Scientist's Top Haircare Hacks (mostly cheap or free!)

It's Michelle chemistry PhD cosmetic chemist and owner of purple hair today I'm going to be talking about 10 Hair hacks that changed my routine I'm pretty lazy with my hair care I'm really bad at sticking to routines so these won't be high effort hacks they're things that you can do quite easily they range from cheap to expensive so hopefully there's something in here that makes a big difference for you don't forget to like and subscribe let's get into it crocodile clips I don't know why it took me 30 years to discover these they're called crocodile

or jointed clips and they have this cool mechanism that expands to grab a big chunk of hair or whatever else you need to grab I don't know your life I have a lot of heavy hair so I've just had decades of weak little clips struggling to hold onto my hair and maybe I just didn't love myself enough to look for a solution but one of these will just clamp onto more than half my hair with no dramas these cost less than a dollar or two depending on how fancy you go I use them for everything

hair related apart from clipping my fringe I use them in the shower on wet and on dry hair for treatments for dyeing my hair clipping up my hair when it's really hot and I don't have to leave the house so no one has to see my great style I used one for clipping a towel around my partner's shoulders when I did his quarantine haircuts I've even used them for clipping my clothes back during videos and clipping back curtains I would recommend getting rubberized ones that aren't too smooth because they grip hair a bit better and

they're also easier to hold onto when they're wet I would also recommend getting some with some sort of texture on the finger grip so they don't slip out and launch across the bathroom when your hands are covered in conditioner learn from my fail my hair used to snap teeth off claw clips all the time this is a highly recommended quality of life upgrade treat yourself to a one dollar clip cornstarch as dry shampoo I know a lot of people love how convenient dry shampoo is but I found that the sprays can make my scalp feel

really irritated and a lot of the scents are just a a bit too heavy for me but I do have a fringe and oily skin which means it gets gross and greasy and I just start looking like I never grew out of my Nine Inch Nails phase which is kind of true I did use a dry shampoo that was like a shaker once and it turns out the main ingredient was starch I couldn't actually find it again and then one time I was putting on my translucent powder which is starch based and I thought what

if I just dusted it on my fringe and it worked the cheaper version is just using cornstarch from the grocery store with a fluffy brush if your hair is dark then it can look a little bit grey but once you brush it and like pat it down a bit it goes away maybe try it out first on a day when it's not right before an important event some people also use it at night I actually do this a lot of the time before filming like today when I haven't planned my schedule well enough to have

a nice clean fringe I guess a sub tip here is don't use dry shampoo too much and stop if you get any sores or breakouts dry shampoo doesn't entirely replace actual shampoo and too much gunk and build up on your scalp just isn't very good for it I think this is actually the reason some people say particular products are making their hair fall out on that note try shampooing only your scalp and only condition below your ears this is a tip that I think most people already know but if you don't this has been completely

life-changing for me the idea is basically the hair near your scalp doesn't really need conditioner it already gets a lot of oil from your scalp which is actually why it needs to be shampooed it's also less damaged because it just hasn't been around for as long it's not old and bitter yet so it's still pretty smooth plus most modern shampoos have small amounts of conditioning ingredients in them like polyquaterniums these leave a very light protective coating on your hair that can smooth it out protect it against more damage also reduce static so unless your shampoo

is making your hair very squeaky it's probably got some conditioning that should be enough for most people's roots so conditioner near your scalp might not really be adding much to your whole hair experience but it can cause build up on your scalp and make it irritated now with the lengths they're far away from your scalp so they don't get much oil the main reason your hair gets dirty is because of all this oil and all the dust and dirt that sticks to it like a really gross cult I'm really sorry I am not having a

good analogy day today so it might not actually need to be cleansed with shampoo and this obviously doesn't apply for shampoos with other functions like purple shampoo so for most people directly shampooing the lengths just dries them out and it can make them more damaged without that much payoff with cleaning the shampoo that trickles down as you rinse can be enough plus hair conditioner actually has cationic surfactants that can do a bit of cleaning you might still need more shampoo if you use a lot of styling products and you might need more conditioner if your

hair is a bit rougher at the roots but for a lot of people I think this is worth trying my scalp used to get so much buildup and irritation before I stopped putting conditioner on it plus you end up using less products so it costs you negative money reverse conditioning if you need even deeper conditioning you might want to try reverse conditioning this is where you put conditioner on the lengths of your hair before your shampoo and then shampoo focusing on your scalp then you rinse everything out and add a little bit more conditioner if

you feel like you need it the idea is that the conditioner will protect your hair from the shampoo so it's like a more intense version of the half shampoo half conditioner tip microfiber towel they're towels that have very small fibers so they have a large surface area and that means that they can suck the water out of your hair much faster than a regular towel my favorite towels for this are the aquis towels I've been using these same towels for about six years ever since they sent me a bunch for a sponsored post full disclosure

but I still use the same ones because they still work really well and I haven't tried that many other options I did try some cheaper ones that I got at hair expo but they just didn't work as well and they had that thing where they sort of clung to your fingers and just felt really icky Vanessa of goals to get glowing tested a bunch and she found some cheaper options that work great she reviewed a bunch of turbans which are a really handy all-in-one option but I actually prefer the regular towels because I like being

able to control how the ends get twisted because my bleached ends are really fragile so I put the towel around my hair I squeeze it a bit to soak up the water and then I wrap the towel around my head and keep the whole thing in place using you guessed it a crocodile clip these are also a lot lighter than a traditional towel so I don't get a crick in my neck when I move my head around and it doesn't lurch off my head and rip my hair out nape undercut this has made such a

huge difference for me like I said I have a lot of hair so one day I just decided to cut off about a third of it it's not really noticeable when I have my hair out or in a low ponytail and most people don't actually realize I have one but it has made a huge difference it is so much faster to dry my hair when my hair has wet my head is a lot less heavy I also used to get a whole bunch of knots when the strands coming from like the base of my neck

would rub against my back so all of that's gone and it is a lot cooler during summer also I had so much hair that when I left it out without styling it I looked a bit like grug and just violently hacking off a whole bunch underneath actually gives it a more manageable shape my biggest worry about this used to be that I would need someone to help me shave it all the time but I found these clippers that are actually really quite easy to use by feel it's really hard to cut yourself on these so

