Good Grooming includes Styling the Hair

As part of your grooming routine you will no doubt wish to style your hair. It is best not to use heat. Of course on occasion it is important to look your best but heat is damaging to the hair and should be used sparingly, if at all. If blow-drying is absolutely necessary, try to only dry the roots and the body of the hair with the heat, leaving if possible the ends to dry naturally.

If your hair is long and you intend to use bands or clips to tie it up always look for the smoothest clips you can find. Any protruding edges or roughness will snag on the hair and can break it. Bands should be smooth and even and should never be tied tightly on the hair. You will find that healthy hair becomes very strong and can stand the abuse that a special day brings, a wedding or a grand function for example, but should not be over taxed by such rigours every day.

I have seen adverts on the tv for shampoo and conditioner that suggested that a lot of hair breakage is due to brushing. This is misleading. If your hair is healthy and you are brushing it correctly (i.e. removing tangles by combing first) then there is no reason at all that your hair would break just from brushing it. Damaged hair of course is something else. Good grooming is a little time consuming and often these rumours are circulated simply to make you feel better about skimping on your routine.
Before going to bed plait long hair loosely and tie it with a covered elastic. During the night we are prone to a lot of movement and weak hair breaks easily. Those who awake in the morning to a pillow covered with broken hair will know what I mean. Those people who have short hair but still find an excessive amount of broken hair on their pillow should sleep in a cotton night cap. This is not an item that can be bought easily nowadays but in the past ladies often went to bed with their hair in a cotton cap to protect it from breakage. If you have any sewing ability at all you can use a shower cap as a template and fashion a cotton equivalent that will do the job – I didn’t say it would be flattering so I offer an alternative, albeit more expensive – change your pillow cases to satin or silk.

I can imagine that many of my readers are laughing now. How far you take this is of course up to you...But perhaps you are beginning to see what good grooming actually means.  It is taking the time and CARE over your hair.  Lets go back to my cats here, they take a great deal of time over their grooming routine, apart from eating and sleeping it is the most important thing they do on a daily basis.  Modern products offer us convenience and speed but it is perhaps time to balance this with a little tlc .  If you are too busy to spend five or ten minutes on your hair every day then you may just have to accept whatever hair problems you have - although you could be one of those very annoying people who just simply have great hair no matter how much you neglect it!