How To Tame Flyaways In Your Hair

Ever wonder why you have those pesky flyaways in your hair? They can be caused from a number of different factors. Depending on what’s causing them, they may be worse in the wintertime when the air is dry; or worse in the summertime with the humidity. Keep reading to find out what’s causing your flyaway hairs, as well as how to get rid of them for good!

Personally for me after losing hair from an illness, flyaways were something I struggled with for a while as my hair grew back in. I had such a large amount of them all at the same length because of where the new hair growth was!

What causes flyaways in your hair?

There are three main factors that can cause flyaway hair strands. First determining what is causing them will ultimately help you to tame them better.

The three main causes of flyaway hair are:

1. New hair growth
2. Hair breakage
3. Lack of moisture

1. New hair growth

The first cause for flyaway hair is new hairs growing in. This will typically cause the flyaways to be focused at your root, or only one horizontal section of your hair. This is opposed to the flyaways covering the entire length of your hair from top to bottom.

Anyone may experience hair loss after a significant event, stress, medication change, childbirth, covid, or any number of reasons.

When the hair starts to grow back in, it will appear to come in the form of baby hairs or flyaway hair until it attains some length and thickness to it.

If you think this may be your cause and you aren’t sure why your hair is thinning, check out my post here to learn more about thinning hair. But we’ll still cover the solutions for this type of flyaway hair later on in this post.

2. Hair breakage

The most common form of flyaways is unfortunately caused from hair breakage. Hair breakage can come from a number of different factors, some that you may not expect, like hair ties!

Pay attention to where the flyaway hair is and notice what is happening in that area of your hair that may be causing it.

If the flyaways seem to be at the crown of your head and you frequently wear a high and tight pony, then that’s probably your issue!

Keep in mind that messy buns can create flyaway hair wherever the hair tie is tight against your hair. So this can be pretty funky looking down your hair strand with lots of breakage and frizz.

If the flyaways are up and down your entire hair strand relatively evenly and/or more focused on your ends traveling up, then this is likely caused from heat or iron damage. You should NEVER use your iron with the temperature all the way up. And you should ALWAYS use a thermal protector before ironing your hair.

To learn more about hair breakage see my post here, and to learn more about caring for your hair while ironing see my post here.

3. Lack of moisture

Just like skin, our hair needs to be moisturized regularly. And I’m not talking about only with conditioner in the shower either!

Even if your hair is not color treated and you don’t use heat on it, you still need to be doing a conditioning treatment frequently and using a leave-in conditioner.

And if your hair is color treated and you do use heat on it, this should be done in excess.

The outer layer of our hair resembles fish scales, and if they aren’t properly moisturized they will be opened up causing frizzy hair and breakage. This outer layer should be laying down flat and smooth to protect the inner layers of the hair strand.

To determine how often you should be doing a conditioning treatment based on the condition of your hair in particular, see my post here.

Also, keep in mind that staticy hair is caused from a lack of moisture as well! If the hair was moisturized, it would not be holding an electric charge to stand straight up.

Solutions to tame flyaways in your hair

There are 3 main ways that you can tame flyaways in your hair, and you should use them in conjunction with each other for best results.

The 3 solutions for flyaways are:

1. Wash your hair less frequently
2. Avoid ironing your hair
3. Follow a product regimen

1. Wash your hair less frequently

Since one of the main culprits of flyaway hair is lack of moisture, it makes sense that washing your hair less frequently would be one of the main solutions.

When we shampoo our hair we’re stripping the natural oils. This will dry the hair out when done too frequently since our hair needs those natural oils to stay hydrated and moisturized.

I find that I can usually skip an extra day of washing during the wintertime. This is because I’m not sweating as much and our hair and skin tends to dry out during this time of year.

Ultimately, you should wash your hair anywhere from 1-3 times a week. But this will vary depending on your hair type as well as the condition of your hair. The more hair you have, the less you’ll need to wash it because your excess hair absorbs the oils from your scalp.

The less hair you have, the more you’ll need to wash it because there’s not as much hair there to absorb the oils.

To determine the exact timeframe of how often you should wash your hair based on your hair type, see my post here.

