and like all Aussie products it smells fabby. The product itself is white which is ideal for people like me who usually manage to slather products all around my bath and shower so white is much less noticable (hopefully that's not just me?!). It's really thick and similar to the Tigi one as it just leaves my hair feeling so soft and silky and much easier to brush out any knots or tangles. There's probably not really a need to have both this one and the Tigi one, they more or less do the same thing. The only difference is that the Tigi one has a more luxurious feel which you would of course expect by the difference in price tag but hey hoe if you have some extra pennies to spare why not! Aussie products can be bought from most drug stores and they're almost always on three for two so you can treat yourself to some other hair goodies too.

Now onto my favourite hair styling products!

Left to right:- L'Oreal Studio Line Volume Supersizing Spray, Argan Oil, Tigi Catwalk Fast Fixx.

 I actually am a girl that doesn't use many styling products in my hair at all and until last year I literally only used heat protection sprays and that was about it. Obviously the first main hair product that every girl (who uses heat on their hair) should own is a heat protection product. I haven't photographed mine because the one I was using has just ran out but it was a Boots own brand one however, I'm not really fussy about which one I use aslong as it does the job (nobody wants heat damaged hair do they?!) The second main product that i loooove is Aussie (shock) Luscious long leave in conditioner, I had been looking for a good leave in conditioner for so long and have never looked back since finding this one. It helps detangle your hair and prevent's it from getting tangled throughout the day which is ideal for me as having long hair it frequently got tangled and matted. Usually I use this after a shower when my hair is still wet, to brush it through and if I need to brush out tangles throughout the day I spritz it on lightly then too. This did not cost me much money at all and like I said before, Aussie is pretty much always on three for two in drugstores. The bottles last a long time too as you literally only need a couple of spritz's depending on how long your hair is (I usually do around 5/6). It has eucalyptus in it which is apparently amazing for your hair (not that I could tell you) but I'm pretty sure that contributes to the amazing smell of it.

  A recent favourite that I've discovered is the L'Oreal Studio Line Super Volumising Spray and it really does work. I have loved using it throughout December whether I've curled my hair or straightened it and it gives a gorgeous look. I especially love using it with straight hair as I've never been a fan of straight hair plastered to the head, I think with straight hair there should always be some volume at the roots. You can spray as much of this as you like to get the effect you need as the more spray you use, the more voluminous it gets. Another aspect of this product I really love is that it doesn't leave your hair crispy or with that gross feeling that many products leave behind. It literally does not feel or look like you have any spray in your hair, it just looks like you have been naturally blessed with voluminous locks (pffft i wish!). The spray is also super easy to brush out so there's no need to wash your hair the next day after you've used it, just brush it out and you're good to go. I do like the packaging and it's super cheap from Boots/Superdrug at around £4.

 Something my lovely mum got me for Christmas is an Argan Oil which I have wanted to try out for the loooongest time but never really got round to picking one up. I always worried that putting an oil in my hair would make it look greasy but this one really doesn't and only the tiniest amount is needed. I use it on days that I have washed my hair , then I rub my hands together before running them throughout the hair shaft and I do think it makes the hair feel silkier. This one really pleases me as it is a nice size for travelling and I think the golden packaging makes it look luxurious. As I got this product for Christmas I'm not sure how much it was or where you can pick one up but I'll try and find one similar and link it below for you

 The last styling product i use regularly in my hair is the Tigi Catwalk Sleek Mystique Fast Fix Style Prep (nice simple and short name Tigi....not!!). I use this product after I have straightened my hair to help it remain straight throughout the day and it does a fabulous job. I don't really struggle from frizzy hair and my hair is naturally pretty straight anyway however throw rain into the mix and my hair loves to curl up at the ends which i unfortunately don't love so much. I feel this really does help battle that and helps keep my hair straight despite the UK's crappy weather! It also smells really nice which is obviously a plus and again you don't need much of it. I'm pretty sure this doubles up as a heat protectant aswell so definitely worth the investment. It's not too expensive, it retails for around £12 but is often discounted on sites like Look Fantastic or Feel Unique. 

Top:- Andrew Barton Paddle Brush, Bottom:- Tangle Teezer.

 A really important part of any hair care routine is brushing your hair as it removes any impurities and prevents it from matting up and becoming too tangled to handle (better to tackle it before it gets bad trust me I speak from experience). Two amazing brushes are a Tangle Teezer (bet you were all really surprised that mines is pink...hehehe) and a paddle brush. I love my tangle teezer and it is absolutely brilliant for when I'm on the go or when my hair is not very knotted. They're sold in lots of places now too for around £10 which is bargainous! There is also a wide selection of tangle teezers available these days so you can select the one that is best for your hair including special compact one's for carrying in your handbag (which I need). As much as I love my tangle teezer though, it is not enough to tackle my long, easily matted hair by itself so I use a paddle brush aswell and this one is by Andrew Barton. This is a life saver for me and is the only brush I can use to get serious knots out of my hair and I would one hundred percent recommend anybody with really long hair to get these two brushes. Many of my friends now own tangle teezers after always borrowing mine a million times and being amazed by how good it is. It definitely would be enough just to use a tangle teezer for people with finer, shorter hair but for those with longer locks I'd definitely invest in both. Paddle brushes can be picked up relatively cheaply in stores like Boots and Superdrug.

Mane n Tail Shampoo and Conditioner- http://www.amazon.co.uk/MANE-n-TAIL-SHAMPOO-CONDITIONER/dp/B005CI1JEG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389281391&sr=8-1&keywords=mane+n+tail
Paul Mitchell Clarifying Shampoo- http://www.beautybay.com/haircare/paulmitchell/clarifyingshampoothree
TIGI Serious Conditoner (it's actually discounted to £21 pounds on Amazon now but there's only two left in stock so hurry scurry!!) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tigi-S-Factor-Serious-Conditioner-750ml/dp/B001AQU1DY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389281794&sr=8-1&keywords=s+factor+conditioner
Aussie 3 Minute Miracle- http://www.boots.com/en/Aussie-3-Minute-Miracle-Luscious-Long-250ml_38758/
L'Oreal Studio Line Super Volumising Spray- http://www.superdrug.com/hair-styling/loreal-studio-txt-volume-supersize-spray/invt/821564&bklist=
Aussie Luscious Long Leave in Conditioner- http://www.boots.com/en/Aussie-3-Minute-Miracle-Luscious-Long-250ml_38758/
Argan Oil - http://www.boots.com/en/Organix-Moroccan-Argan-Oil-Serum-100ml_1274124/
Tigi Catwalk Sleek Mystique Fast Fixx Style Prep (currently discounted to £8!!) - http://www.feelunique.com/p/TIGI-Catwalk-Straight-Collection-Sleek-Mystique-Fast-Fixx-Style-Prep-270ml

That's all the products that I use in my hair care routine. What products do you use in your hair care routine? Have you tried any of these onnes?

Lots of love, A  x x x