Summer Hair Repair — Part Deux

Well, I gotta say, y’all rock. Seriously.

After I posted my desperate plea for suggestions on how to fix my daughter’s over-chlorinated hair, y’all came out in force with dozens of great suggestions. Because I live in the sticks, I don’t have access to some of the more specialty products that were recommended (like this, this and this). So, I figured I’d start with whatever I could find readily available at the local drugstore.

Here’s what I did:

First, I took my daughter for a haircut. I didn’t strip the chlorine out yet, I just had the hairdresser cut off a good two inches to clean up the ends.

After her haircut, I went and got a bottle of UltraSwim Shampoo ($4.99). It was the last bottle on the shelf, which I always consider a good non-scientific review. I mean, if people are buying it, that’s a good sign, right? I also picked up a good moisturizing conditioner. In this case, I went with Nexxus Humectress, per another commenter’s suggestion. I bought a travel-sized bottle for $4. (By the way, per Cita’s recent post, you can still get a free sample of Nexxus Humectress here.)

That evening I shampooed my daughter’s hair twice with the UltraSwim and then applied the Nexxus conditioner, being sure to leave it on for the full three minutes. Because I was doing this review (and because it was time for my daughter to go to bed), I did blow dry her hair. However, if I had had more time, I would have let her hair air dry. Many of you suggested skipping the hair dryer, as it only dries the hair out more. That makes total sense. I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me. 🙂

I didn’t take a “before” picture of my daughter’s hair because I wasn’t sure the condition of her hair would really show well in a photograph. Her hair looked dull, but the problem was more how her hair felt. Now I wish I had taken a “before” photograph because the “after” was striking: Take a look:

Her hair felt so much better. I couldn’t stop touching it. Even my husband was impressed.

I’m going to be honest, it wasn’t a 100 percent fix. But, I’d say the UltraSwim took care of about 85-90% of the build-up. Part of the problem is that I think I let her hair get too out of control before I did anything. Had I started the UltraSwim/Humectress protocol from June 1st on, I never would have run into the problems I did.

A few commenters recommended a salon Malibu treatment to remove all of the build-up, and it’s something I’m considering once the swim season comes to a close.

The other tip that will definitely become a habit next summer is to wet my daughter’s hair and apply a small amount of conditioner prior to her getting in the pool. The conditioner prevents the chlorine from penetrating the hair cuticle, which causes the damage in the first place. I can then put her swim cap on top, and the heat generated from swimming actually works as a heat conditioning treatment that can help repair her hair as she swims. Pretty cool.

So a big thanks to all of you who took the time to comment. Your suggestions were ever so helpful. And for any of you that might be struggling with the same issue of over-chlorinated hair, be sure and check out the comments on the original post. There’s a wealth of information in there that, quite literally, can transform your tresses.