Summer heat, meet hair. Hair, meet summer heat. I hope you both get along.
Fat chance.
Like your vast network of friends, not everyone will get along and some will never learn to live as harmoniously as Taylor Swift’s girl squad (okay, maybe not the best example right now, but you get the picture). Hair and summer humidity/heat are two such entities in which friendship will never become a thing.
When it comes to extreme heat and humidity, you’ll never really beat it. It doesn’t matter if you have curly or pin-straight hair, they'll get you either way and result in sticky, sweaty hair that's almost impossible to style.
What you can do is make the best of a bad situation. If all else fails and you find yourself with sweaty hair sticking to the back of your neck or your curls have expanded into poodle territory, don’t panic yet.
There are a few things you can do to bring your hair back from the grips of the summer heat.
Flat, limp hair is a hallmark of summer but it doesn’t have to be this way. If you just spent a considerable amount of time in the throws of humidity and your hair is practically sticking to your scalp, try the braid and release.
Let your hair dry first. Apply a light smoothing serum to your hair to tame any flyaways. You might not even require any product if you have extremely fine hair. Split your hair down the middle and create two pigtails. Use a blowdryer and run it down the length of each braid. Undo the braids and voila, you should be rewarded with natural looking waves.
Dry shampoo: Not just for greasy hair days. If you spent the day outside and the sweat is starting to pool in your scalp, here’s a quick fix that won’t take you more than 10 minutes.
Grab your trusty blowdryer and give your hair a blast to get rid of any moisture. Follow that up by spraying dry shampoo into your roots and give it a good massage. You’ll create some volume and no one will ever know what it looked like twenty minutes ago.
As a preventative measure, if you know it’s going to be an unusually humid day, spray dry shampoo in your hair before you head outside. Taking this extra step will actually prevent your head from getting ultra disgusting.
Watch one episode of "Game of Thrones" and tell me you aren’t all over every Pinterest board searching for creative ways to braid your hair. It goes without saying that braids are on trend and happen to be a great way to turn sweaty hair into a masterpiece.
Think you’re not skilled enough to create a decent looking hairstyle? Lucky for you, creating a braided hairstyle can be as easy or as complicated as you want.
A quality beach spray or even a DIY sea salt spray will give your sweaty locks a much-needed boost. Hair that’s a little damp and slightly dirty is actually ideal for using salt-based texturizing sprays.
Spritz salt spray in the middle and ends of your hair and start scrunching for that just back from the beach look.
This hair hack might elicit the same response as asking someone with oily skin to start moisturizing with oils. It seems completely counterintuitive but quite the opposite.
Revive your sweaty scalp with a little peppermint oil potion. Mix two to three drops of peppermint oil with water and massage into your scalp. Along with quite an impressive laundry list of hair benefits, peppermint oil is great at counteracting grease. Plus, it has a lovely pleasant scent to temporarily mask what your sweaty hair smells like.
If your hair is especially prone to greasiness in the summer, mix a few drops into your shampoo. You’ll find your hair might last an extra day between shampoos.
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