Victoria Kirby and David Thom from Thom Kirby Hair give us some great tips to maintain your hair at home and give it some much-needed DIY treatments.
Many weeks have passed since we last saw you and you may be running low on your favourite organic professional products to maintain your hair. We are aware that some of you will still be working and, of course, there will be those spending a lot more time in the home environment. We have compiled a small simple selection of natural hair and scalp remedies to help with maintenance until the lockdown is lifted.
Maintaining healthy hair with the likes of coconut oil, almond oil, baking soda mixtures, essential oil combinations, and other natural hair masks have been circulating the Internet for the past few weeks. From promoting hair growth to preventing hair fall, we’ll be sticking to the professionals’ tried and tested recipes. Apply these on towel-dried, rather than wet, hair for best results.
Recipe 1 – To combat an OILY SCALP
Combine the juice of one LEMON and the white of one EGG together. The lemon juice and egg combination will help to cleanse the scalp of any excess oil while providing proteins that help to strengthen the hair. It’s important to consider your hair type – if you have very thick hair you may need to increase the amount of ingredients, as the treatment must be able to reach your scalp to work effectively.
On application, try not to overly massage the scalp as this will have the negative effect of stimulating the hair follicles and producing excess sebum onto the scalp.
● Apply the mixture and leave for 20/30 mins
● Give hair and scalp a cool rinse
● Wash your hair with your regular shampoos and conditioners
Recipe 2 – DRY/DAMAGED HAIR
This recipe again takes you to your kitchen supplies to utilise some OLIVE OIL, HONEY, and BANANA mixed in equal parts. To reap even greater benefits from this process, wrap cling film around your head to keep it warm. This will allow the mixture to penetrate deeper into the hair shaft and work its magic.
● Apply mixture mainly to the mid lengths and ends and leave for 20/30 mins
● This treatment may benefit from a light scalp massage
● Give hair a rise with warm water (not hot water)
● Shampoo and condition as normal
Additionally, for many of us who find ourselves at home ‘more than usual’, this is a chance dry your hair naturally. Giving it a break from blow drying, straightening, and so on, may all prove beneficial to the condition and appearance of our hair – nothing wrong with a towel dry! Coupled with the above recipes/treatments and perhaps applied on alternate weeks, Recipe 3 below could be considered to promote growth and strengthen hair.
Recipe 3 – To promote GROWTH and STRENGTHEN hair
This recipe uses one of the most recognised superfoods, AVOCADO. Combine with MILK, OLIVE OIL AND HONEY and mix equal parts into a workable consistency which can then be gently pushed/massaged into the body of your hair. It should smell good enough to eat, but please don’t! Your hair is the one that needs to be fed with this recipe.
As with the previous recipe, heat aids the penetration of this treatment into the structure of the hair, perhaps this time from a warm towel straight from the tumble dryer!
● Apply the mixture by gently massaging into the body of the hair and leave for 20/30 mins
● Give hair a warm rinse
● Shampoo and condition as normal
With any of the above recipes/treatments, a glass of wine (optional) is a welcome distraction during development time!
COLOUR TIME
We’ve had lots of enquiries about home hair colour, but this is not something we recommend. Firstly, having not used box dyes ourselves we cannot vouch for the coverage or colour match. In the salon, we tend to use more than one colour/shade/tone when applying our permanent professional hair colour – it’s very rarely just one colour.
Call it colour alchemy! Secondly, semi-permanent box dyes often contain an activator/developer, albeit weaker than a full tint, but still strong enough to grab at the root, not fading for several weeks.
Both options may result in leaving your hair looking too warm, too brassy, or too dark. Unfortunately, tint will not lift tint so you cannot use another box to try and rectify the colour. Ending up with a colour that you don’t like, and possibly having to go through what could be a lengthy and costly colour correction process once salons reopen is not worth it.
This is why we would only recommend using a root powder or spray touch-up to temporarily cover the areas in need when styling your hair. There are plenty of options online like ‘Color Wow’ or ‘Magic Retouch’ and lots of videos on YouTube with how best to apply the products. The coverage from powders and sprays is more translucent, and has to be applied after every wash, but it’s relatively quick and they are by far a safer option.
Victoria: Finally, in solidarity with my clients, I have stated that I will not be colouring my own roots until we get a date to reopen.
We are in this together.
