2023 Hair Care Routine

We’re Talking Shower Care, Weekly Upkeep, and Diet!

!!!Warning – This post does include links but NONE of them are affiliate links.!!!

In 2023, I told myself that I’m going to really pick up on my hair care so I set a lot of this in motion in 2022. I’m sharing now so you can benefit from knowing where we are starting and where I’m hoping we’ll get to.

Today’s blog post is a tiny bit long but I promise you it is worth it. If you wanna skip the background feel free to scroll down until you get to the section called Hair Routine where we start to get into the nitty gritty of things.

If you follow me on Instagram then you have been with me to many a hair appointment. If you don’t, then let me give you the lowdown.

Since around 2007, I have been seeing a stylist to lighten my hair in one form or another as my beautiful blonde hair – I have pics to prove that I was a natural bright blonde until middle school – started to go dark. We won’t talk about what side of the family that lovely little issue came from.

Anywho, let’s continue the history recap.

The Background

Now back in the day, I’d use just whatever shampoo and conditioner I wanted and a leave-in conditioner to make my hair silky soft. Then when I got into college I started being super careful about what I used and cut sulfates out of my hair washing routine. My hair was put through the ringer with a lot of heat styling and I still don’t think it had fully forgiven me. Post college, I was living on the farm with my mom and it got a break from the city water due to our spring that provided our house with water. My hair ate that up and was super healthy thanks to the spring water.

Then I moved to Nashville. And boy has that been a journey.

The water in Nashville is not the best to be honest. I don’t care how many hard water maps says we’re not in a super hard water area, my skin literally hates the water here. So you can only imagine how my poor bleached hair feels. In 2017 to 2018, I really picked up doing a lot of coconut hair masks on my hair plus I was dealing with a lot of stress in finding a job that could support me and allow me to live in my own place. Leading to the great stress/protein breakage of the summer of 2018 that led to a shorter version of the Marilyn Monroe look. It was the only way that we could save my hair. Leading to the 2018 to present working to get this mess grown back out.

Getting it past my shoulder blades has been an extremely difficult journey. I won’t lie getting your hair trimmed is essential to keep it from looking too worn at the ends. However, there are ways to space out your trim so that you aren’t having to get it done every three months like I was at one point.

Before we visit my hair routine, I do want to clarify that I do use a shower filter that attaches before my shower head. But I’m also considering a second one to put in my two shower heads. Yes you read that right. I have two. One that stays in place but also one that I can detach to rinse off with. With that, let’s get into my routine.

Hair Routine

First off, I only wash my hair once a week. The day shifts depending on when I get into one of my two stylists because I always work my wash schedule out to be able to wash before I go in to see them so they have a cleansed canvas to work with. But I do try to keep my routine pretty simple so that my hair isn’t being overloaded with a lot of product.

Second off, I use a shampoo massage brush to help massage my shampoo into my scalp to cleanse it along with massaging my scalp to stimulate the skin.

My once a week wash routine is as follows:

Shampoo once with my micellar shampoo by Kristin Ess – trust me this gets my scalp super clean.
No. 3 from Olaplex – this gets used depending on how my hair is feeling. You can over do this in my experience so I try to space out when I use it.
Shampoo a second time with another shampoo
- Right now I’m rotating between the following:
  - Kristin Ess Extra Gentle Shampoo – this is the one I use regularly. It’s gentle enough to be an every day shampoo if you wash every day but not super stripping when it comes to the hair.
  - Kristin Ess Purple Shampoo – not often tho. I just did my first wash with only it recently. But I have occasionally diluted it in with another shampoo
  - Olaplex Purple Shampoo – this one I use sparingly because my hair tends to like to grip it more. This one is the one I usually dilute more often than the Kristin Ess.
  - Kristin Ess Deep Clarifying Shampoo – this I usually use when my hair feels like it has build up. I typically also only use this before I go into the salon to have my hair done because I’m going in with no product other than shampoo and conditioner in my hair.
Conditioner
- I rotate between the following:
  - Kristin Ess One Signature Conditioner – the same with the extra gentle shampoo. I use it the most.
  - No.8 Bond Intense Moisture Mask – don’t let the name fool you. It acts just like a conditioner in my opinion and it is only meant to be used on your ends.
  - Kristin Ess Purple Conditioner –
Hair Mask – I use one every other week and try to avoid using one when I use No.3 in the shower.
- Currently Using:
  - Amika’s Soulfood – recommended by the ever lovely October Salon owner and stylist, Rachael.

