The Best Haircare Tips For Working From Home
Are you now working from home, or just not going out as frequently? In my opinion, working remotely is the perfect time to try out new hairstyles and haircare routines. I’ve made this post with the best tips on what to do with your hair–as well as what NOT to do when you are staying at home more regularly.
How to care for your hair while working from home
While it may be extremely comfortable to stay in your pjs and throw a messy bun on top of your head, that may not be the best thing to do with your hair while working from home everyday.
See my Youtube video regarding this topic below:
1. Wash your hair less frequently
How often do you wash your hair on a regular basis? Are you an everyday kind of person or do you go as long as possible? The more frequently you shampoo your hair, the more it’s dried out. The more it’s dried out, the more oil your glads produce to over-compensate.
So in reality the more you shampoo your hair, the more oil it produces to make up for the lack of moisture. If you begin to skip days, eventually your hair and scalp will adjust to this and you won’t need to shampoo as often anymore. Working from home is the perfect opportunity to get your hair trained for this.
I recommend giving yourself time to work up to skipping 4-7 days if possible. But remember, you need to train your hair. Start by washing your hair every other day, then after a week or two add in a second skipped day and so on.
Below I’ll list some tips on using dry shampoo to extend the time between washes, but I’ve also written a detailed blog post on how to maximize your time between shampoos. You can find that blog post here.
Utilize Dry Shampoo
***Since I’m sharing the products that I love to use with you guys, this page includes affiliate links to these products. If you take action and purchase a product through clicking one of my links, I’ll make some commission money from it at no extra cost to you. This enables me to be able to continue giving you awesome hair tips, so thanks! ***
In order to survive the oiliness on your non-wash days, use dry shampoo to absorb the oil and neutralize any odor. I suggest using dry shampoo from day 1, believe it or not. This is the secret sauce for going 1-2 weeks without washing your hair.
Let’s say you wash your hair on Monday morning. You’ll then use dry shampoo Monday evening, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, and so on until you wash your hair again.
This works SO MUCH better than waiting to use dry shampoo until your hair is already oily. Instead of attempting to combat already oily hair, you’re being proactive and stopping the hair from getting oily to begin with.
If you’d like to learn a little more about dry shampoo and the benefits of using it, check out my blog post here.
2. Don’t skip brushing
It can be really tempting to skip brushing your hair while working from home. But this can be harmful for not only your hair, but your scalp as well. You need to continue brushing to remove the tangles, pull the oils from your scalp down to your ends, and exfoliate your scalp.
Brushing your hair properly will help you to go longer between shampoos, as well as keep your hair soft, smooth, and shiny. If you skip brushing, your hair can actually mat and dread up which can be difficult to impossible remove. You can cause breakage by trying to comb out excessive knots.
I recommend using a boar bristle brush which is the most gentle brush on your hair. It adds shine because the natural bristles will pull the oils down to your ends better than a nylon bristle brush will.
You also need to make sure that you’re brushing your scalp well each morning. Along with pulling the oil down to your ends, brushing your scalp will remove dead skin cells and stimulate your scalp.
For more on brushes and brushing, check out my post here.
3. Avoid heat tools (heatless waves)
When you’re able to work from home, you can often skip on using your irons to curl or straighten your hair in the morning. And this doesn’t mean you have to skip doing anything to your hair, but if you aren’t going to be face to face with anyone, try some of the methods mentioned below for no-heat hairstyling.
And if you must use some form of heat on your hair, keep in mind that using a blow dryer is always better than using an iron. This is because a blow dryer is indirect heat in the form of hot air, and an iron is direct heat in the form of metal or ceramic HOT plates. So if you must do one, choose the blow dryer and use it when your hair is 80-90% dry.
I LOVE heatless waves because they produce an undone and naturally sexy look. Because everyone’s hair is different, you may have to try this a few different ways to see what works best for you. I recommend testing it on wet hair, damp hair, and dry hair.
