How do you make your hair look great when you keep it down?

[Priska]

Are you using some shine sprays? Which ones? Or do you make them yourself? How? .. I wish my hair looked good just like that, but I need everything and I don't even know what all there is for this purpose.

If I really want it to look good, I need curls or heat to straighten my hair because of all flyaways. But this is something where I need some learning. Oils I know and use already when washing and to dry hair.

[Croww]

Have you tried a hair oil? It doesn't have to be expensive! I use a cony hair oil for my ends. It works wonders! (I use the young again oil from Kevin Murphy, but there are drugstore alternatives from brands like loreal)

Edit: sorry I didn't realise you already mentioned oils, I'm sorry!!

[pisinoe]

I use silicone oil only twice a day (Redken all soft, Davines Oi oil, Kerastase etc). Shine spray for special occasions is Bedhead Headrush. When I don't want to use the shine spray, I use Bedhead after party which is extra smoothening for frizz and makes the hair also super shiny.

[mochichichi]

I like BioSilk Therapy, it's expensive if you buy full price but I often find it at HomeGoods/TJMaxx/Marshalls for pretty cheap. Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Serum is similar. They give me great gloss and get rid of frizz. I've moved away from them in favor of just extra oiling, but I loved those products for a long time.

[WednesdayAddams]

If I can't stand my hair but I want to wear it down for whatever reason, I usually play with the front. I have light bangs, but you don't have to have any bangs for this. I change my part, put it back in cute clips and if I'm clipping the main portion of the bangs back I gently brush the baby hairs forward and curving. It's just sort of a cute, softer look. Half-ups are great too because they pile unruly hair toward the top and gather it more in one place toward the back so that it looks fuller.

[WednesdayAddams]

And here is one more post literally just to reach 100, LOL. I hope you all don't mind.

[Priska]

Have you tried a hair oil? It doesn't have to be expensive! I use a cony hair oil for my ends. It works wonders! (I use the young again oil from Kevin Murphy, but there are drugstore alternatives from brands like loreal)

Edit: sorry I didn't realise you already mentioned oils, I'm sorry!!

No problem! Mostly I just want to know if there's some secret treasure that I'm not aware of and that I don't want to miss 😉 Maybe that cony oil is that, I have not heard of that... 🤔

[Priska]

If I can't stand my hair but I want to wear it down for whatever reason, I usually play with the front. I have light bangs, but you don't have to have any bangs for this. I change my part, put it back in cute clips and if I'm clipping the main portion of the bangs back I gently brush the baby hairs forward and curving. It's just sort of a cute, softer look. Half-ups are great too because they pile unruly hair toward the top and gather it more in one place toward the back so that it looks fuller.

I just cut my long bangs too and they became side bangs that are easier to style 🙂 Learning Cindy Crawford -style...

Thanks for your tips!

[Priska]

And here is one more post literally just to reach 100, LOL. I hope you all don't mind.

😁😉 No I don't!

[Bri-Chan]

I honestly don't mind that much. I apply some leave in on the ends if they look very dry or I apply a coney serum allover if it looks too frizzy. That's all. And I don't do these things often. I mean, it's hair, I don't think it needs to look styled in the everyday life.
What is your hair type?

[Priska]

I honestly don't mind that much. I apply some leave in on the ends if they look very dry or I apply a coney serum allover if it looks too frizzy. That's all. And I don't do these things often. I mean, it's hair, I don't think it needs to look styled in the everyday life.
What is your hair type?
I don't know but everything bad together 😂
Thin, shedding, tangling, dry, frizzy, not straight not curly. Naturally gray already too 😁 (but I dye it with henna and indigo) Pretty long anyway by now (longest strands reach tailbone) and with some effort I can make it look okay or even good.

I just wrote in another thread how I impressed people in Facebook with pictures of my flat ironed hair and they really sounded they meant it, when they said they didn't recognize me with my hair open because I looked like a model. (I only wanted to show how flat iron can change the hair very neat and shiny.)

[Priska]

I had to tell the last part because my message sounded so desperate without it 😁

[shelomit]

If shine is what you're after, I've noticed that the fenugreek detangling spray that I make adds an extra shine to my hair once it's dried.

Have you tried drying your hair "stretched" to straighten it? I certainly don't get mine flat-iron levels of straight, but I can get it pretty straight. Someone on here who starts with a G--gossamer? glitch?--has written at length about their dry-to-straighten process.

[lapushka]

Styling products after a wash. If you don't have straight hair, this is hugely important. I use the LOC/LCO method (see signature).

I layer a curl cream, a gel, and a serum. Cover my mid lengths to ends in a tad bit, just enough not to get the fuzzy hair. Once dry I "scrunch out the crunch" ie break my gel cast. It really keeps it smooth in all its waviness (if that makes sense).

[barnet_fair]

Wearing one's hair down is one of the great joys of long hair - but what pain and dismay when loose locks go astray!
Here's my approach. I have naturally messy 2a hair that looks 1c most of the time. I wear it loose and in low ponytails a lot.

1. Environment
If your hair likes wet weather, it'll stay nicer for longer in wet weather, and vice versa. Depending on how stable the climate is where you are, this could mean you're going to have bad hair days more often unless you have a routine that works for each type of weather.
I haven't yet figured out a routine to protect my hair from very low humidity, so if I visit a very dry place I will usually just plait my hair and not worry about it.

2. Activities
Walking around outdoors, walking around indoors, leaning against headrests, putting on clothes, hats, and necklaces, bending down, moving hair out of the way - all of these can cause hair disarray. The more often you do these things, the more often you'll have to put your hair back into place.

3. Combing and detangling
In order to be shiny, each hair should be lying in a similar direction to its neighbours. If hair has shed and is tangled up with other hairs, this will not happen. When wearing your hair loose, hairs will continuously shed throughout the day, and unless your hair is very short or very silky, they will likely remain in the body of hair until you deliberately detangle it. I bring a small horn comb with me and use it on occasions throughout the day.

4. Drying technique
glitch's heatless wrap straightening technique was mentioned upthread. I've had excellent results combing and fingercombing my hair from damp to dry: if I start doing this before any frizz has formed, it dries straight with a smooth cuticle. You could also experiment with cool blowdrying. If it dries frizzy and/or tangled then it'll be much harder to make it look good until the next wash.

5. Oils and conditioners
After much experimentation I've found I can refresh my hair to a nice smooth shiny state by spraying it with rose water, perhaps adding some leave-in conditioner, applying jojoba oil to the lengths and ends, detangling and combing. Even better if I do this then "put it to bed" for a period of time, even 10 minutes, in a bun or claw clip. When it comes out it's much happier. I'm in a cone-free phase at the moment and my hair is at least as shiny as it was when I used cones.

This is about as far as I've got with my own experiments - interested to hear those of others!

[Croww]

No problem! Mostly I just want to know if there's some secret treasure that I'm not aware of and that I don't want to miss 😉 Maybe that cony oil is that, I have not heard of that... 🤔


Ooo, I would definitely try a cony oil then if I were you! They're really nice and condition the hair. I love the KM oil, highly recommend. Its just very expensive sadly...

[lapushka]

It doesn't have to be expensive or a name that is "dropped" and then becomes popular, for a silicone serum. Any silicone serum will do the job. L'Oréal has a nice one too, just FYI.

[Priska]

Thank you all!

[Dark40]

All I use is creams, lotions, oil serums, and leave-ins to help my long hair looking good while wearing it down.