Monday mornings are rough, y’all- and their meanness isn’t subtle.

Everybody knows.

Even when your job is as a full-time Mom and homemaker, they can be a challenge; my toddler has a hard time with Monday mornings.

Her Daddy is home all weekend so she has to adjust come Monday morning to him being at work and since he is probably her most favorite person on the planet, it’s an adjustment that sometimes includes a lot of tears and clinging to Mama until she feels better (this can take until lunch time, or like last week, until Saturday).

This morning I was going to talk about cleaning schedules (I have a fledgling one that I loosely follow), but I decided as I’m sitting here reading RIP posts for David Bowie on Facebook that we need a little fun on this sad morning.

SO, let’s talk about hair-care routines instead; what we use to keep our gorgeous tresses in good shape and looking super fly and not horrifically fly-away is a very personal matter. With all the infinite possibilities of product combinations almost everybody has a different way of getting the job done and we LOVE to share our secrets with each other.

Whether it’s a product we love or a blow-drying technique that is low-tech and gives lots of volume (I have one of those in my arsenal, I will share in another post) we love to share our tricks and favored products with each other.

It’s a good way to bond and to get turned on to new products we may not have heard about!

So here is what I use to keep my hair clean (or clean looking) and obedient;

1. Organix Coconut Milk Shampoo and Conditioner; OK, so I admit it- I am a reformed hair care bad girl. I would dye, re-dye and over dye my hair at home for  YEARS because my oily hair could seemingly take the abuse. Then it started to fall out (or not grow in) in small patches all over my head. I stopped the insanity, went on an amla treatment and henna in place of dye regimen that lasted about 6 months. I just recently matched box dye to my roots (I want to look beautiful too, y’all, but I simply can’t afford a $60 dollar in salon single process color at the moment), which I will detail when I get into the non-washing portion of this post. This drugstore powerhouse above soothed my very itchy scalp (a side effect that as I let my hair and scalp rest thankfully went away); formulated with egg-white proteins and coconut oil, this got me through the worst of the damage I did to my hair. It conditions without turning my whole head into a grease slick and it smells delicious- retailing at $3.99 each they couldn’t be more affordable.

2. My bad hair behavior didn’t just start in the last few years- oh, no. It started when I was 12 and dumped a whole bottle of Sun-In over my naturally dark (level 3, if you’re a hairstylist which is DARK for those who aren’t) hair and baked in the sun for an afternoon on the deck of my house. The results were less blonde and more orange (you can only imagine, right?) My aunt was a hairstylist and a year or so later (imagine those roots) she dyed my hair back close to it’s natural state and told me to spray my hair liberally with Infusium leave in conditioner (anybody else remember that stuff?!) anytime I washed it- it made my hair not snag and break as much as it was prior to my using it (I also, full disclosure, am not a huge hair brushing person. I’m just not. Don’t judge me.) Now I borrow my toddler’s after bath detangler- pictured is the apple which is the most common one I find in Walmart, but the Chickadee and I prefer the berry one when we can find it.

3. This is not an every day thing, but once a week or so I use the John Frieda color gloss for dark hair (it says something like espresso tones on it, I think). It makes my hair shiny and purty even when it’s been a minute since I colored it- even when I had been using the light brown henna from henna color-lab, it toned down the red and browned my color out even if it didn’t give the stunning results it gives over my darker color. It’s not a permanent treatment, so there’s no commitment- and check out the array of colors they offer, pictured above. There is literally something for everybody.

That’s pretty much it for my wash and go portion of my hair care- I am by no means an expert, nor is my hair in any kind of perfect condition. These are just my trusty friends I use to keep my hair as conditioned as possible with the least amount of weight (I have fine hair and lots of it).

I have a few things in my cabinet that I turn to for various reasons; usually it’s an attempt to give my hair a little bit of lift, and occasionally to get it to curl (and stay curled, which is a huge issue with my stick straight strands).

Bumble and bumble surf spray is something I use a little of even when I’m not going to blow dry my whole head; I always blow dry my bangs, and use a spritz of this to add some control- if I don’t, my bangs will split up the middle to go with my natural part. This spray is costly, retailing for $27 dollars a bottle, but you really don’t need a lot to get the job done, so a bottle can last a long time. Just for reference, I bought my bottle in August of 2015 for my birthday- and it’s just under half full now.

As mentioned above, my hair and scalp have been going through a recovery period; as such, I have been advised to push my hair washing as far apart as possible. This was hard for me, guys; I have hair that is oily at the scalp and thirsty at the ends- mix that with the dark brown color and it can look pretty greasy and unkempt if I’m not careful. That’s why dry shampoo formulated for dark hair was such a find- the plain varieties I had tried in the past left my hair looking like a powdered wig even when I tried to remedy that with hairspray and dabbing at it with water. This product is amazing because it blends right into the color of my hair and as a surprising side effect, helps me push my color a little longer as it blends the silver strands around my hairline right in. This also smells really good- a lot like Very Sexy Noir from Victoria’s Secret.

When I plan to blow dry my hair thoroughly and attempt to throw a curl into it, this is my guy; I just use a little bit and only put it into my hair from mid-shaft down to the ends. It’s light, not sticky and smells like vanilla frosting. Effective, delish and only $5.99- you can’t beat it!

This is always my finishing touch- Bumble and bumble thickening hair spray. This high hold spray will keep your hair in whatever fashion you like, literally, all day. It is hard to brush out, however, so dampen your fingers with a little water and try to get some flex into your strands before you attempt a brush through. I like it, but am going to try Elnett hair spray by L’Oreal when it runs out- remarkably, the price points are quite similar with Bumble and bumble at $15 a bottle and Elnett at $12.99, but purportedly Elnett has great hold as well and boasts the added element of being extremely easy to brush through when you want to change your style- without washing.

This is a new find for me; I was drawn in by the wording- “younger looking hair in minutes”. Now, I don’t know if my tresses look any younger, but I will say that this product covered my gray extremely effectively and matched my new growth pretty much to the letter- the gray coverage even included my temples which are solid silver and stubborn. (Before anybody says “why don’t you grow out your gray, gray is in!” understand that my wedding is in less than a month. Even if I was ready to embrace the gray, now isn’t the time.) My rough, dry ends were left very silky and the color mellowed nicely over a week or so; here’s my caveat to this advice- find your color and don’t go too dark if you know you want summer highlights, unless you want to lump the cost of a color correction or can handle some hard truth from your stylist. I only went this dark, I repeat, only because it matched my hair and I have no intention of lightening my hair ever again.

There you have it!!!!

This is what you can find in my shower and cabinet; what are your hair care must haves?

Share in the comments or on the Chick and Chickadee Facebook page!!!!

Until next time, all!

Love,

The Chick and her Chickadee