Source: flickr user Garrette

I recently read an article on Allure’s Daily Beauty Reporter on how hair spray is quite the unexpected multiuse product and I couldn’t agree more! They mentioned a few great ones, but I feel like I’ve heard so many wonder stories about how hair spray has saved the day. For something that’s been in your bathroom since you were 4, hair spray is the beauty staple that no girl is without so I asked the ladies at DermStore to give us their Aqua Net alternatives. Besides using hair spray for maximum hold, to create shine or add volume, we’ve come up with a few other things you could use for on top of Allure’s list.

• Setting your makeup: I would advise to do this with a lot of caution, as your skin could get irritated easily, but there are people that will spray a thin layer of hair spray over their makeup as a finishing spray! Not only will it set your makeup, but it will make it last longer for the day.

• Use it as a bug spray: You can use hair spray to keep the bugs away if they are buggin’. It’s also easy to use as an insect killer for those pesky spiders and bugs that freak you out. You can also turn it into a torch to ward off intruders when your man is gone if you have a lighter handy. (Warning: hair spray is highly flammable, do this at your own risk of fun)

• Arts and crafts: Hair spray can also be used as glue! You can give anything a frosted look by covering it in glitter and spraying it with hairspray to stick. You can also spray the item with hairspray first, then dip it in glitter.

• Preserve your photos: Spraying a thin layer of hair spray over photos or charcoal prints will seal the print and keep photos from fading.

• Use it when you’re stinky: Not to use as deodorant ladies, but I know a few of girls that spritz themselves or their hair again with their best smelling hair sprays when they’re feeling a little funky and desperate.

• Home improvements: When using chalk lines and want them to stick, you can spray the line with hair spray to prevent it from rubbing off quickly. Not to be worried with it sticking for good, it’s really easy to clean off with soap and water.

• Hair color: Another wild use of hairspray is to temporarily color your hair, so it’s perfectly low budget for Halloween. Simply spray your hair in sections and sprinkle it with unsweetened-not sugar free drink mix like Kool-Aid to get any color you like.

What have you used hair spray for other than for your hair?

flickr user ArSiSa7

Bad haircuts. I cringe at the thought! Unless you’re among a very, very lucky few … you’ve had at least ONE of them in your time, right?  Perhaps you wanted “just a trim” and left with a pixie cut. Or maybe you wanted to check out a cute layered look and walked out looking like a mushroom. As traumatizing as bad haircuts are, can you IMAGINE being a celebrity and having to endure the agony of a hair hack job with the entire world looking on? A bad haircut happened to Pink a few days ago, and, never one to shy away from an opportunity to say what’s on her mind, she did what any modern famous person would do and fired back at her haters on Twitter. Pink, we feel your pain—and we just so happen to have some face-saving—or hair-saving, rather—advice from celebrity hair care expert Philip B. on handling the grow-out process with style and grace. (You Beautyfix buffs should be familiar with Philip B.’s namesake beauty brand!)

1. Give some different styling products a try—the idea is to improve your hair’s texture and give it some movement. Mess it up. Make it punky! You’ll make your face look more angular and less full. A few good ones to try: Philip B. Maui Wowie Beach Mist, which will provide lift, and Philip B. Jet Set Precision Control Hair Spray, which will give it some hold.

2. Condition, condition, condition. You see, if your hair looks healthy and lustrous, that’s what will command attention. What’s more, this will keep your ends in tip-top shape, which could in turn help you attain long hair again.

3. Give some fun hair accessories a try! If you’ve always wanted to rock a sassy headband or some flirty, sparkly clips, now is the time. Try sweeping your bands to the side and holding them in place with some pretty bobby pins.

And there you have it! Even if you’re not reeling from the effects of a bad haircut, these words of wisdom STILL pose value to every girl trying to make the most of her ‘do.

stock.xchng user marcos_bh

Hair dye has been around for centuries, and there are so many different types, techniques and colors to choose from that it can be hard to stick to one shade of style for longer than a few months. Unfortunately, those of us who have repeated hair-color-induced identity crises tend to overdo it, and can be left with brittle damaged hair. There are ways to avoid this inevitable damage and still stay spontaneous with your hair color if you use the right products. Understanding the different processing levels is key to keeping your precious locks in tact while they go through regular color transformations.

Temporary Hair Dye

For those of you looking for a way to spice up your look with a shade that is a few shades darker or similar to your natural hair color, temporary hair dye is a great way to add shine and luster without penetrating the delicate hair shaft, keeping it safe and intact. When choosing a temporary color, make sure you are using a “no lift” formula that contains verily low or no peroxide. (Peroxide is what enters the hair shaft; and is a must for shades that require an initial lifting of the base color, but for a temporary color deposit jobs, will just cause unnecessary damage.) Unfortunately, this is only an option if you want to dye your hair with brown hair dye, and is pretty limiting to the adventurous beauty queens. These products only coat the hair with pigment and boost radiance without the side effects of permanent hair dye or bleach.

