Moisturizing dry skin is relatively simple: lather on some nourishing body lotion, up your H2O intake, and call it a day. Moisturizing hair, on the other hand, isn’t always so straightforward. But if you want to avoid common hair care woes like frizz, breakage, and split ends, making sure your hair stays moisturized is key.
Since different hair types have different hair needs, a one-size-fits-all hair moisturizing solution is hard to come by. Some hair products are designed for curly hair, while others are more suited for fine hair. Luckily, there are a handful of helpful hair care tools out there to boost hair moisture (like leave-in conditioner, coconut oil, and hair masks) and make sure hydration stays locked in.
Want to know more about what you can do to keep your hair moisturized? Continue reading below for our complete guide to why hair loses moisture, five easy steps to moisturize your hair, and some bonus tricks to getting and maintaining healthy hair.
What Causes Hair to Lose Moisture?
There are two main culprits behind dry hair: your scalp and your actual hair strands. When your scalp fails to produce enough natural oils (also known as sebum), hair shafts and ends becomes brittle and dry as a result. On the flip side, when the scalp produces excess oil, your hair ends up greasy.
Hair can also lose moisture due to the structure of your hair strands. The outermost layer of the hair shaft is known as the cuticle. It’s like a mesh of overlapping dead skin cells, similar to a woven basket or thatch roof. When the cuticle is fully intact, hair retains moisture. If it’s split apart, hair strands will struggle to retain moisture and end up dry.
Your scalp and hair strand health may be impacted by styling tools, hair color treatments, weather, genetics, and other environmental factors that are difficult to control. The good news: we’ve got the lowdown on the best ways to moisturize your hair and keep it that way.
5 Steps to Moisturize Your Hair
Step 1: Use Cold Water
Hot tip: use cold water when rinsing out your conditioner. It seals up your cuticles and the pores in your scalp, locks in moisture, and adds a boost of shine.
Step 2: Use a Moisturizing Shampoo and Conditioner
When washing your hair, use hair products designed specifically for dry hair. Look for nourishing ingredients, like avocado, jojoba, argan, and almond oil, for maximum moisturizing benefits. BRIOGEO HAIR CARE Don’t Despair, Repair!™ Super Moisture Shampoo and deep conditioning BRIOGEO HAIR CARE Rosarco™ Repair Conditioner both use nourishing oils to help your hair retain moisture.
Also, try not to wash your hair every day, as this can rid your hair and scalp of its much-needed natural oils. If you absolutely must wash your hair every day, use shampoo every other day instead. On the days you don’t use shampoo, use a rinse-out conditioner all over, concentrating on the ends of your hair.
Step 3: Use a Moisturizing Hair Mask
A hair mask is like an ultra-hydrating moisturizer for your hair. Moisturizing masks like BRIOGEO HAIR CARE Don’t Despair, Repair!™ Deep Conditioning Mask or the shea butter-packed FOXYBAE Don't Hate, Hydrate Replenishing Hair Mask work by delivering concentrated doses of hydrating ingredients deep into your scalp and hair cuticles so that they fully soak in. While hair masks probably shouldn’t be used every day (we recommend trying them once or twice a week first), they’re a handy fallback for when you need a moisture boost STAT.
Step 4: Use a Moisturizing Oil or Cream
Both creams and oils usually contain rich, hydrating, shine-boosting ingredients like shea butter, coconut oil, argan oil, and vitamin E. Our favorites are this AVEDA Dry Remedy™ Daily Moisturizing Oil or this R+CO High Dive Moisture + Shine Crème. Apply the oil to dry hair to tamp down frizz and the cream to damp or towel-dried hair to add shine.
Step 5: Use a Heat Protectant Before Styling (or Skip Heat Styling All Together!)
Regular heat styling is one of the most common causes of dry, damaged hair. To keep hair moisturized, skip the heat styling altogether and diffuse or air dry your hair, combined with a styling cream like this Argan Oil & Shea Moisture Rich Styling Cream by ANDALOU NATURALS. If you must use a blow dryer, use a heat protectant, like this BRIOGEO Farewell Frizz Blow Dry Perfection & Heat Protectant Crème to defend your fragile strands as much as possible.
More Tips to Lock In Moisture
1. Your Hair Needs SPF, Too.
Just like every other part of your body, your hair needs protection from the sun, and that means SPF. Keep an eye out for hair products that contain SPF (the lightweight AVEDA Sun Care Protective Hair Veil and the organic COOLA SUNCARE Scalp & Hair Mist both feature naturally defensive ingredients) to ensure your hair and scalp are protected from the sun’s damaging UV rays.
2. Opt for Balayage Over All-Over Hair Color
If your hair errs on the dryer side, ask your hair stylist for balayage or partial highlights instead of an all-over dye job. Balayage and highlights are a lot gentler on your strands than all-over hair color (plus, they look bomb, too).
3. Never Brush Your Hair When It’s Wet
Brushing wet hair is the worst for dehydrated hair. Bristles can tug, break, and damage fragile strands more than you know. Dry-brushing with a wide-tooth comb, such as this simple R+CO brush, or a boar-bristle brush, like this vegan boar-bristle brush from BRIOGEO HAIR CARE, are the best choices to lock in moisture.