I can mostly keep it shaved just by feeling where to shave and I can almost always do it without accidentally cutting off a whole bunch of long expensive hair every time I accidentally cut some off I think about how much it cost to bleach it it's something like one cent per hair it's not super neat around the edges because I do try not to get any of that long hair so I sometimes get someone to help me neaten it up but I don't really wear my hair up a lot so all of that shame is

hiding up near the top hair dryer with features that you want I'm really sorry I hate hacks that I just like buy this expensive thing but this made a really big difference for me getting a hairdryer that had the features I wanted there are a lot of hair dryers out there and my wants probably aren't the same as yours so if you spend a lot of time drying your hair I really encourage you to do your research and don't just buy a hair dryer that someone else recommends unless it does match your wants too I've

tried a lot of expensive hairdryers but this Panasonic one just kind of blew my mind I did do a sponsorship with them for this hairdryer but this video is not sponsored and I have no obligation to mention it but I am because it did really change my mind about hair dryers so the things I really like about this the nozzle is designed to create an airflow that separates your hair out so it dries faster so you don't have to be like constantly spreading your hair out with your fingers I mean I still do it when

I dry my hair but I have to do it less which sounds like it doesn't make a big difference but it does it has a scalp function which is a setting that goes pretty much as hot as you can get it without burning your scalp I'm sure it's too hot for some people but it is pretty much perfect for me and so I can zone out without burning my scalp or my fingers it feels really light it's really well balanced so there's no wrist pain I highly recommend doing this with any hairdryers that you might

want to buy I'm not quite extra enough to pack this with me on holidays but every time I'm using a hotel hair dryer and my hair is going everywhere and slapping me in the face like hot wet noodles and I'm burning my fingers I'm reminded of how good this is DIY colored hair conditioner if you have brightly colored hair like mine it's generally done using semi-permanent dyes these fade out over about seven washes and they don't damage hair so you can change your hair color all the time and it's quite fun the problem is it

washes out and when it's really faded it tends to look a bit bad so you have to go get it re-dyed a lot or dye it yourself at home I started off dyeing it myself at home every second weekend it would take a couple of hours but I got sick of that then I realized that you could buy colored hair conditioners that deposit a bit of dye on your hair every time you wash it and then after using those for a bit I realized in this like year of realizing stuff I could just make my

own in any color I wanted with a conditioner that I liked you just mix the semi-permanent dye into the hair conditioner now this isn't entirely risk-free because when you make your own there is a chance that you'll mess up the preservative system and end up with mold growing in your product it is relatively low risk because it is a wash off product and it's a hair product that doesn't stay on your skin for long but I would still recommend not mixing up too much at a time I only mix up about enough for a week

and I make it a bit darker than I need and I mix it in with my regular hair conditioner in the shower right before using it although to be honest that's usually because I'm bad at mixing the right amounts together so there is an upside there having this also means I can wash my hair every day which is what my scalp likes without worrying about the color ever fading too quickly use conditioner as a hair mask you probably don't need a separate hair mask hair masks usually have the same core ingredients as a conditioner but

the main difference is they're usually thicker so they stay on your hair more easily so if you have a conditioner that works well for you you can use it as a mask it probably won't stay as well on your hair in the shower though because of all that extra water you can try wrapping your hair up in cling wrap or a plastic shower cap like a little dumpling to keep it all together and then clip it with a crocodile clip I swear I am not being paid by big crocodile clip silk pillowcase I didn't really

believe in silk pillowcases at first I thought they were a bit of a gimmick and people just liked them because they felt nice but I've actually found that since I started using them I could really tell when I didn't use one with the silk my hair doesn't end up quite as crunchy when I wake up compared to cotton or linen I think that maybe I wiggle my head around a bit when I sleep and my hair gets rubbed into the pillow and then when the pillowcase is a bit more frictiony then it tends to put

kinks in my hair these kinks make my hair feel crunchy and they don't really go away until I wash my hair it tends to be worse when I go to sleep with damp hair and it still does this if my hair ends up stuck behind my back against my regular sheets I also really like using silk scrunchies it means the hair can slide around a bit so the hair strands don't pull as much on my scalp and make it sore these are also really good for sleeping in I have to sleep with my hair in

a ponytail otherwise it starts spreading and trying to colonize my partner's side of the bed it's a problem watch out for MI and MCI these are pretty common allergens these days about 1.5% of people are allergic to them a lot of people don't know about them and they're actually kind of hard to avoid I am personally allergic to them they give me a really itchy and irritated scalp with bumps and pimples and annoyingly they are actually super common in shampoos most anti-dandruff shampoos I looked at actually had them so if you feel like your scalp

gets really grumpy with particular products it might be worth checking for these and seeing what happens when you stop using products with them this family of preservatives is also in a lot of laundry detergents so if I use the wrong one I get super itchy when I put on my clothes and it always takes me a couple hours before I remember I have an allergy so that would be another hint and of course you can go to a dermatologist to confirm or do more testing if it actually isn't this I hope these hacks were useful

let me know if you've tried any of these before or if there's any hacks I missed don't forget to like subscribe hit the nerdification bell you can also see me on tiktok and Instagram more videos are popping up around me if you want to nerd out more