Winter Hair Care

With the onset of cooler temperatures and the diminishing hours of sun comes a new set of hair care demands. Adding moisture is especially important at this time of year and a major oversight by many people.

As we spend less time in the sun, the natural highlights nature paints into our hair become less noticeable and hair loses its healthy shimmering look. The cold air of winter is more drying and less humid and therefore more abusive than other times of the year. Indoor heating devices create a dryer climate as well.

All of this spells out duller looking hair. Master Hair Designer and salon owner, Greg Amparan, offers some suggestions to keep you hair vibrant, well moisturized and looking its best throughout the winter season.

COLOR	People tend to do a lot more color, highlighting and perms in the winter. Winter hair becomes, darker, duller due to less time in the sun. You can combat this with color or highlighting. I think highlighting looks best. Lots of people already highlight, but those who don't probably should! It's a sure fire way to liven up the hair and make it through the winter doldrums.
MOISTURIZE	Add moisture to your hair. Especially necessary if you've had any chemical work on your hair. Look for a conditioner with cetyl alcohol. It's the best moisturizing agent and is derived from coconut. The molecular structure of coconut is too large to penetrate the hair cuticle, but by extracting the molecule and altering its size you end up with cetyl alcohol. Another ingredient to look for is cetearyl alcohol. It's a very good moisturizing agent for conditioner and shampoo. Most people can get away with a good moisturizing conditioner. If your hair is very damaged or dry look for a moisturizing shampoo as well.
LOCK THE MOISTURE IN	Hair is much more dense than skin. The layers of the cuticle are difficult to penetrate. Once you've used a good product that does penetrate and moisturize the hair you want to be sure to lock that moisture in. If you don't close the cuticle the moisture won't do you much good. A cold or cool rinse helps close the cuticle down and seal in the moisture.

Try this extra hair cocktail to lock moisture in:

• To make the cuticle lie down and lay flat rinse your hair with apple cider vinegar. It's very acidic and leaves the hair with a fresh clean smell.

• Let it sit on the hair for a few minutes; then rinse with cool or cold water.

• Apple cider vinegar contracts the cuticle and locks not only moisture but color in as well. A vinegar rinse will give you less chance of color fade.

Greg Amparan is a Master Hair Designer and owner of Amparan Salon, Tucson, AZ. He is an international hair educator and designer and may be reached at: amparan2@cs.com