Family beach days are always fun. The post-beach showers where you try to remove 5 pounds of sand from your child’s person? Not so fun. This post is therefore particularly pertinent now, as the tools and tricks outlined below all work wonders for removing all that sand, sunblock and who knows what else that accumulates on your kid after a day à la plage.

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Any parent knows there’s not enough lavender oil on earth to make bath time/bed time the relaxing occasion it’s portrayed as in commercials. If you happen to have a kid with long and/or curly hair, you know that bath time can be nothing short of a horror show. This was my situation until I crafted this no more tangles, no more tears hair care routine, featuring Caretrico Treatment Moist Sleek, S-HEART-S Scalp Brush Mini and Philip Kingsley Daily Damage Defence.

Proper Hair Care = Tear-Free Kids

You may think proper detangling is conditioner-dependent, but much can be accomplished in the shampooing step. Start with the best shampoo for your child’s hair type (we have one for everyone). I prefer Caretrico Type S for my daughter’s hair.

It’s important to really saturate the hair before shampooing; don’t just quickly dip it in water. When hair is very wet, it allows shampoo to suds up optimally, providing the best clean and allowing the brush to move through the hair with the greatest of ease. Wait…did you say brush?

Brushing Up on Hair Products for Kids With Curly Hair

Here’s where you get to break a hard and fast beauty rule: brushing wet hair!

The S-HEART-S Scalp Brush Mini is specifically designed to be used with shampoo. Once the shampoo is in the hair, you brush with the scalp brush, starting at the scalp and running through the length of the hair several times. Here is why we LOVE this deep-cleansing, scalp massaging brush:

• It’s 376 round-tipped nylon bristles are specially designed and shaped to remove dirt, buildup and excess oil from the 40,000 follicles on the scalp.
• These bristles gently massage the scalp as they clean, promoting circulation and giving a deeper and more invigorating cleaning than can be achieved by fingertips alone.
• Although this brush delivers a heavy-duty cleaning, it does so with the gentlest touch, so hair is never yanked or broken. Welcome to tear-free detangling that your child can do all on her/his own!

After thoroughly brushing the hair, rinse out shampoo completely. You will immediately feel a significant reduction of tangles. Of course, this brush can be used by the whole family; I love it as much as my daughter does. It makes my hair more smooth and manageable (especially during the high-frizz days of summer), and makes styling infinitely easier.

In Perfect Condition Thanks to Caretrico

I used to use leave-in conditioner to do most of my detangling dirty work. However, after using the S-HEART-S Scalp Brush Mini, you will see (and feel) that most of that work is already done. After rinsing shampoo, squeeze excess water out of hair and apply conditioner to the bottom two thirds. Caretrico Treatment Moist Sleek has been a lifesaver for my family. Even before I discovered the S-HEART-S Scalp Brush, this conditioning treatment did a fabulous job of perfecting my daughter’s curls…not to mention the way it completely transform the condition of MY hair after highlighting!

A Spray A Day to Keep Tangles Away

The finishing touch to the routine is Philip Kingsley Daily Damage Defence. Created as a leave-in heat styling spray, a few pumps provide light yet effective conditioning. I use this in the morning to take care of any tangles that may have happened overnight. (If your child’s hair is long and extremely tangle-prone, I recommend braiding it loosely before bed.) Daily Damage Defence will tame any unruly wisps of hair that are sticking up and unravel any knots, though after brushing and conditioning, these will be minimal. I use this on my son’s short hair as well, to pat down any cowlicks that sprang up during sleep.

On the beach or off, enjoy these last days of summer!

By: Claire McCormack, Twitter & Instagram: @clairemcmack

Maintaining gorgeous, healthy hair can be quite time consuming. Trips to the salon, styling, shampooing, conditioning and weekly hair masks can all add up, and often fall by the wayside when we are super busy. This month, the lovely Team at Travel Beauty have asked that I put together a list of my top quick fixes for keeping locks in great shape. I hope they help you as much as they have helped me!

Quick Moisture Surge

I try to use a pre-shampoo conditioner, such as PK Elasticizer, at least once a week. It helps to keep my hair elastic and minimizes breakage, so I need fewer trips to the salon to get trims. However, setting aside the time to let it work its magic can be a bit of a challenge. To get around this, I apply it before bed, sleep with it in overnight and then shampoo and condition in the morning as usual for maintained hassle–free healthy hair.

Salon Saver

As just mentioned, using a weekly pre-shampoo conditioner will help keep your hair in better condition so you’ll need to get it cut less often. However, daily environmental weathering and tearing a comb through tangles can also break your hair at different lengths, making it unmanageable and styling more time consuming. My top tip for warding off these unruly, split and uneven ends – and subsequent salon trips  - is to use a daily protective detangling spray, such as PK Daily Damage Defence. It helps to keep your cuticle intact and also guards against damage from UV rays.