Permanent Hair Dye

Permanent and Semi-permanent hair color works one level deeper within the hair strand and therefore have a wider range of shades both lighter and darker from your natural color. These work with a higher level of peroxide with opens the hair cuticle to allow the dye inside the cortex. Once inside the cortex the two-step process of removing color (also called lifting) and then depositing the new color on top. This process bonds with the hair much more strongly than a no lift color deposit, and there for provides longer lasting, yet slightly more damaging results.

Hair Bleach

If you have dark hair and want to go 3 or more shades lighter than your natural color, there is no way around it, you have to use hair bleach. The bleach reacts with the melanin in hair, and permanently removes all of its pigment. Bleaching black hair blond can be a tricky and often disastrous process if the person is not familiar with the chemistry of the hair, but these problems can be avoided with a little knowledge.

Normally the goal with bleach is to achieve the pale yellow hue that is actually the natural color of plain keratin (the building block of hair). But way too many people end up with one of those fiery shades of radioactive orange that I am all too familiar with. This happens due to the bleach being removed too early in the lightening process. It’s all a matter or science, and understanding the different nature of color molecules. When bleach starts reacting with the melanin in your hair, it first removes the smallest and easiest blue molecules, and then enters the longer stage of taking out those larger, more resilient red molecules. This takes multiple treatments in some cases, as the bleach will lose its potency after about an hour. It must be reapplied to cut through all that stubborn red and reveal that oh so beautiful pale blond below.

If you are doing an at-home bleach job, be very careful to not over process, as bleach doesn’t stop when it has reached the desired shade, it will keep on eating away at your hair, and could dissolve it completely.

If you don’t trust yourself or fully understand what you are doing, I would highly recommend shelling out the cash to have it professionally done. I have fallen victim to about every hair dying disaster, and believe me when I say, emergency color correction is VERY expensive.

Flickr user: irodman

By Jenna

Dry hair is not cute, and it’s just not fun at all. When your hair is dry it starts breaking and can make your fabulous hair cut not so fabulous anymore. It happens so fast that you probably won’t notice the change, but dry, damaged hair is a fact of life and most of us will have to deal with it one point or another.

Although a healthy diet does help the natural production of oil that will naturally condition your hair, dry, damaged hair doesn’t happen on its own.  Split ends and brittle hair are a result of over-processing, blow-drying, straightening, perming and overall excessive styling. Excessive styling with heat can wreak havoc on your hair, leaving it dry, unmanageable, fragile and broken. So can using harsh shampoos, washing it too often, exposure to the sun and wind, over brushing, chlorine, medications and poor nutrition.  If you’re guilty of any of these uber-drying faux pas, it’s never too late to improve your hair care routine.

To start out, don’t wash your hair every day, and do use a gentle shampoo. When you’re over shampooing, you’re stripping your hair of its natural oils, resulting in dry hair. There are a wide variety of shampoos for dry hair, made specially to treat the condition. If your hair gets extra oily between washings, consider using a dry shampoo to give you a fresh look without the water. Also, if you don’t already, use a conditioner every time you wash your hair. This will help infuse your locks with moisture and restore your hair with nutrients and vitamins. Conditioners for dry hair help restore shine, detangle and nourish all hair types.

Dry hair treatments are also available and work wonders on restoring and reviving damaged hair. You can use an overnight hair treatment, scalp oil or a hair mask. Each of these will have amazing effects on fixing dry and damaged hair. Scalp oils contain vitamins to help protect against free radicals and essentials oils to nourish the hair and scalp. By massaging the oils into your scalp, you’re stimulating growth and infusing moisture into your skin and hair. Hair masques are easy to use as well as quick plus, there are many at home hair recipes to use. Generally, wash your hair and apply the hair mask. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and rinse off. They moisturize and help protect and nourish your poor dry hair.

Next time you go out on a windy day, don’t forget your hat!  Not just to be fashionable, but to protect your gorgeous locks! Dry hair products are easy to find and amazing to use. Pay attention to what your hair is telling you. If it’s falling out at alarming rates or breaking off when you brush it, it’s time to put a little effort into restoring your hair into the lustrous mane it’s supposed to be.

flickr user rainpie

I have been without a blow dryer for over three months. This statement might shock you, as it did most of my co-workers, but it’s true. My last blow dryer (not the best hair dryer in the world but a trusty $29.99 drugstore brand) had a good run but ultimately went up in flames. Literally, flames…mid blow dry. I’m just not sure why I went all of three months without purchasing a new one. It could have been laziness, cheapness, or a subliminal nostalgia for my youth, when I was a competitive swimmer and had perpetually wet hair. Whatever the reason, I lived by way of air drying and declared a strike against purchasing a new blow dryer. I would even go as far as making a trip to the gym before a big meeting or event, specifically to use their hair dryers. Weird, I know.

