My hairdresser said my hair was dry and damaged – here’s how I fixed it (without a trim)

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I love my hairdresser (the gorg Kerry Adair at Hooker & Young in Jesmond), but she’s… brutally honest. 

Last time I was in the chair, she said my hair was very dry and was breaking. ‘I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it’s lovely and hydrated” – were her exact words. 

Anyway, my Type A personality fixed the problem in just a month… here’s how I did it. 

THE PRODUCTS

Working from home, I don’t actually wash my hair that much (read, once a week). Which is actually good in terms of heat damage, but my hair… she was thirsty. 

In terms of the washing ritual, I started using a hydrating shampoo, followed by a mask as a conditioner that I left on for five minutes in the shower. 

After that, there’s a new product I’ve just discovered from Oribe called the Mirror Rinse and guys, this makes your hair shiny. Yes, all of these products are expensive but they really do work, so if you’re an infrequent hair washer like me, they’re worth the investment and actually last a while. 

The K18 leave-in hair mask is a great treatment every couple of weeks. Kerry did advise not to use this too often, or it can actually dry the hair out with a protein build-up, but twice a month, it works wonders. 

Then, the bit that I think really cracked it was showing my hair some love with products in between washes. That’s where I was using the Olaplex Nourishing Serum and Kérastase Elixir Oil. Just brush it through, put your hair in a slicked back bun and the hydration levels build really quickly. 

THE TOOLS

As someone totally incompetent with most styling tools and generally doing my hair 10 minutes before the Uber, the GHD Duet is a godsend. Again, expensive, but this 2-in-1 styler dries and straightens hair at the same time, locking in shine, and it’s like having a professional blow dry for the entire week. 

On top of that, I’ve been protecting hair from my nightly tossing and turning with a silk turban (no need to heat style the next day because you wake up with perfectly smooth hair), and preventing breakage with a detangling brush.