Haircare On A Budget – When To Spend, When To Save And What To Do

While some people can look great without hair or at least in ultra short crops, many people, both men and women, see having longer hair as an integral part of looking good. The good news is that it is very feasible to have great hair on a low budget. Here’s what you need to know.

Understand What Hair Is

Hair is formed inside your body and comes to the surface at a constant rate. Although it is originally formed by living cells, by the time hair reaches the surface of the skin, its already dead. The key point to take away from this is that most of what you can do to influence the condition of your hair consists of controlling what goes into your body, not what goes onto your hair. If great hair matters to you then you need to eat a healthy diet, be careful with alcohol and avoid smoking.

Save On Shampoo

Unless you have a skin condition such as dandruff, where a specialist shampoo might help, cheap baby shampoo will clean your hair just as well as the expensive stuff. More expensive shampoos may have genuine benefits, for example they may smell nice or be particularly gentle on the environment, but in terms of cleaning your hair, there is no huge advantage to using expensive shampoos.

Spend On a Good Brush And Comb

Hair needs to be treated gently, particularly when it is wet. In fact, its best not to brush wet hair at all, if you must start to groom it before its properly dry, use a comb. There are literally hundreds of brushes on the market, ranging from the ultra cheap to the ultra expensive, you probably wont need the latter, but as brushes are such an important part of hair care its worth getting some advice on the right brush for you and looking on the price as an investment.

Save On Bottled Styling Products

In terms of the sort of styling products you put on your hair, sprays, mousses, waxes and so forth, often the only difference between the cheap brands and the expensive ones is the smell and the packaging. Generally speaking the fewer styling products you use the better, but if you must only use what you need. Expensive hairsprays, for example, have cans which are deliberately designed to make it easy for people to spray on far more than they need.

Spend On Electrical Styling Products

In terms of electrical styling products, the best advice in terms of hair care is leave them alone. If you must then these are worth spending money on as they have the potential to do so much damage to your hair. Do buy a good hair dryer if you need one, but try to keep usage to a minimum. If possible towel-dry hair until it is slightly damp and then leave it to dry naturally. If you absolutely must blow dry, use the lowest possible setting.

Save On Conditioner

Firstly many expensive conditioners only have a few useful ingredients and are bulked up with useless ones purely to justify the price. Secondly putting on a conditioner for a short time when in the shower is largely pointless, given that you need to wash it out again before you get out. For an affordable and effective conditioning treatment, wash your hair and then comb ordinary olive oil through it. Light some natural candles and relax for at least 20 minutes before you wash it off.