Best Conditioners
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FAQ
Conditioner is usually the second step of washing your hair. While shampoo focuses on cleaning your hair, conditioner is a moisturising agent that helps smoothen your hair and make it a bit more manageable.
This depends on your hair type and styling routine, if you use a lot of heat tools for instance. There are conditioners for curly hair, coloured hair, damaged hair, frizzy hair, flat hair, textured hair – the list goes on. If you’re unsure what you need, ask your hairdresser what they think is a good choice for you.
It’s a conditioner that is specifically made to not be rinsed off immediately. Its ingredients are a bit different from a regular conditioner, making it less heavy. Normally, you don’t need to use both leave in conditioner and regular conditioner, but you can if you want to. Because of the extra moisture leave in conditioner provides, natural hair and more textured hair may benefit from using it.
While using conditioner can be great for your hair, it’s possible to use too much. When over conditioning your hair it normally becomes greasy, begins to lack volume, has excessive shine and it becomes more difficult to style your hair with heat tools. You can also under condition your hair, signs that you’re not using enough product are dry or brittle strands, excessive tangling, frizz and dullness. You basically have to test your way to the perfect amount.
This depends on your hair type and the conditioner you’re using.
- Rinse out conditioner: This is the one you use right after shampooing your hair, a few times a week is enough. If your hair’s oily or fine, conditioning your hair a little less will avoid it from being weighed down. If you’ve got dry, coarse, curly or colour-treated hair, you should condition it daily or every other day.
- Leave in conditioner: Using it once a week should be enough, but if you have curly, textured or very damaged hair, using it a couple of times a week will only do your hair some good.
- Deep conditioner: It’s usually meant to be applied once or twice a month and you’re meant to leave this type of conditioner in for 30 minutes, but check the instructions as this may vary from brand to brand. This is for very dry and damaged hair, giving it a big moisturising boost to bring it back to health.
- Cleansing conditioner: Also known as a 2 in 1 product that works as both a shampoo and a conditioner. You can use it as often as you would a shampoo which generally means daily or every other day for oily and fine hair. Because curly, textured and coarse hair needs to be conditioned more often than washed, cleansing conditioner might not be the right product for these hair types.
3 tips when buying hair conditioner
Just like shampoo, you should choose a conditioner that's right for your hair. Here are best types of conditioners for common hair types:
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Oily hair needs a conditioner that cleanses without stripping away moisture. Look for a rebalancing conditioner.
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Dry, damaged and frizzy hair needs plenty of moisture and nourishing ingredients. Choose an intensely hydrating conditioner and a leave-in conditioner that you can apply to the lengths of your towel-dried hair. It will nourish your hair and leave it feeling soft and smooth.
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Curly hair needs moisture and protein to enhance curls with definition and bounce. Check out the range of moisturising conditioners.
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Fine hair needs strengthening conditioners that won’t weigh it down. Check out conditioners for fine hair.
Your conditioner should do more than just suit your hair type; it should also protect it from damage. If you're someone who frequently uses heat styling tools like hairdryers, curling irons or straighteners, you should look for a conditioner with heat protection. And if you're out and about in the sun a lot, consider using a conditioner with sun protection to shield your hair from UV rays.
If you're interested in trying out the No Poo Method - where you only use conditioner to wash your hair - it’s important to use silicone-free, sulphate-free, and mineral oil-free conditioner.
Curious to learn more about the No Poo Method?