Hairstylists Share The One Thing They’d Never Do To Their Hair

Between bobs, pixie cuts, balayage, bangs, cornrows and extensions, there are many hairstyles that come and go throughout your lifetime. But while these hairstyles may change every few months or years, your hair health is something that’s important to upkeep throughout your life.

You probably know the basics of hair health, but hairstylists say there are many rules they never break when it comes to their or their clients’ hair ― and you may be breaking some of them every day.

Below, hairstylists share what they won’t do to their hair. Here are the top mistakes. 

Applying Conditioner At The Roots

Who knew that your conditioner application should actually start at your ends, not at your roots? We’ve all been conditioning our hair incorrectly, according to Tatum Neill, the creative director for Aveda Arts & Sciences Institutes and Elevate Hair.

“Ideally, it’s almost like shampoo and conditioner should be applied in opposite,” Neill said. “Typically when we have dirt and oil in the hair, it’s at the scalp level. And typically when we have dryness and damage on the hair, it’s on the end.”

“Most people put shampoo on the top of the head, and they put conditioner on top of the head, right?”

Well, you don’t need conditioner at your roots, he explained. “You have natural sebum that’s coming out every day — the top of your head, the roots, should have plenty of oil.”

Applying shampoo and conditioner at the roots is habitual, but conditioner really matters most at your ends, Neill added.

Or Skipping Conditioner, For That Matter

“I never shampoo or detox hair without adding moisture back in,” said Ash Therese, the salon director and head stylist at The Bird House Salon in New York. “I know that finer hair types, a lot of people feel like conditioner [or] leave-in conditioners can weigh their hair down. In my opinion, there is a product for everyone.”

It’s an important step — just like you apply moisturizer to your skin, you should apply moisture to your hair. For color-treated hair, this is even more important, she noted. 

“Always adding moisture back in, whether it be a leave-in conditioner — I know a lot of people are doing K18 right now, which I think is a wonderful product — or just conditioning in the shower,” Therese said. And that should be a good-quality conditioner, she said.

“The two-in-one shampoo conditioner things, I would never use on my client’s hair or my own,” she added.

Only Using Sulfate-Free Shampoo

“I wouldn’t use a sulfate-free shampoo exclusively to wash my hair,” said Titi Bello, a hair coach and founder of Ori Lifestyle, a natural hair care brand and education company. 

While sulfate-free shampoos do not strip the hair as much as shampoos with sulfates, Bello said there is a place for both kinds of shampoo in a healthy hair regimen. 

Sulfates are helpful in achieving a deep clean, which can help with both scalp and hair health, she said.  

“I’ve had too many clients that suffer from dry scalp or flaky scalp, just low-key scalp conditions … and often when I ask them to introduce a shampoo with sulfates and when they do so, within a month they find that the scalp issue has cleared,” Bello said.

Sulfate-free shampoos gained popularity when sulfates were wrongly linked to cancer, Bello said. Since then, studies have found that sulfates are not carcinogenic. 

For some people, sulfates can cause irritation (as can any product), Bello said. If that’s you, don’t use a shampoo with sulfates. But for those who don’t have this problem, Bello said it’s a good idea to use each type of shampoo regularly.