Me on the far right, in 2001. Addicted to the flat iron. (and bleach and lipgloss and cheerleading)

Q by Allie: Hey there Reagan! My name is Allie and i absolutely love your blogs. I am a teenager with a similar hair texture to yours except slightly curlier/frizzier. I feel like all teenage girls nowadays flat iron their hair daily which is obviously super damaging. do u have any cute hair ideas that dont involve too much heat!? hopefully u see this cause i really need some help here! thanks.

A by Reagan: Allie, I was a flat ironer too! The flat iron became really big when I was in high school, and I guess it’s never left the high school scene! In my experience, the flat iron is what destroyed my hair. Before the flat iron, my hair was so thick and perfectly healthy. Before I knew it, the flat iron had wrecked my hair so much that the only way for it to look smooth was to keep flat ironing it every day. It wasn’t until I finally cut off lots of length and left it alone that it got back to health. Pheeww! Bad memory!

Anyway, Allie, I love you. Do you know how much I hate unecessary damage on hair? Because of over-heat styling, overdue haircutting, over-processing color treatments or whatever it may be. Just treat your hair nice and it will be so much more glorious resulting in tons of boyfriends or girlfriends or jealous people! I am constantly trying to show my clients how to keep their hair healthy, so thank you for this question.

So to answer your question finally, I say look all over this blog! I am really into just enhancing your hair’s natural texture. Maybe by blow drying only the roots and letting your ends dry how they naturally would, or just curling a few pieces around your face to feel jazzy. You could also let your hair air dry before putting it in a bun, a pretty ponytail or a braid of some kind. And don’t be afraid to use product. Product is always a great way to cut down on styling time AND damage. As always, I love Redken Outshine for almost every hair texture and styling purpose. But I still think it’s freaking sick and disgusting that they call it polishing milk. Milk?? Are you kidding me?

I have an idea! What do you say you and I run around dressed like hamburglars and steal all of your friends flat irons so they are forced to stop doing it? No? That’s illegal?

Q by Stacie: Ok, so here’s my question.  My hair is dry and color-treated and fairly long (about 5ish inches past my shoulders).  I end up putting my hair up in a bun nearly every day, not a pulled super tight bun and I do use only bobby pins to secure it.  I feel like maybe I’m further damaging my hair by wearing it up so often, what do you think?  I get regular trims and everything but I am just feeling guilty about the breakage I might be causing.  So, should I be feeling guilty about this or should I reserve my guilty feelings for other things, like my kid’s cavities?

A by Reagan: I’m no dentist, but I say, worry about your kids’ cavities before worrying about bun damage. If the bun is causing any damage, it would be pretty minimal. Unless you are using those old fashioned hair ties with the little metal connecting piece, you’re probably ok wearing your hair up every day, especially if it’s up loosely. You want to avoid twisting it too tight when you can (even wet, it’s so bad to wring out your wet hair by twisting!), so a loose bun is fine.

When you’re looking at what your hair goes through every day, there is damage everywhere! From the collar of your shirt, pulling it up, the sun, polution, too much brushing, playing with it (holler if that’s you…Holla!), etc. These are all kind of hard to avoid, so I just try to do the most important things to keep it healthy. Avoid too much chemical processing, avoid too much heat and keep it trimmed up.

A bun isn’t going to kill you Stace. And lookie here! I wear a bun too!

Thanks for your question Stacie. Nice buns!