During the hot, humid summer days, Catherine Dominey Phillips says her method of survival for her ponytails includes products, clips, and sometimes braids.
“Sometimes I just let it go crazy and drink until I don’t care anymore! I have her like a sheep in this dampness,” said the Johnstons River, PEI, woman.
Alison Trainor from Labrador City, NL, knows how she feels. She and her two daughters of natural curly hair. Frizzy hair and humidity go hand in hand.
“Some days you get fuzzy and wide, and other days it’s thick and punchy like carpet,” Trainor says. “I think the difference is heat humidity versus humidity on rainy days.”
Michelle Burns, a stylist at the Head Shoppe in New Minas, NS explains that frizz occurs when the hair is dry and depleted of moisture. It can also be the result of heat damage.
When the hair is dry, moisture in the air penetrates the cuticle, causing the hair to expand. That’s how some people end up with “fluffy hair,” she explains.
Burns knows this firsthand. She also has naturally curly hair that she usually straightens.
In this weather, however, she makes no effort to straighten it, as the humidity makes her hair swell and look frizzy.
Instead, what it takes to combat frizzy hair is a frizz or hydration product, Burns says.
How to deal with?
When you get out of the shower, Burns says, pat your hair instead of rubbing it. Rubbing the hair’s cuticle aggressively creates roughness and frizz, so squeeze the water out gently, she advises.
Trainor always leaves a little conditioner in her hair, about twice the size of a walnut.
“Just use a conditioner, the same one you would use in the shower,” she says.
After you rinse the first round of conditioner from your hair, reapply it, but don’t wash it out, she explains.
Then, when she gets out of the shower, she adds some gel for maximum hold.
By using this process and not washing her hair every day, Trainor says she can get two to three days out of this. It’s something she learned by following the Curly Girl method that can be found all over the internet these days, she says.
“We don’t follow the rest of their advice, but this works well for all of us,” says Trainor.
Tips and tricks for smoother hair
Loreena MacRae says, although it sounds absolutely ridiculous, use a small drop of silicone lubricant in your hair to tame the frizz. Just take a drop on your palms and rub it over your hands, then smooth it over the hair when it’s dry.
“It’s a super cheap and convenient way to get rid of frizz without getting some of the more expensive products,” says MacRae, who is currently a hairstylist student and lives in Charlottetown, PEI.
Some other ideas are:
- Grab a water bottle and mix in your favorite conditioner. Spray your dry hair with it if it starts to get frizzy.
- Use Moroccan hair oil after showering.
- Use a little mousse if your hair is still damp from the shower.
- Try not to brush your hair when it is dry.
- Use solid food-grade coconut oil. Rub a pea-sized amount between hands to melt and work through wet hair.
- Wash your hair at night and go to bed with wet hair. Then comb your hair in the morning with your fingers, but never brush it when it is dry, otherwise it will automatically become frizzy.
- If you wash hair in the morning, tie it up in a bun to dry it slowly during the day. Then use oil or conditioner to smooth it out.
- When it comes to styling your hair in damp weather, MacRae recommends the L’Oréal Professional Steam Pod, as the results last for about a week if you don’t wash your hair. — “Although this latest product version is more expensive, the results last a long time compared to a regular hair straightener,” says MacRae.
- If you use this appliance or a flat iron, she says, you should still use a hair serum to protect the hair from the heat as well.
New business to beat the frizz
Ellen Clements, of Stanhope, PEI, has been a hairstylist for 42 years and has an even better solution for de-frizzing hair. She is about to launch a brand new company that focuses entirely on frizz-free hair.
Inca Glow Out Bar & Boutique opens September 1 in Summerside, October 1 in Charlottetown and January 1 in Bloomfield, PEI. Until then, she is active in Bloomfield at Island Beauty Secrets salon.
Clements explains that the treatment she uses, called Inca Glow, smoothes hair and controls frizz in high humidity, rain mist and snow.
Inca Glow acts like a magnet with a positive and negative charge when fused into the hair with heat, explains Clements.
“We melt omega 3, 6 and 9, fats, vitamins A and E, and 11 organic amino acids and more into the hair, leaving it conditioned and frizz-free,” she explains.
The procedure, Clements says, is heat-activated, so you can straighten your hair with a flat iron. Or you can wear your hair naturally curly – without frizz.
Although Clements herself does not have curly or frizzy hair, she has worked with her since the 1980s, but she has seen how the industry has never really been able to help her clients control the frizzy hair.
“Skin straighteners were so harmful and full of chemicals that they caused cancer to some degree when heated,” she says, noting that most of them are banned in Canada anyway.
She tried other keratin treatments that also damaged the hair and more for her clients with already damaged hair to eventually deal with.
That was until she was introduced to the all-natural, organic, non-toxic Inca Glow and now bases her career on it.
“I almost cried when I saw the results,” she says. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
For those who don’t mind or don’t care about their frizzy hair in the summer, consider cutting it very short for the summer and growing it out for the winter.
As one patient wrote, embrace your natural texture in this weather as no product will help.
“Spend the fleeting summer days at the beach and your frizzy hair is the last thing on your mind!”
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