Super Shiny Holiday Hair
I've never loved a shampoo + conditioner 'til now
Hello! We bring you this emergency bulletin in the midst of Black Friday madness because I’ve just been informed: I’ve finally perfected the best shiny hair routine.
Now, it’s not totally a surprise. This is a routine I’ve been working on for the better part of Q4. How to get shiny hair is an oft-asked question in You Probably Don’t Need That world, and until now, I had nothing to offer those asking. Well baby, as of today, everything has changed.
For background, let me tell you what I’m working with: My hair is decently coarse, naturally curly (not wavy — curly), and I heat style 1-2x per week. It’s prone to frizz and puff and breakage of all sorts. For the last 3+ years, I’ve been growing it out — the longest ends of my very layered hair now reach the middle of my back.
My hair doesn’t want to be shiny. From the way I treat it, maybe it doesn’t deserve to be shiny! And yet, I arrived in Chicago yesterday to visit my parents for the holiday and the first words out of my mother’s mouth were, “Your hair!” If you know my mother (or my hair), this is uncharacteristic.
It’s not like I hadn’t noticed. It’s just that, for all the years I’ve been working in beauty, this has never happened. I’ve tested new shampoo after new conditioner after new shampoo…with very little to report. As long as my hair gets clean (you can REALLY tell when it doesn’t), styling products and hot tools always seemed to be doing the heavy lifting.
The RŌZ Foundation Duo has absolutely disabused me of this notion. (Conveniently it happens to be 20% off with code GIVING20.) It took one wash to ascend to hair heaven. The difference was noticeable. Immediately. The first indication: My usual lather-and-repeat didn’t leave my hair a tangled, ratty nest (unlike when I use a clarifying shampoo and can’t even think about finger-combing until conditioner goes in). The conditioner is thick, almost like a mask. I left it in while I shaved my legs.
The fun continues when you get out of the shower. I mix up two pumps of the RŌZ Hair Milk (also 20% off) and two pumps of the Davines OI Oil in the palm of my hands and work it through my mid-lengths and ends, making sure to hit the particularly frizzy bits at the nape of my neck and right above my ears.
A moment for Davines, one of my favorite hair brands, period: It never lets me down. I recommend it frequently, 1. because it works and 2. because it understands the wide-ranging world of hair concerns. Meaning: Their products get specific. Frizzy? They’ve got a line for that. Brassy blond or gray? There’s a line for that, too. The OI line (a fan favorite according to my Instagram DMs) is specifically for shine. This is why, in addition to the nourishing oils, it’s bringing some silicones to the party. That helps it coat the hair, adding slip and shine immediately. The texture has a bit more gel-like body than your standard oil, so I mix it in with the heat-protecting RŌZ Milk to get the perfect middle ground that magically disappears into my hair.
This is where the timing gets important. Put it directly on towel-dried hair — don’t wait. I find the longer I wait, the more likely my hair is to revert to its natural state, making it harder to coax smooth. (This is also a great combo to revive ends on day two or three of a blowout — I have them pre-mixed in a Cadence Capsule that I chucked it in my carryon. Another lucky break: Cadence is currently 25% off with code BestGift25.)
Then come the hot tools. The Dyson Airwrap and Bio Ionic 10X Straightening Iron go with me everywhere. Once my hair is about 70% air-dried, I douse it with the Color Wow Dream Coat (regular, not extra strength) to heat protect and amp up my frizz protection. This is the most weightless thing you’ll ever put in your hair. You can really load it up without getting that gummy, already-dirty feeling. Then dry!
At this point, my hair is gorgeously shiny and soft. But let’s take it up a level, shall we? Over the summer, I caved and got one of those heatless curling thingamajigs from Kitsch and all I gotta say is: $12 very well spent (it was on sale). I wrap my newly clean hair around the satin-y curling rod, fasten it with the scrunchies, and tuck it into an elasticized face-washing headband for safe keeping. Sleep on it and wake up with salon-level hair. It’s kind of nuts. It’s the only thing keeping me from overpaying for one of those heated round brushes stalking me all over TikTok.
The real selling point of this routine is that my hair is so shiny, I barely notice (or mind) my grays. That’s also a post for another day — I’m not wild about my grays but I don’t really want to fall into a cycle of coloring them all the time — so for the time being, delighting in how healthy my hair looks is distraction enough.
One Last Thing
Clearly this is not a gift guide or a Black Friday round up. Both are in the works, but every time I sit down to write either, I get flummoxed. The culprit is likely some combination of the sheer volume of gift recommendations swirling through my feeds, Black Friday madness being in its third week now, and the fact that my closets are all filled to the brim with impulse sale buys that I now regret. Sale season used to thrill me; now it makes me feel confused and uninspired. Before I assault your already-full inbox with more stuff, tell me:
Or we can talk about it in the comments <3
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the silver threads look so pretty in your hair; i think they contribute to the shine factor!
the OI line is pretty fragrant--does it play nicely with the Roz scent or do they end up fading/blending?
Chiming in here just to say — bought this in November on your guidance. Started just with the shampoo — have slowly added all the other products and my hair has never been healthier/happier