My Hair Care Routine & Hair Products I love! 2014

Hello everyone!

In this post, I'm going to tell you everything you might want to know about my hair. This includes my general hair care routine and my current favourite hair products! I feel like this post could get pretty long winded so let's get cracking!

First, I like to use different shampoo and conditioners depending on what I plan to do with my hair after washing. My hair is naturally very thick and curly so sometimes I like to straighten it after washing but on other occasions I leave it curly. 

At the moment, I have 3 sets of different shampoos and conditioners. 

My most used brand these days is Aussie. I use the Miracle Moist shampoo and conditioner and on the odd occasion I'll use the 3 minute miracle conditioner just to give my hair some extra tlc! (REVIEW) I absolutely love Aussie hair care, I have done for years and years, their products smell amazing, some smell like bubblegum and some products smell very peachy. They leave your hair feeling clean, fresh and healthy and Aussie is often of 3 items for £10.00 at Boots which is a great deal. 

Every so often I reach for my John Frieda Everlasting Blonde shampoo and conditioner. I use this maybe once or twice a month to revive the blonde in my hair. It works really well for that but doesn't really do much in the way of keeping your hair healthy which is why I don't use it all the time. When I had purple in the ends of my hair I used this shampoo and conditioner quite a lot but when I went to have the purple bleached out it went green. Really really wouldn't recommend this is you have crazy colours in your hair! 

On my curly hair days I love to use Umberto Giannini's Calm Curls shampoo and conditioner. This was my prefered hair product all throughout college when I never ever wore my hair straight. It helped maintain my curls and keep them frizz free. I'd certainly recommend this brand to my curly haired followers! 

I use various different products for styling my hair, again it depends how I'm wearing my hair.

First, I use the Elnette Heat Protector which I've forgotten to add in the picture but you can see it in THIS haul post. It's a great heat protector. I used to use one by Tresemme but couldn't find that one in Boots so I picked up the Elnette one. I use it every time I wash my hair and it seems to work a treat. It doesn't have a strong scent or leave any residue on my hair so that's great as far as I'm concerned!

If I'm wearing my hair curly I always scrunch the Umberto Giannini Shapley Curls Mousse in to my hair when it's wet. Don't use too much because it'll make your hair crispy but if you use it properly and evenly distribute it, it can really help your curls remain light and bouncy instead of drying limply. 

I also use the Umberto Giannini Volume Mousse on occasion. I don't use it as often these days because I've been wearing my hair straight and I don't use mousses when I intend to straighten my hair. When I do use this though I scrunch it near to the roots and it gives my hair great volume, perfect for a night out!

The Umberto Giannini Flirty Curls Scrunching Jelly used to be a firm favourite of mine, I loved it! These days it's not something I reach for often as it's difficult to use. With it being a thick jelly it's very easy to mess up your hair, it can stick together and become crispy...not ideal when you've just washed your hair! This is definitely a product to use on wet hair and it does work really well, you just have to practice with it. It's definitely a product I'd take on holiday because I wear my hair curly a lot on holiday.

I bought a travel size of the Umberto Giannini Backcomb in a Bottle a while ago and I keep meaning to buy the full sized version as it's so good. I use dry shampoo quite a lot because I like the volume that it adds to my hair. This does the same thing but doesn't leave weird white powder in your hair. I love to just spritz some of this in my roots, give it a bit of a plump and I'm good to go. This is a good product to have if you like to style your hair in big quiffs and things like that. Beware though that it can leave your hair feeling a bit sticky if you use too much of it. 

I absolutely loved the L'Oreal Matt & Messy Salt Spray in summer last year. I often ran a few soft curls through the ends of my hair and sprayed this in after. It really gave the curls a tousled, messy and beachy look. I can't wait to start using this again when the summer comes along. Not that you can't use it all year round... I just prefer that hairstyle in the summer! I have a review on this product which you can see HERE.

