Preventing Damage From Your Hot Tools

How do you keep hot tools from damaging your hair?

I get asked all the time how to style short hair at home without frying it. Heat is not the problem. How you use it is. Three habits make most of the difference: use the nozzle on your blow-dryer, keep your hot tools at a reasonable temperature, and move your flat iron at the right speed.

Put the nozzle back on your blow-dryer

That flat piece that came in the box is a concentrator, and most people take it off and lose it. Put it back on. It aims the air in one direction, so you can blow down the hair, the way the cuticle lies. That is what smooths the hair and gives it shine. Without it, the air goes everywhere, roughs up the cuticle, and you get frizz.

The nozzle also keeps the heat where you want it. You are drying one section, not blasting the whole head while you work on the front. On short hair that control is everything. A cowlick at the crown or a swirl at the hairline needs the air pointed right at it, from the direction you want it to go. You cannot do that with a wide-open barrel.

Hold the nozzle a few inches off the hair and keep it moving. Never park it in one spot. If it feels hot on your scalp, it is too close.

Turn the heat down

Higher is not better. Most hair never needs a flat iron or curling iron turned all the way up. These are the ranges I go by. They are guidance, not a rule:

• Fine, color-treated, or blonde and lightened hair: around 300 to 350°F.
• Normal, healthy hair: up to about 375°F.
• Only very coarse hair should go near 400°F.

If you wear champagne or any lightened blonde, stay at the low end. Lightened hair has already been through a process, and it is more fragile than hair that has not. Too much heat dries it out and can dull the tone you paid for.

Always use a heat protectant. And never put a flat iron or curling iron on wet or damp hair. Dry it all the way first. If you hear it sizzle, it was not dry.

Move the flat iron at the right speed

One smooth pass at a steady, moderate pace does more than three slow ones. Go too slow and you cook the hair. Go too fast and nothing happens, so you go back over it again and again, and every extra pass is more heat. Find the pace that gets it done in one.

On short hair, take small sections so the iron reaches all of the hair evenly in that one pass. Do not clamp down and hold. Pressing and waiting on one spot leaves a crimp, flattens the shape, and puts the most heat right where you did not need it.

Let the cut do the work

A great cut with the right amount of texture needs a lot less heat. When the weight comes out in the right places and the shape follows how your hair grows, you dry it with the nozzle, work in a little product, and you are done. If you are reaching for the flat iron every morning just to make your hair behave, the cut is fighting you.

Ready for a short cut that needs less heat to look great? Give us a call at (480) 607-6544.