How I blow-dry my hair at home

A few people have asked me how I style my hair. I must admit that I'm not that adept at fixing it, but recently I've settled on an interesting routine because of my short hair. It involves a couple of products and my blow-drier, of course! I rarely ever used this gadget when my hair was long, so now I'm happy to finally be acquainted with it.

I love this routine because it gives me lots of volume, softness, and shine - all under 15 minutes. If you're interested in doing the same thing for your hair, here are a few tricks!

Damp, unstyled hair

Step 1: Work a conditioning oil like the Kerastase Elixir Ultime on your hair. I prefer using oils because they (1) keep hair soft without making it greasy (2) give shine and bounce (3) serve as heat protectant to reduce damage from blow drying (4) never break me out! Most hair products seem to give me pimples/bumps near my hair line and chin. Not Kerastase, specifically.

I distiribute a peso-sized amount on the tips of my damp hair - not dry or dripping wet! - then work up to the scalp area with the remaining product. This is to prevent the hair from being weighed down at the roots.

Step 2: This is an important step for me because I have thin hair, but if you already have thick hair then you can definitely skip it. I spray a root-lifter like the Kiehl's Super Thick Volumizer (P1,200) directly on my scalp. This encourages the hair to sort of puff up instantly. Cool, eh? Proof:

One spray per section is enough

Zooooom! Instant volume

It's so awesome. I'm in love with this Kiehl's lifter because it smells like pepper mint, doesn't break me out, and  doesn't make hair crunchy like aerosol sprays would. It offers a bit of hold yet it still keeps my hair soft, just the way I like it.

Step 3: Using a cool setting, I blow away the remaining dampness from my hair. This is to prevent uneccessary damage! I bought this VS Sassoon hair dryer only because it has that "cool" button. It was more expensive than the other dryers but I wanted to avoid any heat styling unless I need to do it.

Once I'm done with that, I smoothen my hair with only my fingers to keep the volume. No combs!

Step 4: I like my bangs big and semi-straight, so I apply low heat while I straighten it out with a small barrel brush. I got this neat brush for only P80-something at Watsons, btw! To straighten, I flip my hair outwards and apply heat up to the tips, pulling out the hair slowly.

To volumize, I flip the hair inwards, like so. 

Simple though awkward because my blower is soooo huge. Anyway I usually just do this to the front of my hair because I like the back wavy, but if I want it to be all-out straight, I do this flip-roll thing in sections. It doesn't take so long because I have short hair, however, if you have long hair then it's wise to allot extra prep time. 

After the heat-styling part, I simply smoothen hair again using just my fingers.

And that's it! :) Easy peasy. Well, after some practice that is! When I'm in a real hurry I don't blow dry anymore, instead just sticking with the two products above to keep my curly hair manageable. 

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions. ;)