If your hair is naturally straight, try doing it while it’s wet and don’t take it out until it is 100% dry. But if your hair curls pretty well or is naturally curly, this may not be the best option for you.
Below I’ll give an explanation for braiding as well as using a curler set, but for a full explanation check out my blog post on heatless hairstyling here.
Braiding
Make sure to brush and remove all tangles from your hair BEFORE you braid it. This is important because you do not want to brush it when the braids come out unless you want to look like you’ve been electrocuted!
I can go days on end doing this. After the shower I brush out my hair, and once it’s 90-100% dry, I put it in 2 braids. Sometimes I keep them in for an entire day, other times a few hours. When I’m ready to go I remove the braids and use my fingers to style it. Before bed that night I brush my hair thoroughly and put it back into the braids and repeat the process for the following day.
I keep my hair in braids while working out, taking a shower and sleeping. Remember to remove the braids just before you’re ready. The waves may naturally fall out a little throughout the day, and thats ok! When they do, just re-braid it.
This saves your hair from heat damage from your iron, as well as tight elastic pony tails because the pressure is only at the very tips of your hair. It also will keep your hair under control while you’re asleep avoiding excessive tangles from tossing and turning.
Heatless curling set
Another heatless wave option is to use a curler set. This often gives a looser, larger curl than the braids will. This is a popular option on TikTok, but personally I don’t use these curler sets.
The reason I don’t prefer them is because they’re ugly and uncomfortable. I would much rather wear my hair in braids, that way I can be seen in public with them as well as not have a thing on my head. But this is just my personal preference, and I suggest you try different methods of using heatless waves while you’re working from home to find out what option is best for you!
4. Avoid messy buns
While it may be extremely tempting to wake up and throw your hair into a messy bun for the day while working from home or on quarantine, this can actually be really damaging to your hair.
Messy buns are okay to do every once in a while, but they definitely shouldn’t be worn on a regular basis. The elastic from the hair tie puts pressure on your hair that will weaken it and can cause breakage on fragile hair.
When you have your hair in a messy bun, the elastic is tight against several spots all along your hair and can damage the entire strand. Pony tails are better than buns are because the elastic is only on one spot along the hair strand.
Low pony tails are also better than high ones because gravity is working in your favor. When you wear a high pony tail, the weight of all your hair is pulling hard against the elastic. When you wear a low pony tail, the weight is significantly less.
I recommend keeping your hair down as much as possible while working from home, using a cloth hair tie like a scrunchy, or even keeping it in loose braids.
Loose braids are great because the elastic is on the very ends of your hair and there is hardly any tension. They don’t put the majority of your hair at risk like buns and pony tails do.
To learn more about types of hair breakage including damage from a pony tail, check out my post here.
5. At home conditioning treatments
As I’ve mentioned in several other posts, conditioning treatments are SO important no matter your hair type or condition. And I know that the main factor that stops us from doing them regularly is time. But when you’re working from home, you’re much more likely to have the ability to sit with a treatment on while getting some work done.
To see how often you should be doing them based on your hair condition, check out my post here. On average you should be doing one once a week, but if you have bleached hair I recommend doing a treatment every single time you wash your hair.
I recommend alternating between using a bonding treatment, a moisturizing treatment, and a protein treatment.
My favorite conditioning treatments are as follows:
- Olaplex – No. 3 (Bonding)
- Olaplex – No. 8 (Moisture)
- Egg White – Egg Protein Treatment
Working from home haircare Conclusion
These tips should help you form healthy habits and haircare routines, as well as knowing what to avoid to keep your hair in its best condition possible while working from home.
- Wash your hair less
- Don’t skip brushing
- Avoid heat tools
- Avoid messy buns
- Do conditioning treatments
If you have any further questions for me on this topic, leave it for me in the comments! As always, Have A Good Hair Day!
Last updated: 02/12/24
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