Sometimes we tend to forget about a wonderful, beautiful feature we carry on our heads daily- Our Hair! Hair deserves the same love and care as the rest of our body while it withstands the sun’s rays, chlorine, and everything else we come across. As a hair fanatic and swimmer, here are my top nine tips on how to keep your hair happy and healthy in order to keep it beautiful and radiant all year long.

Like facial pores, the hair’s cuticle can open and close up depending on conditions. If you wash your hair with cold water, the cuticle will close up and allow the hair to lock in hydrating oils.

The cuticle is key to protecting the inside of the hair from damage. Washing and rinsing with cold water will help seal and flatten the hair and reduce frizz and damage.

At the end of your shower, I recommend you stand under cold water for just a minute and I promise you will see results!

Ever thought about the type of towel you use for your hair?

There are a few options for drying if you choose not to use a blow dryer.

First, DO NOT rub your hair with a regular bath towel, in fact, do not rub it while it’s wet…ever!

Pat your hair down with a towel if you need or even invest in a microfiber towel. A microfiber towel reduces hair breakage because it is much finer than a human hair. It has a larger surface area than a regular towel, allowing it to absorb moisture faster and better for the hair. Even easier, use an old T-Shirt!

Microfiber Hair Towel Wrap BEoffer Super Absorbent Twist Turban Fast Drying Hair Caps

Often overlooked, hair masks can be quite beneficial to the hair to replenish its beauty. Hair masks work similarly to face masks as they are conditioning treatments that can be left in the hair for long periods of time to help heal and replenish the strands.

I personally recommend hair masks with argan oil because it does everything!

Argan oil is helpful to moisturize and protect the hair from daily damage. It can help reduce breakage, frizz, and can even prevent hair loss.

Try to get into the routine of applying a hair mask about once a week to give your hair the moisturizing boost it deserves!

You can find a huge array of hair masks for very different purposes so do some research on what is best for your hair type!

My favorite overall-beneficial hair masks include:

Hair is most fragile when it is wet. Make sure to take extra care of it after showers and swimming to avoid breakage.

Try not to brush hair when it is wet.

If you have somewhere to go and you need to, I recommend using either the famed Wet Brush or a wide-toothed comb. These brushes reduce breakage because they allow the hair to flexibly pass through.

To help with brushing and styling, later on, I recommend using a leave-in conditioning spray to help it untangle and keep it silky-smooth!

It’s a known fact that blow-drying is damaging to your hair and can lead it to become even dryer. If you choose to blow dry, use a proper heat protectant, and try to keep the dryer at least 6 inches from your hair.

Heat protectant helps form a thin layer of protection over the hair that distributes the heat more evenly and slows down the conduction of heat going directly onto the hair.

It may be a pain sometimes but don’t skip those visits to the barber to trim off pesky split ends!

If you keep the split ends as they are, the split/breakage may travel up through the hair to the top of your head. This leads to more breakage and a messy look.

Make sure to chop those ends off to prevent any damage from traveling upwards.

Sulfates are chemicals commonly used in cleansers like shampoos and are considered to be one of the best cleansers to remove oil and dirt from hair. While they may be useful for real deep cleaning, sulfates may strip hair of its natural oils and be too strong for more-sensitive hair. Sulfate-free shampoos and products may prevent hair from becoming too dry and brittle.

The use of sulfates is still widely controversial in the hair industry but sulfate-free products are most recommended for those with fine, frizzy, and sensitive hair.

Let’s have a mini hair biology lesson…

The very outer layer of hair is known as the cuticle, which holds natural oils produced in the hair called sebum.

Over-washing your hair may strip it of natural oils necessary for it to stay healthy. If you strip the hair of its sebum then it will get dryer and prone to more breakage.

In fact, if you manage to overwash the hair it can actually overproduce more oils leading the hair to get greasy…

Like the rest of your body, protect your hair from the sun as well!

Not only can long sun exposure alter the hair’s color appearance, but it can dry the strands as well. UVB rays can damage the hair’s cuticle and leave your hair strands brittle, broken, and dry.

To combat the sun, use leave-in conditioners with SPF or UV-protectant sprays.

Caring for your hair will have a great pay-off in the future. You will prevent breakage, grey hairs, and keep your luscious locks for years and years. Especially as swim fanatics, we are constantly putting our hair in potentially-harmful and unhealthy environments. It’s important to show our hair some love!

Comment below if you tried any of these tips and what you think!