Honorable mentions of use in the hair wash routine:

Diane Shampoo Massage Brush – this has straight up made a difference with my scalp in the last year since I started using it. Currently as I was writing this I have five new tiny hairs on my scalp. It’s great for the cleaning but it also helps stimulate the scalp.
Turbie Twist – I need like 20 more just because I love these so much. They’re great for post shower and they absorb a crap ton of water.

That’s just the hair wash routine to keep my hair happy during the shower. After I get done with that, I’ll either french braid my hair while wet and let it do its thing to dry naturally. If I chose to blow dry it, I have a couple products I use specifically for that.

The post shower routine involves the following:

Kristin Ess Leave-in Conditioner/Detangler – While tangles aren’t a huge issue for me as I comb from the ends and work my way up, this definitely helps me get through if there happen to be some bad ones. I will note that the one that I currently am using – and am not through with – is not this product but I’m gonna take a stab that it is the same. I will probably get a bottle soon and test it to let you know.
Kristin Ess Thickening Spray – Only when I blowdry – My hair is baby fine and I have a lot of it. Direct quote from Rachael about my hair. No joke. I use this to help me when I might be considering doing some curls in my hair because I feel that it helps a lot in that case. The quote coming into 2023 from me is “This volume be an illusion” and it is.
Amika Supernova Blonde Moisture & Shine Cream – This is another must have whether my hair is blown dry or dries naturally. This one is meant to help with blonde hair to bump the shine and color, but it also is a heat protectant. Unfortunately it’s not with Sephora anymore – I’ve tried finding it on their website. So I most likely will be ordering a couple bottles when I need more.

Honorable product mentions for blow drying my hair:

Babyliss Blow Dryer – I use this to get my hair mostly dry – think like 80-90% dry.
Hair Drying Hot Air Brush – now while this is not the one I use, I’ve heard good things about the Revlon one. It has the same shape as mine. This is where that volume illusion comes from. I use this to dry the rest of the way with my hair.
Wet Brush Pro Flex Dry – Obviously we have to have a brush to help dry the mane. This is my favorite and I got mine in pink to match my Sleeping Beauty dry brush.

Weekly Upkeep

Obviously there is always going to be weekly upkeep to maintain all of this to continue to maintain the healthy hair that I’m trying to create from the scalp down.

First off, get rid of those hair ties that hurt your head and get you some of those hosiery ones. I recently discovered them thanks to Abbey Yung on TikTok and YouTube. The ones I got myself are the Ec0 Friendly Nylon Elastics from Kitsch. I haven’t seen any hair breakage from these yet.

Second, if you aren’t sleeping with a satin pillowcase and/or a bonnet at the minimum, do yourself a favor and fix that. I got both of mine from Kitsch, but that was due to the fact that I needed it quickly. I fully plan on finding some from more small businesses to share with you all.

Third, if you’re not sleeping with the hair loosely pulled back then you need to get on that plan too. I honestly do mine in a loose french braid most nights and sleep in that.

Now that those three are out of the way, I can share my final product that I want to share with you. Another recommendation from Rachael for some hydration when my hair gets to feeling a little frail during the week is the Dream Routine Overnight Hydrating Hair Mask by Amika. I will sometimes put this in before I braid my hair. Or I’ll actually use this in my natural drying routine as this isn’t a heavy hair mask.

And if I do choose to curl my hair during the week I only use two products and shocker that both of them are from Kristin Ess. I start off with her Style Assist Blow Dry Mist. While I am not not blow drying it, I am putting heat on my hair with the curling iron and this stuff still does it’s job when being used for that purpose. When I’ve finally gotten it where I want it, I go in with her Ultra Fine Workable Hairspray. It’s great with hold for me and gives me still bouncing curls.

Diet

You might be laughing right now but your diet does play a part in how healthy your hair is. I found that when I started upping the amount of omegas and fish oils I was getting in my diet that my hair seemed to be a great deal happier.

Right now, I’ve been reincorporating a lot of fish back into my diet. However, it’s not fried. I’m trying to steer clear of that when it comes to my fish choices unless it is catfish. I’ve also started taking my Hair/Skin/Nail vitamins again. I’m finishing a bottle I had from one of the brands sold at Walmart before starting back on my absolute favorites from GNC that also have collagen in them to help with my skin.

But there you have it. That’s the current routine. And I suspect we’ll be doing a midyear update to see how on the wagon I’ve kept this.

Happy hair loving,