Just as you wouldn't cleanse and wash your face without protecting it afterAs with a moisturiser, you shouldn't ask for hair problems by skipping on conditioning and retexturising. Much like skincare products, conditioners A on different levels of the hair structure, depending on its degree of dryness and damage.

Instant creme rinses, fast and easy to use, act principally on the surface of the hair, coating it with a fine wax like him that smoothes down the ruffled scales of the outer cuticle helping to make hair shiny as well as manageable, tangle free and more able to hold its style. Protein retexturising creams and moisturising treatments should be left on the hair for 10 20 minutes as they help to correct damage caused by tinting, perming, bleaching, sunlight, central heating, seawater and chlorine as well as surface dehydration from hairdryers, tongs and heated rollers. They help to boost and strengthen the protein structure of damaged hair and should be used by anyone worried about brittle dry hair. Watch out for deeply nourishing and moisturising elements like avocado, peachnut oil, eggs, honey, camomile, henna, coconut oil, lemon, nettle and rosemary.

All are renowned for restoring suppleness to hair of all types. Treatment packs are much thicker, creamier products, rich in extra oils, waxes and other emollients. Like a face pack they must be kept on the hair for 30 minutes or more, depending on the amount of abuse that has been meted out to your hair in the cause of fickleness and fashion! Anyone with tinted, bleached, permed, or continually tonged and heated hair needs to redress as many of the ill effects as possible by applying monthly or even weekly packs.

As the head is usually covered with a polythene hood or a towel to trap body heat and make the oils penetrate more deeply, there are plenty of things you can be getting on with in the home while your hair is being treated. Even applying warm olive or almond oil to the scalp and massaging it in well and wrapping it in warm towels can help to recondition dry, brittle hair. Very fine, extra dry or flyaway hair may need coaxing into order and style with a hair thickener or a blow dry lotion which is not rinsed off. These merely bond with the hair's outer layer, providing an added protective coating which builds body and strength, adds shine, and protects hair from overcooking under the heat of the hairdryer. Blow dry lotions are an excellent safeguard against damage if your style requires a lot of tugging, brushing and tweaking while you dry it.