Your hair is your best fashion accessory

We follow all kinds of fashion trends and spend mega bucks on the latest brands.  We have to acquire what is in so as to be called cool, hip, and a fashionista.   We forget to consider that our best fashion accessories are in fact part of our being. Starting from the top of our head, let us examine our hair.   Our hair is our crowning  glory and speaks a great deal about our health.  If it is limp, dry, thinning, brittle, then we must be lacking some nutrients.  If there is no baldness running through your DNA, there should be no cause for thinning hair except illness or strong chemicals that caused your hair to fall.

We are now in the “ber” months and the holiday season is just around the corner.  I thought of reinventing my looks and looking festive for the holidays and for sometime now, I was disliking the dark color of my hair.  It is somehow making my skin look darker and sallow.  Why not go blonde or a red head for a change? 

I decided to consult hair expert and master colorist Karina Mantolino of Regine’s Beauty Salon.   Karina is a certified hair colorist and master cutter from L’Oreal who did her training in top hair institutes abroad.  She has healthy, shiny long hair, proof that she takes her craft seriously and she walks her talk. 

She talked me out of going blonde or a red head as that won’t complement my personality and skin tone.  But she combined some highlights and low lights on my hair that made my skin look brighter and gave me a different look!  Psychologically, I felt my spirits lightened with my new hair color.  It gave a certain radiance to my drab-looking sallow skin.  Thanks to Karina,  I am indeed primed for the holiday season!

Here are Karina’s hair tips:

1. Prior to dyeing your hair, condition your hair for several weeks with hair masks or intense repair conditioners.

Note: There are inexpensive and expensive products to use. I chose to condition with Power Dose, which I bought from Landmark for P179.75 and Human Nature Heart’s Intensive Hair Mask of Avocado and Gugo bark which is available at Rustan’s and other supermarkets.  I also oiled my hair with olive oil half an hour before shampoo.   Sometimes, I used Argan oil ( available at Rustan’s the Body Source) instead of olive oil.   If you opt for the high end products,  Karina M. endorses Kerastasse Reflection Absolut Repair Cellular and Ceramide Chrome Captive Shine Intensifying are recommendable. 

2.  When choosing a hair color, choose one that will complement your skin stone and suit your personality, regardless of trends.

3. After coloring, continue to condition to prevent breakage and dryness because hair dye could cause hair to be dry and brittle.

4. Always read the instructions and don’t skip the skin-allergy sensitivity test before starting.

5. Don’t go for another root color if the rest of your hair is of a certain color.  Retouch your roots, when they start to grow out, (usually two to four weeks after) the same color as you started.

6.  Wash your hair one day before dyeing it so the hair’s natural oils can protect the hair.

7. If you feel any allergic reaction like itching, burning sensation in the scalp, wash off the color immediately, take an anti-allergy pill and consult a doctor if symptoms persist.

Health experts say that semi permanent is better to use than permanent and recommend products with no ammonia.  There are several products with no ammonia on the market now -- Inoa by L’Oreal, Revlon, Casting, among others.

Some health practitioners like Andrew Weil recommend natural hair tints like Henna and vegetable colors as they are less toxic than  your average hair color.  Weil explains that the very rich blood supplies in the scalp may carry chemicals throughout the body, causing illness like cancer.  According to the National Cancer Institute, hair dyes contain 5,000 chemicals some of which may cause cancer. Although the formulas have changed since the 1970s to eliminate cancer-causing chemicals, studies are still inconclusive about the cancer risks of the new formulas.  

Other hair tips to maintain healthy hair:

1. Massage your scalp as frequently as you can as it stimulates the flow of blood in your head, which promotes hair growth.   I personally massage my scalp with the Aloe Vera hair tonic found at Organic Basket (Lapanday Center, 2263 Chino Roces Ave., Makati, P215)  or Rustan’s Supermarket as it speeds up hair growth.  It is 99.8-percent organic.

2.  Take vitamins essential for healthy hair such as B complex, C, and A, and iron.  Iron deficiency may cause hair fall.

3. Exercise to increase the blood flow through the body and help in the stimulation of the scalp.

4. Fill you diet with proteins, the building blocks of hair shaft. 

5. Try not to apply heat to your hair whenever possible. If you must blow dry frequently, put it on “cool” mode.  Too much heat causes brittle and dry hair.

6. Keep the scalp clean from chemicals by using mild and natural shampoos.  There are now so many inexpensive natural shampoos in the supermarkets, Human Nature Heart Clarifying Shampoo being one of them. 

Mantolino’s parting words to me, “The best way to have healthy hair is to treat your hair with kindness, give it a lot of love and TLC.   After all, it is your crowning glory, your best fashion accessory!”

— Some tips from: www.ehow.com.

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Regine’s Beauty Salon is located next to Shangri-La Makati, Link Bldg., 2nd floor with  tel. no. 856-1723.

There’s also Regine’s Alabang with telephone number 807-2217.