hair care tips

Healthy Hair Secrets

Great Hair Starts With a Good Cut

A professional haircut will ensure that your hair is free from damaged and spit ends and will make your hair look healthy. Seeing a professional will also give you the opportunity to get the right cut for your hair type and texture. Follow up visits which include regular trims will also guarantee that your hair will look and feel its best.

Healthy Hair is Hydrated Hair

Drink plenty of water. Water not only hydrates your skin and body, it also hydrates your hair.

Hair Product Overload

Don't use too many products. Product overload will weigh your hair down and make it look tired and greasy. Remember this rule: One product to style and one product to finish with.

Heat can be a Hazard for Your Hair

If you use a heat styler such as a hair-dryer, straightener or curling iron, then make sure to apply a heat protection product first. Heated stylers can zap your hair of moisture and leave your strands frizzy and hard to manage.

Sleep is Good for Your Hair

When you are sleeping your body is working its hardest to repair damage, including any hair damage, so plenty of sleep is a must. To further help your hair achieve its healthy best, try sleeping on a satin pillowcase. This will stop your hair from rubbing as you sleep and will control fly-aways.

Keep Your Hair Moisturized

Try an intensive conditioner once a week to keep your locks moisturized and to keep your hair soft. To get the best from your deep treatment, apply it to your hair then cover with plastic wrap or a plastic shower cap and leave for ten minutes before rinsing out. This will add heat and allow the treatment to penetrate. For a deeper condition, wrap a warm towel over the plastic wrap.

Hair Product Placement

Choose the right products for your hair. If you've styled with the right products for your hair type and washed with the right shampoo then your hair should be naturally shiny and manageable. If it's not, see your stylist and get an expert opinion on what will work best for your hair.

Your Hair Needs Good Food Too

Eating a well-balanced diet which is full of healthy proteins and lots of vitamins will keep your hair glowing. Not to mention your skin and your waistline!

Celebrity Hair Stylist's Best Product: It's Not What You Think

 

Felicia Leatherwood is a celebrity hair stylist who began her career with one very demanding client -- herself! She began by styling her own hair at the age of 8.

"My mom did not know how to do my hair," Felicia says. "I asked, 'Is it OK if I do my own hair?' And before I could finish the sentence she handed me the comb and the brush." 

Before long Felicia was tending to the locks of many of her neighborhood friends, making pocket money doing what she loved most. 

Today, Felicia Leatherwood's hairstyling business has grown to include a long list of celebrity clients, including singer Jill Scott and actor Anthony Anderson. Her specialty? Creating natural hairstyles and helping African-American men and women love their natural hair, sans chemicals and over-processing. It's a passion that has earned her the reputation as 'the hair whisperer.' 

Felicia Leatherwood, hair stylist shares her secrets.

I sat down with Felicia in her cozy at-home hair salon to discuss the secrets to her success. I soon discovered that her thriving business was no accident, her eyes lighting up as she discussed what she calls "Intention". 

"If you have an intention to grow a business, if you have an intention to be in a successful place with yourself, you don't need to worry about how it's going happen, you just have to know it's going happen, be prepared for when it does happen and be willing to do the work when it shows up." 

Her Zen-like approach to success extends to the often prickly subject that stumps many women -- dealing with competition. 

"You don't want to look at competition, you want to focus in on what you can provide to your consumers, what you need to improve your business." 

Felicia also shares the advice she received from a wealthy female client. "Always have a product that can sustain your life, so that when you retire, it will always sell." But the best product, the woman said, is the one clients can only come to you to getz; "your personality." 

While Felicia may have started styling hair earlier than most, I was surprised to discover that like so many of us, it took a great deal of time and courage to finally quit her "day job"-- a corporate position that brought her little joy -- and focus on hair full time. Once she realized that she was making as much money doing what she loved as what she dreaded, and that she could afford to support herself by following her dream- she never looked back. 

That dream has been to empower women by not only teaching them how to love their hair, but showing them how to love themselves. And she attributes much of her professional success to her personalized, heart filled approach to clients who leave her salon feeling beautiful inside and out. 

Felicia is a firm believer in the law of "reciprocity," meaning that the more you give to others, the more others want to give back. To that point, she doesn't just style celebrity clients, she also hosts seminars and webinars, often giving away her expertise for free. She knows that giving free information builds loyalty and trust and often creates paying customers in the future. And like many of the most inspiring achievers, success is not measured in dollars and cents alone. 

Felicia Leatherwood

"When you hear you've changed someone's life through a workshop? That's amazing," she says. "That's all I came here to do, be a positive influence on other people. So that right there is success enough for me."