Dry Shampoo

Sometimes there just isn’t time to wash our hair every day…or an extra 30 minutes of sleep is seriously needed. Invest in a well-formulated dry shampoo with scalp benefits, like PK One More Day. It soaks up excess oils from the hair, but also soothes the scalp to prevent that tell-tale itching between washes.  That said, try not to leave more than a day between washes – your hair gets just as dirty as your face and infrequent shampooing can lead to dandruff and an imbalance of scalp flora.

Dandruff

The best way to soothe and clear dandruff is to shampoo daily with an antimicrobial shampoo. However, if you simply can’t fit this into your schedule, apply a flaky itchy Scalp Toner to the affected areas on the days you don’t wash your hair. Re-apply as necessary throughout the day as itching and/or irritation occur.

Fast Food

If you’ve read any of my blogs, you’ll know I’m a huge proponent of a healthy, balanced diet. Hair is the second fastest growing tissue your body supports, yet it is also non-vital tissue, so it needs the right hits of vitamins, minerals, proteins and energy at regular intervals to stay healthy. Breakfast is the most important meal, as that’s when energy levels to your follicles are at their lowest – but it’s also often the hardest meal to get right as we’re often rushing out the door or simply too sleepy to think straight! My tip is to boil 2 eggs the night before and slice them up onto whole wheat toast when you get into work, or with your morning coffee. This gives you a great protein and complex carbohydrate boost, and takes no time at all.

During December I am inundated with questions from magazines regarding maintaining hair health in the winter. This isn’t the case with my patients, mind you, who come en masse to my clinics during January with hair that has been subjected to various assaults over the holiday season. It seems that many (including my wife and 2 daughters!) throw caution to the wind during this time, choosing to suffer the consequences afterwards. I am hoping this article has caught your attention early enough so you can avoid the January hair blues this year. In this month’s article I am sharing my PRE New Years Resolutions so you can toast in 2015 with beautiful, healthy locks.

CONDITION. And correctly!

Conditioner is a vital component of any hair care regime. It isn’t simply a devise to mask problems, but a well-formulated one will help restore health to your hair and treat brittleness and dryness. However, many people – especially those with fine hair – steer clear of using conditioner as they find it weighs their hair down. To avoid this, simply apply it to your mid-lengths and ends only. Contrary to the ‘all over’ application I frequently encounter at hair salons, conditioner is never meant to touch your roots. They don’t need it and it will indeed create limpness.

General Health

Hair is an excellent barometer of general health – with flus, high fevers and stomach bugs frequently affecting the hair growth cycle. This can result in mass hair shedding 6-8 weeks later and may last as long as 6 weeks depending on the severity and duration of the illness. While there is no fool-proof way to avoid getting sick, I strongly suggest you ask your doctor about getting a flu shot. It takes a mere few seconds and may help you avoid a serious hair blip.

Bleaching

December is one of the busiest times for salons in terms of hair processing. Who doesn’t like to have a head of freshly done colour for Christmas and New Years!? While you may time this quite well after your last appointment, leaving at least 6 weeks in-between, this isn’t always possible. Quite commonly, it is much less and this can lead to overlapping of previously done colour, resulting in breakage near the root area. To strengthen your hair pre-colour, prep it a few days before a salon visit with my pre-shampoo conditioning treatment, Elasticizer, and then again a few days after. You can also discuss your concerns with your stylist so that they are even more cautious than usual.

Split Ends

It may well be the season to be jolly, but it is also the season of blow-dryer tomfoolery, sizzling styling tongues and haphazard de-tangling. The result? A frightful case of split ends. Firstly, take a look at your ends (yes, right now). If you see splits occurring, make an appointment to see your stylist ASAP. If you leave them, they can split all the way up the hair shaft and cause a great deal of damage. Contrary to popular belief, split ends cannot be mended – and the only cure is to snip them off. To avoid them in the first place, choose brushes with widely spaced and padded plastic prongs, always apply a detangling spray (Daily Damage Defence) before combing, and be sure to detangle starting at your ends – never your roots. Also, limit your use of hair straighteners to twice a week, and use a heat protective conditioning serum, like my Straight Hair, when doing so.

I attended Salon International in London this weekend, and a predominant question I received from women was “why won’t my hair grow?” This wasn’t entirely surprising as long locks are highly coveted, but the lack of knowledge regarding what might be causing lackluster lock growth was quite eye opening! If you are one of the many women who have this question, it’s important to realise that your hair is, in fact, growing, even if it seems to be staying the same length. What is also happening is that it’s either falling out or breaking before it reaches the point you want it to.

