College haircare?

[snowyx]

Hello everyone,

I have a question about haircare in college. I will start this September, and I'm sure that everything will be different. I don't think I'll have time to do hair masks and oiling for long periods of time. I have been homeschooled for a long time, and it was easy for me to oil my hair in the morning, put on a shower cap and do homework, then wash out at night.

Maybe some lovely people on this site that attend college could tell me about their routine and how they find time for hair treatments.

Thank you for your help!

[Colochita]

I'm currently in my last year of college. I'm a tightly curly, and our routines will probably be different, but I find that mine takes up a lot of time so I still may be able to help.
I only bother with my hair on weekends.
I'm a monthly washer and wash day is three days long for me, so I start on Friday night, use a portion of Saturday, and style on Sunday.
Weekly I do a heavy moisturizing routine with the LOC method, and twice daily I spritz my hair with water (before I leave for class and when I come home).

How frequently and how much you do with your hair will likely depend on your schedule. For example, you may find that you have one day during the week that you're done fairly early and choose to do a treatment on that day. You just have to be good about scheduling and planning ahead.

It can be done. :)

[Larki]

I'm currently a junior in college. To be honest, it's really not that different! I do weekly deep conditioning, on the weekends. Sit in my dorm room for a couple hours doing homework and letting the DC do its work, then go take a shower.

[woodswanderer]

Maybe you could focus more on leave-in sprays instead of hair masks and oiling, especially if you have a room mate.

[Angels+Eyeliner]

I don't know how intense your course will be, but I'm guessing you'll have the time. If you've got study time, do it in at home (in a dorm, I presume?) and you can leave whatever gunk you like on your hair. Study-conditioning is great because you forget about your hair and then you can rinse it off. Or maybe look at some overnight treatments and invest in a good waterproof cap to keep your pillows clean. I'm guessing your main problem will be access to showers at the time you need it. Being from the UK, I'm not sure what your accommodation is like and if you have to share washing facilities you might find that you've got to fit other people's schedules into your own. Honestly, no one can say how that will be. I had my own shower room when I was at uni, but sharing a kitchen (with seven other girls) led to so many problems that I'd have killed one of them if we had to share bathrooms too. You might get nice, reasonable people who take a fifteen minute shower once a day, or every other day. You might get someone who insists on an hour long shower every night. Or that one person who starts showering at two AM (this can be good, if they're quiet about it). Living with virtual strangers is weird. I remember discovering that one of my flatmates had really bad OCD, one was a nudist (but she always put on shorts and a vest before leaving her room) and one of them would get these irrational urges to cook strange things at odd times. I came in one night from my boyfriend's flat (next door) to discover her making a tray of roast potatoes, from scratch, in the dark. Plus, I'm pretty sure the nudist girl used a dry wipe marker on her shower walls to write her notes or something...

Wow, digressed there. Basically, it's not the time I think you'll have to worry about (if you're serious about your hair and your studies, you'll have time inside your room to yourself) but who you have to share with. Oh, and don't bother about what they think of you with a shower cap and a bottle of oil. I can 100% guarantee you that everyone has a quirk, and most people don't care.

[Avis]

Congrats on going to college. I lived on campus my first year at college (I was a transfer student so I was like a junior). It was pretty fun. My roommates were all really friendly and non-judgmental so I wouldn't have minded doing a hair thing around them (though I didn't start doing oilings and DC until about 6 months ago).

That being said, now, I live with SO in a cottage off campus so I don't worry about receiving any judgment from him. Like Colochita, I really only bothering with washing on the weekends. Last semester, I only had one class on Fridays, so I would go to class, come home and do a DC then wash it. Now my schedule is a little fuller, so I've moved wash day to Saturday and I oil overnight. You might not be able to wear a shower cap during the day (well, I mean you could if you wanted but people can be rude), but if your hair is like mine (which it looks like we're fairly similar) you could probably get away with oiling it and just braiding or bunning it for the day. By morning, my hair has soaked up most of the oil, and it just looks sleek when it's in an oiled braid/bun.

[Colochita]

Congrats on going to college. I lived on campus my first year at college (I was a transfer student so I was like a junior). It was pretty fun. My roommates were all really friendly and non-judgmental so I wouldn't have minded doing a hair thing around them (though I didn't start doing oilings and DC until about 6 months ago).