Last weekend, I finally buckled. I had 45 minutes to shower and get ready for a wedding, which meant no time for a quick gym/borrowed blow dryer visit. Facing defeat, I made a visit to the beauty supply store by my house, where I stood in shock, taken aback by the overwhelming variety of blow dryers, features and technology. There were dozens of blow dryers, all boasting breakthrough science and revolutionary patents—and not one of them resembled my previous $29.99 model in any way, least of all in price. In a fit of pure frustration, I selected the cheapest (a mere $119!) blow dryer on display, paid, and left.

Grudgingly, I admit that my hair felt so much better after drying it with my new, expensive (relatively speaking) blow dryer. I began to wonder: is there some actual merit behind all the patenting and revolutionary technology?  Luckily, I have a wealth of knowledge at my fingertips, thanks to my extremely beauty-savvy coworkers (after all, our company is called Intelligent Beauty). For this particular question, I quizzed Jac, our non-official hair care expert.  She informed me that while it isn’t always the price tag that determines the best blow dryers, there are certainly key terms, technological aspects and features to look for when purchasing a blow dryer.

Here are some helpful tips:

• Make sure your blow dryer is at least 1800 watts. This ensures adequate power to blow dry your hair. (Lower wattages = more time to dry, resulting in more heat damage to the hair.)
• Ionic Technology is a fairly common phrase in the hair care world. It refers to a technology that generates negative ions that neutralize positive ions in the atmosphere. This process allows hair to dry faster, seals the cuticle, and reduces frizz, leaving hair smooth and shiny.
• A ceramic hair dryer actually has a self-regulating system that senses if the dryer is getting too hot. The air flow is at the right temperature, and the coils are made out of ceramic as well.
• Tourmaline blow dryers utilize a technology that speeds up the drying process by about 60%, which ultimately reduces damage caused by heat.
• Another feature to look for in a good blow dryer: different temperature and speed settings, which allow you to adjust your preferences manually.

The moral of the story? There are several different options fitting for several different bank accounts.  The reigning king of the blow drying world is the T3 Featherweight Luxe, which actually nourishes the hair. For a more budget-friendly blow dryer, opt for something along the lines of the Conair Tourmaline Ceramic Ionic Styler. Just make sure your blow dryer has at least one of the features listed above. It all comes down to amount of time spent drying—less time, less heat, the better the blow dryer!

Blake's Perfect Beach Waves

Perfecting the California cool beach waves hair style is as easy as, well, a day at the beach! Trust me, if yours truly can pull this off, anyone can. If only I knew these quick hairstyle tips in high school…

The greatest part about this easy breezy summer hairstyle is that it can be achieved with either wet or dry hair! The most important ingredient is good hair texturizer that mimics the  look from the sun, sand and saltwater and spares your hair the damaging effects from the real thing. I recommend Krystal High Gloss Shine Spray by Kronos or Bumble and Bumble Surf Spray.

If you are starting with wet hair, work the product through the hair and either towel dry or blow-dry with a diffuser.  It is best to only partially dry the hair and remember to not run your fingers through it too much; this can cause frizz and accidently remove the hair texturizer. When starting with dry hair, the process is even easier! Just spray the product on the roots and lightly over the hair for added volume and body. If your hair gets oily easily, apply a little dry shampoo first.

Depending on your hair type and texture, a little spray and scrunch might be all you need. If your hair loses volume easily or needs a little extra vavava-voom, there is an optional step two. Use a curling iron, either large or small barreled, to add a few loose waves. Choose sections of hair in varying sizes and alternate the directions of the curls. Once you have finished curling, bend over and shake your head to ensure that your curls create a tousled hair look, not styled, and perform a quick final spray with either your texturizer or a high gloss shine.

The result? A perfectly chic and total easy summer hairstyle that works year round.

flickr.com user helgasms!

Thinning hair is one of the most stressful and self-esteem squashing medical concerns for both men and women of any age. There are so many levels of hair loss and causes of Alopecia in women, and unlike those unlucky folks of the 20th century who were finding clumps of hair in the shower, we have some really advanced and effective treatment options to help keep those precious strands firmly in our head, and away from the drain. Tons of young women are noticing their parts are getting thicker, and their hair feels thinner.  For people who are just realizing their hair is over-shedding and under-growing for the first time, turning to Rogaine (for what may all be in your head) seems really scary and extreme.