Lastly, Batiste's XXL Plumping Powder. Now, I'm not going to lie, this product does it's job really well. If you want volume, you'll get it. It's just so awkward to use, the first time I applied it my hair just stuck together! It was bloody awful. Used sparingly though you can achieve a really nice volumous hairstyle however I do prefer the Backcomb in a bottle as it's much easier to use. 

To maintain the look of clean hair in-between washes I use two things. 

First, Batiste Dry Shampoo. This will come as no surprise and I won't waffle because everyone is familiar with this I'm sure!

Next, I really like to use the Dove Leave in Conditioner. I don't use this every day like I do the dry shampoo but maybe twice a week I'll spritz this throughout the ends of my hair and it leaves it smelling fresh and looking clean and healthy! I have just wrote a review on this product which you can see if you scroll down a little....

For finishing off my hair I like to use the Toni & Guy Finishing Shine Spray when I've  straightened it. Unfortunately you can't buy this product in stores anymore, it still baffles me why they discontinued it but you can still buy it on eBay and Amazon. I have a review HERE where you can see where to buy it. It's a perfect finishing touch to straight hair as it smells lovely, adds some extra shine and stops static and fly away hairs ruining your look. 

If I've curled my hair or put it up in any way I like to use the Elnette Hairspray in Strong Hold. I've used this hairspray for so long because it works really well without leaving your hair crispy. You can just brush this out at the end of the day and you're hair doesn't look greasy or sticky. It's great!

As far as tools, I use my Tangle Teezer mostly, I especially like to use it on wet hair as it just glides through effortlessly and painlessly which, if you have curly hair, you'll know how much brushing can hurt. I bought mine from Amazon for about £8.00, considerably cheeper than in Boots and I'm so glad I bought it. Couldn't recommend it enough! 

I also have a Teazing Comb which I bought from Sally's. I mostly use this on my fringe to give it a bit of volume and it works great. It definitely works better than a fine tooth comb which I used to use for backcombing. I remember it being about £7.00 which I didn't think was too bad. 

Lastly, I have a slightly battered hair brush which was originally from Avon. I definitely need a new one but the only use this has now is when I'm straightening my hair I run this through with the straighteners. I definitely need a new hairbrush though. 

My hairdryer is one by Tresemme, it's the Ionic model I think which is a few years old now but it's still going strong and both my sister and I use it. It's served us well! It has various heat and power settings with a cool option too, I like it a lot.

I've had several pairs of GHD hair straighteners over the years and I think you simply can't beat them. In my opinion they are the best. They are pricy I'll admit but they last for years and they do the job perfectly. I have the standard size which works great on my thick, unruly hair, I used to want the thick plated GHDs but these work fine so I don't really think I'd spend the extra money on them to be honest. 

I recently had my mop chopped so it's looking considerably shorter these day but, granted it looks a lot better for it. The green was creeping back around the ends as the dyes were fading that they used to cover it up. When I went to the hair dressers the guy that did my hair said that one side of my hair was longer than the other which was weird and the ends were looking a bit grim. 

I asked for a blunt cut and he said I'd have to have about 2 inches off for my hair to be even around the bottom so it must have been all over the place haha. I didn't have any layers put in because I'm not loving the layered look these days for some reason. Also I'm thinking about getting a middle parting next time I have my highlights so I'm in the midst of making that decision and didn't want to make any huge changes!

My current routine to achieve the straight hair in the picture above is (nothing revolutionary):

1. Wash hair using Aussie or John Frieda shampoo and conditioner

2. Spray Elnette Heat Spray in wet hair

3. Brush hair with Tangle Teezer

4. Dry hair with hairdryer

5. Straighten hair

6. Spray Toni & Guy Finishing Spine Spray 

TIP: My hair dresser told me not to leave my hair wrapped in a towel after washing it as the towel soaks up the moisture that my hair should be soaking up! I suppose that does make sense. He said if your hair's dripping wet just give it a quick go over with the hair dryer then leave it to air dry. 

So that's everything! Sorry for the longwinded post but I hope it was helpful or at least interesting to read!

What are your favourite hair care products?

Thanks for reading!

Leanne x

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