Firstly, how long your hair is able to grow is largely down to the genetic card you were dealt. On average, hair can sustain growth for 4 years, although in some it can be as much as 7. As hair grows on average half an inch a month, this means that most people’s hair growth cycle allows for hair to reach around 24 inches in length, which is actually pretty long! While there’s nothing you can do to change your pre-determined growth cycle, there are definitely things that can disrupt it – and therefore various methods of optimising the potential of your tresses.

Diet

Hair is non-essential tissue so it’s given last dibs on the nutrients you intake. Cut out any food group and your follicles basically throw in the towel on supporting growth. Diets lacking iron, protein, Vitamin B12 and complex carbohydrates are most commonly to blame, so check that you are in-taking enough of these. Also, make sure that if there is a big gap between meals to snack on a healthy carbohydrate, such as fresh fruit. Energy levels to your follicles drop 4 hours after eating, so they often need a boost!

Breakage

Hair that is overly processed and lacks moisture will break – and breakage equals loss of length. Depending on the level of damage, this breakage could occur anywhere from a few inches from your scalp to just past your shoulders. In this instance, you need to restore elasticity to your locks to help it reach the desired length. Use a pre-shampoo conditioner, such as Philip Kingsley Elasticizer twice weekly, and a protective conditioning spray, such as Daily Damage Defence, every day. Also, try to keep the use of straighteners to a minimum and ask your colourist to be especially careful not to overlap previous applications.

Hormones

Conditions such as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome can shorten the duration of your hair growth cycle, as well as increased hair loss, and hair not seeming to grow. Other symptoms can include acne, oily skin, increased facial hair, weight gain and tiredness. Get a yearly medical to check your hormone levels – there are very effective prescription medications to manage imbalances. Similarly, some birth control pills can have this effect if your follicles are sensitive to certain hormones. If you notice your hair is falling out or thinning at the ends 6-12 weeks after starting the pill, talk to your doctor. As a general rule, Yasmin and Dianette are the most ‘hair friendly’ out of all the pills – and are sometimes even used to treat hair thinning.

Scalp

A healthy scalp optimises healthy hair growth! If you notice your scalp is itchy or flaky, use products that will promptly nip it in the bud and revitalise your scalp environment. I suggest our Take Comfort Jet Set, which contains a soothing scalp toner, a highly effective shampoo and a moisture balancing conditioner.

The summer, although wonderful, can be a damaging time for hair. UV rays can burn your scalp and degrade the protein that your hair is made of, causing quite extensive weakening of strands and pre-mature ageing. Salt and chlorinated water, too, can draw moisture out of your hair’s cortex (the innermost part) and can even discolour lighter hair shades. Then you have frizz and flyaways triggered by fluctuating humidity levels. There is plenty you can do though to minimize such assaults by the elements.

Protect Hair While Swimming & in the Sun: Olympic Strength Protection

Back in 1984, during the Los Angeles Olympic Games, the manager of the U.S. Olympic synchronized swim team approached me about the state of his team’s hair; it was breaking, dry and discoloured from hours spent in chlorinated water. Understandably, they were quite distressed, so I promised I would formulate a waterproof, protective conditioning hair mask that they could wear in the pool whilst practicing. This is how my now award-winning and best-selling Swimcap came to be. And it not only protects your hair from chlorine, but salt water and UV rays too, making it the perfect accessory for summer days spent at the beach, doing sports, or by the pool. My wife swears by it, and in the Hamptons will never leave to play golf, or go to ‘poolates’, without it! It also stops the copper in pool water from reacting with your hair colour, thus preventing greenish hues – and leaves hair in better condition than it was beforehand.

Hair Products & Tips to Fight Humidity

As for the infamous summer humidity that plagues thousands of women (and men), there are two things you can do: Either work with it, and leave your hair to dry naturally with a ‘curl activation’ serum. My youngest daughter likes to scrunch it into damp hair, along with my Preen Cream, for what she calls the ‘beach kissed’ look. Alternatively, and perhaps a more popular method for the evening, apply both a smoothing cream and a weather-proof protective hair spray to set your desired style. I formulated one called Weatherproof Hairspray at the request of many exasperated New Yorkers in my New York Clinic. Both of these products discourage moisture absorption back into the hair shaft, and smooth the hair cuticle to add shine and lustre.

Protecting Hair from the Sun’s Harmful UV Rays

In addition to using my Swimcap, I also recommend using Daily Damage Defence for any day in summer when walking around outside to protect hair from UV rays and colour fade. It’s also a great de-tangler to use after a day at beach or sailing.

What About Volume?

My Maximizer is perfect for creating body and bounce in your style during the summer. It protects hair from UV colour fade, tames flyaways, and adds just enough hold so your volume stays-put throughout the day.