If rapid hair loss is being caused by a medical condition, it is best to have your doctor take a look, but for those who are just noticing that their ponytail is losing some girth, there are a lot of OTC shampoos and thickening treatments that are getting rave reviews from satisfied customers. One of the most popular growth stimulating shampoos is DS Labs Revita. Revita was formulated with a supreme cocktail of gentle and potent ingredients, and has a really high success story rate from users who have noticed their hair has stopped fleeing their head at an alarming rate.  Revita uses gentle natural cleansers, (instead of harsh detergents that strip the scalp of necessary oils and can really damage the hair) and mix in anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antioxidant, and anti-hormonal agents that hydrate, nourish, and stimulate the scalp and hair follicles. It can be used in conjunction with any hair growth treatment for extreme cases, or can be used by anyone who just wants their really thin hair and irritated scalp to be perfectly healthy, which is a crucial part of optimal hair growing conditions.

flickr.com user ClickFlashPhotos / Nicki Varkevisser

The nice thing about growth stimulating shampoo today is that high-end salon brands are coming up with some good smelling, and nicely packaged options. Alterna has added the LIFE Solutions line to their repertoire of hair care products. It, too, is formulated without damaging sulfates and gentle, but effective scalp and hair follicle stimulating ingredients.

Overall this widespread epidemic of young women losing way more hair than they should be could be controlled with the avoidance of products containing really harsh chemicals, and maybe switching to a growth stimulating shampoo without sulfate.

Flickr.com user Lin Pernille ♥ Photography

If you are plagued with dry, brittle hair, you might be slacking on the deep conditioning. One of the best dry hair treatments to regain the shiny, healthy hair you once had is to deep condition with a heated head wrap. Even if you use a weekly conditioning hair mask in the shower, you could still benefit greatly from a deeply penetrating conditioning treatment.

It’s no secret that heat causes the hair cuticle to open and further draw in the healing and restoring ingredients in conditioners and hair masks. This is why women spend long hours and lots of hard earned dollars perched under bonnet dryers at the salon when they have a special hair treatment. Professionals know that the elevated temperature will allow the treatment to work much more deeply, leading to amazing results.

Luckily, for those of us who don’t have countless hours (not to mention endless funds) to spend at the beauty parlor, Michelle Reuven, a long time perm and damaging hair product addict, found the answer. She invented the Hair Therapy Wrap after stumbling upon heated gel packs meant for relief from aching muscles.  A light bulb went on when she realized she could wrap them in a towel and have 30 minutes worth of cordless, comfortable, and even heat on her head, forever freeing her from the bonnet dryer. Her little at-home craft project provided such amazing results that she decided to go into business and make them for all women who were on a time and money budget, but still desired strong, healthy shiny hair.

Another great thing about the Hair Therapy Wrap is that you can use it with any hair conditioner, hair mask, or hair oil. Simply apply your favorite dry hair treatment to your hair before putting on this unique heated hair wrap. We love this Steam Creams & Oils Hair Oil. It’s super natural and smells amazing, giving a bit of an aromatherapy treatment while hydrating your hair.

The Hair Therapy Wrap is really easy to use since the whole thing can be popped in the microwave or the gel packs can be heated with hot water. The few minutes of prep time will provide your thirsty hair with 30 minutes of warmth, so it can really drink in what it needs to get as lustrous and beautiful as ever.

Flickr.com user andrewrennie

First dates are ridiculously nerve wracking, and not feeling confident in your appearance can make those butterflies even worse. Here are some beauty tips for your big night so you can relax and have fun, knowing you look stunning, making this the first date of many.

1. Less is more. It’s easy to get carried away with too much foundation and concealer when you are stressed about looking your best. Just try to keep in mind that men hate when makeup is really obvious and looks caked on. Using a really light application of foundation, bronzer and blush will give you a flawless glow, without making you look over done.

2. Focus on one or the other. Even if you are going on a super sophisticated glamorous date, it is best to decide on dramatic eyes, or dramatic lips, not both.  This doesn’t mean that if you wear cranberry lipstick, you have to leave your eyes bare, just don’t overdo the heavy black eyeliner and false lashes. Instead, opt for a subtle smokey makeup around the eyes with browns and taupe’s, using shades like the ones in this Raw Natural Beauty eyeshadow trio. Gently line the eyes and sweep on a coat of mascara, and your eyes will be defined, but not competing for attention with your bold lips.

3. Go easy on the fragrance. If you have a favorite perfume, spritz it only on three of your pulse points, the sides of your neck just below your jaw, on your inner wrists, and since scent rises over time, the backs of your knees. That will keep you smelling delicious all evening without it being too concentrated and over powering.

4. Last but not least leave your hair either down or half down so it looks touchable and soft. Crispy, slick hair can look severe and uninviting. And men love hair that they can run their fingers through. So even if you have curly hair, let your ringlets flow freely, just use a good curling product like Fredric Fakkai Coiff Oceanique Tousled Wave Spray to keep away frizzies.

Take these tips and combine them with a little charm and sense of humor, and your first date is guaranteed to be a success.