2. Avoid ironing your hair

Since breakage is another culprit of those pesky flyaways in your hair, ironing your hair less frequently will help to avoid causing more of them.

And while breakage can be caused by other factors that I mentioned earlier (like over bleaching or tension breakage), heat tool breakage usually travels up the hair strand and is characterized by frizz on the entire hair strand.

Blow dryers are also much better for your hair than ironing it is. This is because the heat is indirect vs. direct, and it’s in the form of hot air rather than an even hotter metal plate. So if you’re choosing between the two, definitely opt for blow drying over ironing.

I personally only iron my hair for special occasions and choose not to do it on a regular basis for the health of my hair. And when you do iron it, be sure to lower the temperature of your iron and always use a thermal protectant.

See this post here to learn what temperature you should be using your iron on based on your hair type.

We’ll talk about thermal protectants in the following section on hair products to use to eliminate flyaways.

3. Follow a product regimen

In order to combat frizzy and flyaway hair, you’ll need to follow a product regimen to heal your hair if its damaged as well as smooth down your cuticle and any static hair/new growth. In this section I’m going to outline the best product regimen to follow, highlighting my favorite products to use.

1. Shampoo & Conditioner for dry hair
2. Conditioning treatments for hydration
3. Leave-in conditioner for moisture
4. Hair serum to fight frizz
5. Heat protectant and shine spray
6. Dry conditioner to reduce static
7. Hair spray to hold the flyaways down

***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! ***

1. Shampoo and Conditioner for dry hair

• Aquage Silkening oil Shampoo and Conditioner – Best for fighting frizz and curly hair types
• Pravana Intense Therapy Shampoo and Conditioner – Best for repairing damaged hair and adding moisture

Since loss of moisture is a common culprit of flyaways in your hair, you’ll want to be sure you’re using a shampoo and conditioner that won’t dry your hair out further. If you’re suffering from flyaways, try one of these moisturizing shampoos and conditioners.

2. Conditioning treatments for hydration

• Olaplex no. 3 – Best for damaged hair that needs strengthened
• Pravana Intense Therapy Treat – Best for moisturizing dry hair

Conditioning treatments will penetrate deeper into your hair strand than traditional conditioner will. This helps to deeply moisturize the inner layers of your hair. You can learn more about deep conditioners here.

3. Leave-in Conditioner for moisture

• Pravana Intense Therapy

This is a product that many skimp on, but it most definitely should not be skipped. Using a leave in conditioner is as important as putting moisturizer on your face! It acts as a detangler, thermal protectant, moisturizer, humidity resistant, porosity equalizer, adds shine, minimizes chlorine effects.

4. Hair Serum to fight frizz

• Aquage Silkening Oil Treatment

Aquage does wonders for frizzy hair. And if you were to only buy one product on this entire list, this would be the one to take the cake! This is a leave in hair serum that will make your hair softer than you have ever felt it before.

5. Heat Protectant & Shine Spray

• Aquage Beyond Shine

I use this spray on dry hair before I iron it to protect the hair from heat and increase shine. It actually improves your iron performance as well.

6. Dry conditioner to reduce static

• Kenra Dry Conditioning Oil

Dry conditioner is in my opinion the most underrated hair product out there. So much so that I have an entire post dedicated to educating on dry conditioner. You can find that here!

7. Hair spray to hold the flyaways down

• Kenra Dry Oil Control Spray

This is a medium hold hairspray that won’t weigh your hair down or make it freeze in one place. It provides a flexible hold to keep those crazy hairs under control.

Conclusion

There are three main factors that cause flyaway and frizzy hair:

1. New growth, or hair that is newly growing in following hair loss.
2. Hair breakage from irons, hair ties, vigorous brushing, or chemical damage.
3. Dryness and lack of moisture.

To tame flyaway and frizzy hair you should try all three of these solutions:

1. Wash your hair less frequently
2. Avoid ironing your hair
3. Follow a product regimen

Following this regime and adjusting your bad habits that may be causing the flyaways and frizz will guarantee you to eliminate the problem.

If you have any further questions for me, be sure to leave them in the comment section. And subscribe below to make everyday a good hair day!