That being said, now, I live with SO in a cottage off campus so I don't worry about receiving any judgment from him. Like Colochita, I really only bothering with washing on the weekends. Last semester, I only had one class on Fridays, so I would go to class, come home and do a DC then wash it. Now my schedule is a little fuller, so I've moved wash day to Saturday and I oil overnight. You might not be able to wear a shower cap during the day (well, I mean you could if you wanted but people can be rude), but if your hair is like mine (which it looks like we're fairly similar) you could probably get away with oiling it and just braiding or bunning it for the day. By morning, my hair has soaked up most of the oil, and it just looks sleek when it's in an oiled braid/bun.

In reference to wearing a shower cap in public, I have done this many a time. I just wear a winter cap (sort of like a slouchy beanie) on top and no one ever knows. It's usually the only way to get out on a Friday night with a pre-shampoo treatment in.

OP, you probably won't have to resort to this, but you'll find ways to work around things.

[Kendrix]

My hair was only shoulder length my first year of college, but it grew past waist by graduation because I didn't have time for haircuts like I used to. but towards the end? I multitasked. If I knew I was going to deep condition, I would let the conditioner sit while I wrote a paper. I would wear my hair in braids often to prevent tangles and so I could just get up and go to class with it already styled. The more stressed out I got around finals, the more I would stretch my washes. I found that college was a time of benign neglect for my hair.

[Caraid♫]

Hi, I'm in uni! :waving:(1st year masters)
I can tell you it'll get crazy busy some of the time, but I have always managed to have time for my hair! Personally I do treatments overnight, so it takes virtually no extra time to spend just a couple minutes before bed to oil your hair/ put conditioner in it or whatever it is you like to do, then wake up in the morning and wash it out in your morning shower.
Beyond that there isn't much more to do. I brush my hair every morning, and that takes probably 2 minutes. Then I style it- that can take as much time as I have on a particular day. If I have no time, I'll take 2 seconds to put it in a bun. If I have some time to spare and if I feel like it, I'll spend time doing an elaborate hairdo (and probably take pictures of it too :p ) It really doesn't take a lot of time to have healthy hair! Like they say, healthy hair is less about what you do to it, it's about what you don't do to it :D Keeping it simple can be really great

[animetor7]

I second the benign neglect thing. I'm currently at University and I usually just throw my hair in a bun or a braid and go. I also have managed to stretch to once a week washing with a rinse half-way through. And in this way I don't have to do many deep treatments because my hair isn't getting as dried out to begin with. I would also second (third?) study conditioning, kill two birds with one stone. And another thing to do if you're embarrassed is oiling your hair, rather than masks. Especially coconut oiling is becoming fairly mainstream, so I'm pretty sure no one would even look at you funny for doing that. Congrats on going to college in the Fall, that's really exciting.

[LauraLongLocks]

I'm in college right now. Home life hasn't changed for me at all, however. I'm still living with my husband and children. I have adjusted which days of the week I wash my hair so that it fits with my schedule each semester. I wash my hair twice a week on days that I have no classes (because I have that luxury of not having classes everyday), and do a lot of deep treatments and such on the weekends while writing papers and doing math homework. The college I am attending has a small student body and so I have gotten to know most of the people at the tutoring center pretty well. If I went in there with a deep condition treatment on my head and a shower cap, they wouldn't raise their eyebrows, because they know I'm fanatical about my hair. I don't think I would do it, though, at least not without my favorite hair treatment hat. It says "Bad Hair Day" on it.

If shower lengths and times are a limitation for you, you would probably do best to wet your hair with a spray bottle and apply deep conditioning treatments so that you can marinade with your treatment and not have to shower twice. I hope that long, run-on sentence made some sense.

[Creagan]

I schedule my washes so I don't have to wash my hair if I'm going to class. It makes life much easier for me.

[gthlvrmx]

You can try just adding the oil onto your damp hair after you washed it and leave it in. That's what I do after I wash my hair and I wash once a week. You don't need a lot of oil to get the good effects from it, just 2-5 drops.

[Sharysa]

College student, desperately hoping to graduate by fall!

I'm all for benign neglect as a matter of course, so my routine wasn't very affected. But treatments like pre-shower oiling and heavy search-and-destroy sessions are usually on the weekends, since I don't have classes then and I have a couple days of nice, healthy hair before going back to my normal routine.

