Using Too Much Tension While Blow Drying? This is Your Frizz Warning Sign
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Michael Douglas is a celebrity hair stylist with a passion for empowering beauty fans to feel more confident with their hair. He is also a regular Live That Glow columnist, answering readers questions on all things hair care. Here, he advises on blowdrying technique.
I’ve started heat styling my hair after years of letting it dry naturally. I think I’ve finally worked out the right technique to blow dry it with a round brush but I’m worried I’m putting too much tension on my hair as I do. Everyone says online that you shouldn’t use too much tension but how should I know what too much would look or feel like? Can you please help me understand how to know?
Michael says:
This is a brilliant question, however a difficult one to answer.
When your hair’s wet, it’s more vulnerable than it is when dry. Wet hair has more elasticity in it, so you can stretch it when it’s wet or damp. If you stretch the hair with a brush and then dry it with a hairdryer in its stretched state, it will stay that way until moisture or water dampens the hair again. If you put too much tension on your hair while blow drying it, it is more likely to go frizzy or fluffy as the moisture starts to creep back into the hair from the atmosphere.
That’s the main problem with putting too much tension on the hair when blow dry drying. The other problem is that a hair in its stretched state dried, is weaker than it would be in its regular state dried.
The amount of tension you put on your hair when blow drying really depends on the hair itself. This can be different for everyone.
A hairstylist with a few years’ experience working on lots of different hair types will have a good understanding of how much tension to put on the hair when styling it. However, if you only do your own hair, it’s difficult to know as you’ve nothing to compare it with.
The general rule is the finer the hair- which actually means the individual strands of hair being fine (not the amount of hair you’ve got, if that makes sense)- the less tension you should put on it. Thicker, more coarse hair can take a lot more tension.
Next time you go to your hairdresser, ask him or her, what is my hair texture? Is it coarse, medium or fine?
The other more obvious thing is just to make sure you’re using a heat protection spray of some sort. I would also limit the amount of times you blow dry your hair if you are putting lots of tension on it. Three to four times a week should be totally fine.
I would finally suggest that before you start putting tension on your hair you gently blow dry at least 70% of the wetness out of your hair before you start to use a brush. This will limit the amount of stretching and tension you need to put on your hair.
Get Glowing!
