woman with recently cleaned hair
| | |

Post-Wash Rituals For Shinier And Healthier Hair

When it comes to the health of your hair, post-wash care is everything. When our hair is wet, it is at its most fragile state. It can easily break, dry out, or get damaged. To have lush, luxurious hair, it’s important to take care with your post-wash rituals. Here are some of our tips to keep your hair safe after washing. Following these tips will help prevent any damage, but will also help you have more manageable hair for styling. Here are our recommendations for post-wash hair care.

Start With A Proper Drying Technique

Drying your hair is the most important part of your post wash ritual. During the drying process is when hair is the most vulnerable to damage. So you want to take extra care. First, if you can, avoid blow drying your hair while it is still wet. Heat is really damaging on fragile hair. Next, use a cotton t-shirt or microfiber cloth to dry your hair. Terry cloth towels have a rough surface that can scratch and damage your hair follicles. Take your shirt or microfiber towel, and gently pat your hair. If you have curly hair, it’s a good idea to consider plopping it. Start at the bottom and slowly scrunch the ends to remove the moisture. Working up the scalp and gently pat dry. Then when your hair is slightly damp, you can finish by letting it air dry.

Apply A Nourishing Hair Serum

Once your hair is mostly dry, it’s a good idea to apply a hair serum. Hair serums are great at replenishing lost moisture, adding valuable nutrients, and helping your hair stay shiny/manageable. We recommend applying natural hair oil. Our natural hair oils use a blend of rich coconut oil and either lavender, senja, or a blend of fennel, lemon, cananga, vetiver, and lavender essential oils depending on your hair care needs. Adding a hair serum will help restore any damaged hair and split ends, protect against breakage during styling, while adding a healthy gloss. They also smell great and offer aromatherapy benefits. Start by applying just a few drops at the tip of your hair follicles. Then slowly massage the oils up the follicle to the scalp. Add more drops as needed depending on the hair type and thickness of your hair.

Use Caution Detangling

Once you have added your natural hair oil serum, you can begin the process of detangling. Detangling is the point where you can have the most breakage during your post-wash hair care ritual. Using the wrong tools and force can lead to significant breakage. To detangle only use a wide tooth comb. Wide tooth combs protect the follicle by detangling the hair slowly. Start at the tips of the hair and slowly work out any tangles or knots. Continue up until you reach the scalp. When all knots are detangled, you can then comb your entire hair through. At this point, you can switch to a different hair tool like a fine tooth comb or hair brush to begin the styling process.

Heat Protect Before Styling

Heat is extremely damaging to our hair follicles. Heat dries up all the moisture, leaving your hair brittle and vulnerable to damage. Unfortunately, almost all of the hair styling tools like hair dryers, flat irons, and curling irons use very high temperatures. The best thing you can do is apply a heat protect product to your hair before styling. Heat protect products nourish the hair and maintain the moisture. That way when your hair follicles encounter heat they are not damaged. For the best natural heat protection, we recommend coconut oil. One of the biggest benefits of our hair oil serums is they are made with a base of coconut oil. So they can protect against the heat from styling. If you’ve applied our hair oil, you can skip this step. When applying heat protectant, start at the tips and massage the product up the follicle until you reach the scalp. When you have fully applied the serum, brush it through with a comb or your fingertips to make sure it’s evenly distributed. 

Stick With Natural Hair Care Products

tea tree shampoo

Once your hair is heat protected and fully nourished, you can style as you like. However, make sure that any styling product you apply to your hair is made with only natural ingredients. Many hair styling products like hair spray, gel, and pomade use sulfates, silicones, and parabens. These ingredients are not just bad for the planet, they can damage your hair. Sulfates can strip your hair of its natural oils. While parabens and silicones can cause a thick waxy buildup that makes your hair unmanageable, dull, and sometimes can require professional help to remove. Natural ingredients neither strip the hair nor cause buildup. Instead they replenish lost nutrients and protect your natural hair oils.

Keep Your Hair In A Protective Style When You Sleep

If you are heading out for the day, your post-wash hair care ritual is done. However, if you wash your hair at night, wearing it in a protective hairstyle can further help protect it against damage. Protective hairstyles range depending on the type of hair. Some hair types like fine hair do well in buns. While braids are a great protective hairstyle for wavy hair. If you have curly hair, consider wearing a scarf or a bonnet at night. You can also invest in silk pillow cases. Silk is extremely soft and unlike cotton won’t cause friction that can damage your hair. Following these tips won’t just protect your hair, they will help reduce the amount of time you spend on your hair in the morning.

senja hair oil by utama spice

Your post-wash haircare rituals have a significant impact on the health and manageability of your hair. Following these tips will keep your hair protected from damage. The most important tip though is to use only natural hair care products like those found at Utama Spice. All of our products use naturally sourced ingredients like plant derivatives, essential oils that nourish and replenish the hair follicle.

Similar Posts

42 Comments

  1. I was looking into an oil to help with hair loss due to hormones and stress – do you have any?

    Mishelle G

  2. Protecting your hair when you sleep is key. Rinsing with cold water after washing is supposed to lock moisture in as well. It’s just hard to motivate myself to do during the winter months!

  3. My hair is dry and gets so frizzy if I go out in damp/misty/rainy/high humidity and I am always looking for ‘something’ that will help keep me from looking like a fuzzy sheep. I have tried the Argan Oil and some others – some help, others, not so much.

  4. Oh wow I am going to test these tips out. I have been having alot of breakage lately. Which is causing my hair to become thin. Thank you for the info!

  5. I sometimes wash my hair at night and wear it in a ponytail which seems to help. Thanks for the info.

  6. I have a silk pillowcase and I love it. I feel like it helps with my dry, curly hair.

Comments are closed.