A lazy person’s guide to keeping your hair healthy

This one’s for the dry shampooers.

Welcome friends, to your new community.

This is a safe space. One where you won’t be judged for using dry shampoo for the seventh day in a row, or visiting the hairdresser only once a year.

Here, we understand. We know that your definition of ‘doing your hair nicely’ is slicking it back into a bun and adding gold earrings to make it look ‘directional’. I guess we can all be thankful that a slicked, low bun is on-trend.

But we also know life gets harder when you’re among friends who regularly wash, blow wave and apply hair treatments, oils and serums. You feel like the outcast of the group, the Milhouse Van Houten. The Sharon Strzelecki. The Phoebe Buffay every time she performs ‘Smelly Cat’. You are the Smelly Cat.

I am too, so please don’t be embarrassed. You’re among friends. I too sometimes straighten my hair when it’s damp, have never taken ‘hair, skin and nails’, don’t sunscreen my scalp, and have never, ever applied a serum to my hair. My PB is two weeks without washing my hair, and it wasn’t because I was on holidays and running it through saltwater.

I am LAY-ZEE. And proud of it.

But sometimes my hair falls out at an alarming rate, and often the split ends can get a little embarrassing. So in an effort to ‘healthify’ my hair, I’ve been doing my research on what it takes to get healthy hair, then, naturally, finding shortcuts.

Below are the fruits of my labour. What the experts say you need to do to keep your hair healthy, and my own, personal cheat sheet to getting there. Full disclosure, its actually just one product. But hear me out, it’s worth it.

You must feed your hair protein, lest it be weak and break

Like a bro that likes to flex at the gym and has recently invested in overpriced dumbbells for his home gym, your hair needs protein to improve its strength.

You may have heard people swear by chia seeds for hair growth. They’re packed full of protein and Omega 3, both proven to support healthy hair. But have you ever tried using those suckers? They’re like satan’s glitter. I’ll wipe the bench 15 times and still find chia seeds left behind. They get in my teeth. They’re expensive. They suck.

As for other proteins, my current diet pretty much consists of black coffee and leftover easter chocolate (sorry Mum), meaning any proteins aren’t really making their way to my hair. And god forbid you ever see me lift a protein shake to my mouth.

Instead, I’ve taken to applying protein externally. For the past few weeks, I’ve been using Repair My Hair shampoo and conditioner for my weekly wash. Joey Scandizzo calls it a big green protein shake for your hair, and if I don’t have to drink a big green protein shake, I’m going to count that as a win. It has quinoa proteins that coat, strengthen and protect my hair, and amino acids that repair damage to the hair shaft.

It also has green tea (pure health), and hydrolysed rice protein and soybean iso avones in there too. I’m not really sure what those last ones are, but they sound protein-rich and, I’m told, help to build the bond structure in the hair.

You must actually use heat protection, lest your hair frazzle

To anyone who cringed at the fact I apply a straightener to wet hair sometimes, okay. I get it. It’s definitely The Worst Thing You Can Do To Your Hair.

Most of the time, however, I only straighten my dry hair, and sometimes I even run a heat protectant spray through my locks before starting. But for the large part, to be honest, I forget.

Actually, that was a flat-out lie. Most of the time my heat spray is in the other room and I’m too lazy to get it.

What I need, and presumably you do too, is heat protection inside my shampoo and conditioner. There are a few products on the market that promise this, but you and me are Lazy People. We want one product that we can buy on repeat and not have to worry if it’s doing enough for our hair.

So naturally, I’ve again turned to Repair My Hair. I’m told it offers 220*C heat protection, which I can’t exactly prove, but I can tell you that since I started using it, my split ends have slowed dramatically. And yes, my hair feels healthier.

You must fix what you’ve already broken, lest you chop it off

As a fellow Lazy Person, I’m guessing your trips to the hairdresser are pretty infrequent. Mine too, which means I’m often left with split ends and flyaways. This is working against our mission of healthy-looking hair, and our options are twofold: go to the hairdresser and get the damage chopped (which we can’t exactly do right now) or fix what we’ve broken.

By now, you’ve probably registered the point of this article, which is that I’m plugging Repair My Hair in a big way. It reattaches the bonds we’ve broken during colour services and heat styling and instead restores and rebuilds our hair. I know it sounds fake news, but I’ve tried it and I’m buying it.

You must condition your scalp, lest you face day-five dandruff

Anyone who doesn’t really wash their hair will know that by around day five, dandruff starts to appear. Like, a lot.

Experts say the best way to circumvent dandy is to condition your scalp, which is good in theory, but can be tricky, because conditioner should only really be applied to the ends of your hair. So what we need, comrades, is a shampoo with scalp-conditioning properties. But it can’t feature anything that’s going to make our roots feel greasy. We don’t wash our hair frequently enough to deal with that.

Repair My Hair has worked around that by introducing aloe vera to its shampoo, which (we know from sunburns past) is the superior non-greasy moisturiser. Because it’s pumped into the shampoo, it’s easy to work into your scalp and in turn, prevent any flaky dandruffy situations.

You must prioritise volume, lest your hair look brittle

Okay, this doesn’t necessarily make your hair more healthy, but it does make it look healthier to other people. And as a Lazy Person Who Wants Nice Hair, isn’t that the aim of the game?

There are plenty of volumising sprays and powders on the market (I’ve tried a whole bunch) but by around day three, I’ve found my hair always ends up in need of a wash that baby powder can’t quite fix.

You guessed it, Repair My Hair is a winner here. It’s been clinically proven to increase hair volume by 32 per cent and while I didn’t notice that much more volume personally, there has nonetheless been a noticeable difference. My day-one clean hair isn’t super floppy, and it’s easier to style on the rare days that I feel like doing that.

You must actively prevent new breakages, lest you go back to square one

Any product that promises all the above benefits will obviously prevent future damage, so I don’t feel I need to go down that rabbit hole. I am a Lazy Person, after all.

But I will point out that I’m finally becoming a Person With Nice Hair, a goal I never thought I’d be able to achieve. If you want to join me, you can get the Repair My Hair shampoo here and conditioner here.

elevenaustralia.com