Hair Care Tips For Quarantine: From A Real Hair Stylist


By Ella Ceelen, June, 2020

Holly Ceelen has been a licensed Wisconsin hair stylist for over 25 years.

  1. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Conditioner: during quarantine you can still order and purchase quality conditioners and conditioning treatments. Healthy looking hair is better looking hair. Keeping your hair conditioned helps your color last longer if your hair is dyed, and helps your hair hold its form when it is cut.
  2. Invest in a good pair of scissors. If you can afford to, don’t use your kitchen or crafting scissors, order a pair of hairdressing shears online, which are easier to handle and lead to a more precise haircut.
  3. Before using boxed colors, look into hair mascaras for root outgrowth or for a touch of fun color. Quarantine is a good time to try out hair color in the privacy of your home. While hair mascara won’t lighten your hair, it doesn’t damage your hair like permanent colors.


#1 Home Hair Mistake: Bleaching and dying. First of all, it is hard to get an even application of bleach on your own hair, which can lead to uneven color. Secondly and most importantly, bleaching your hair can be very damaging. When the hair is bleached the follicles on each strand are blown open to allow new color to take hold. Once these follicles are blown open, they are hard to close, which means a semi-permanent dye can wash out very quickly. Additionally, your hair texture becomes thicker, rougher, and drier. It is important to bring moisture back to bleached and dyed hair to close the hair follicles; deep conditioning treatments can help color last longer and return hair to its proper texture. Bleach can give your hair more volume, but the quality of bleach is important, as is the quality of the hair dye. This is a job best left to the professionals.

Tempted to cut your own bangs? Here is a step by step tutorial, and some common mistakes to avoid:

    1. Cut your hair when it is damp or dry, NOT soaking wet. When your hair is damp or dry it is easier to see natural cowlicks that may lift portions of your hair higher than others. Damp hair is easier to control.
    2. Take a small parting of hair and sweep it across your forehead (do not cut the whole bang right away--cut a guideline first). Let the hair fall naturally, don’t pull!
    3. Take the tips of your scissors and tilt them at a 45 degree angle, then cut the hair across your forehead. Making small, gentle cuts with the scissors will make the bangs look more natural.
    4. IMPORTANT: Cut longer than you think the bangs should be. When your hair dries it lifts off your face and will appear shorter. You can always take more hair off, but you can’t go back if your hair is too short.
    5. Continue cutting sections of your hair using the first cut as a guideline for length.

COMMON MISTAKES:

  • Don’t put your hair in a hair tie and pull it taunt in front of your face. Doing so will encourage the hair to jump up after cutting, and does not take into account natural cowlicks in your hairline. Allow the hair to fall naturally on your forehead.
  • Big cuts mean big mistakes! Cut small pieces of your hair, do not hack off large chunks at once.