[JellyBene]

You could try doing your treatments/oiling overnight? :) I never officially lived in a dorm seeing as I went to cosmetology school but I spent a lot of time (and essentially lived) in a dorm with a friend for a few months and at one point we got really into using monistat for growth and so we had like 5+ tubes of it kinda laying around and we ended up inviting this guy I had a crush on over without remembering the monistats everywhere. Yeah he most definitely saw them, he looked so freaked out. :run: And there's no explaining that "oh no, we don't have chronic infections, we use it for our hair!" Haha but other than that one (now hilarious) incident, nobody really judged us for LHC haircare.

[dulce]

My daughter in university[living at a dorm] had waist length hair.She washed and conditioned it and wore it loose.She did no other things to it and it was very healthy.

[Calypso]

I'm in my last year of university, and have no problems with spending time on my hair. Then again, I do procrastinate a lot by learning new hairstyles. :P I tend to oil overnight (I use Vatika, and it smells so delicious it makes me sleep really well!), and wash out in the morning. I have a part time job and only a few lectures per week, so if I have a lecture or work in the morning I'll have to get up extra early, which is a bit annoying, but I try to time it for mornings when I have nothing on.

[ExpectoPatronum]

I'm in college! I still do heavy oilings every now and again on a weekend before I wash my hair. It's really not too different from being home (ESPECIALLY now that I live off-campus). When I lived on campus, my roommates would ask why I was putting oil in my hair, but they got it once I explained it. If you don't feel like being asked, you can opt for very light oilings when you put your hair up. A drop or two smoothed in the hair before braiding is often times good enough for my hair. You could give it a try too.

I've also become a fan of using a deep conditioner once a week in the shower. It's nice because it takes no longer than regular conditioning, but my hair feels and looks nicer after. HTH!

[snowyx]

Thank you everyone for your lovely responses! I didn't think I would get so many. I play a sport for the college that I'm attending, and will be traveling every weekend. I will definitely do overnight oilings, and wash in the morning. After showers I will put a couple drops of oil and call it a day.

Thank you again for all of your responses and help!

[pastina]

this thread made me smile. i had two different roommates over my time in college. if at any point i'd said to either of them that i was about to go slather my hair in conditioning gunk, they'd be right there with me, probably hogging it all.

it's not as weird as you'd think. lots of girls like "treatments."

[snowyx]

this thread made me smile. i had two different roommates over my time in college. if at any point i'd said to either of them that i was about to go slather my hair in conditioning gunk, they'd be right there with me, probably hogging it all.

it's not as weird as you'd think. lots of girls like "treatments."

Yes, I will be staying in the same apartment as my team. We know eachother pretty well, and many of the girls are from europe and they are more familiar with hair stuff.
I would like to say that your hair looks absolutely amazing! I wish I could pull off all of those pretty colors!!

[lapushka]

Around the time of my higher studies, I had millimetered hair. :lol: Very easy! ;)

[Imalath]

I will admit to being bad...halfway through college I chopped my almost-hip-length hair to CBL. For me it boiled down to not knowing how to bun securely when I worked around open flames in lab. Now that I have mastered that skill, I would have never chopped in the first place.

I shared a communal bathroom with two shower stalls for 8-16 girls. Getting a chance at the hot water took a little work! I found that washing after class in the early afternoon or mid-evening was usually the best chance to wash without being interrupted by my floormates, janitorial staff, or only having cold water to wash in. If that wasn't possible I would usually get up early while everyone else was still asleep. Aside from that, I mostly practiced benign neglect and learned how to stretch washes for maximum effect. Don't be afraid to continue your regular hair routine; some of the girls I shared the bathroom with had even more elaborate ones than I do now! Just do what feels right to you, and you will settle into something that works before you know it.

[RoseofCimarron]

College sophomore here! I live at home, and have never lived in a dorm, so I don't know what that is like. What I do is wash my hair on Sunday (no school) and Wednesday nights, and on those days (if I have to go out) I wear my hair in braids/ a braided bun. Braiding my hair really hides the oil well, no one ever suspects that my hair hasn't been washed for a few days. Also, where I go to school, no one really cares unless you smell. I know people that consistently go to school in their pajamas, and no ones really notices. I always find it so funny how magazines make it look like college girls are always put together with perfect outfits, hair, and makeup, when in my case hardly anyone does that. At my community college, we make sweatpants/sweatshirts and jeans and messy buns a total fashion trend! :D

Good luck with school, college is a great time to experiment, find yourself, and find what you love to study the most. :blossom: