Make Your Blowdry Last 3 Extra Days

Photo: Walter Chin/Trunk Archive

Your blowdry is your everything—it’s your beauty safety blanket, and frankly, it sums up all your hotness in one fabulous layer atop your head. You can’t spend every other day in the salon getting re-blown just to maintain your ever-gorgeousness, though. So instead, we asked top hair pros to share how they breathe new life into old blows to stretch the voluminous, sexy look just a little bit longer.

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“Do you think celebrities have time to sit in a hair stylist’s chair every single day? No, and they still have to run around in their normal lives with flawless, bouncy hair, so I teach my clients a few simple tricks to keep their hair in perfect shape for an extra few days,” says Ronen Marciano, master stylist at Eva Scrivo Salon in New York City. After the second day, he says, it’s imperative to brush your hair from root to tip. “It may be counter-intuitive because you’ll be breaking up the waves or style you had created in the salon,” he says, “but you’ll be distributing your natural oils from root to tip which helps give natural shine, vitality, and takes away from the heaviness that happens at the root.”

Another tactic? Start big, then work your way to sleek. “Day one can be a big hair love affair, but after a few days of brushing your hair out, you should have a flat iron on hand to smooth out the tiny frizzes that come from showering and humidity, and to give a light, smoothing gloss over the entire head,” Marciano says. A side part or low ponytail will work well a few days in. As for products, skip them—aside from dry shampoo. “You don’t want to add weight to the hair if you don’t plan to wash it immediately,” Marciano says. “You’ll look greasy.”

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Celeb stylist Nelson Vercher of Rita Hazan Salon suggests an under-the-radar tip. “Use an aerosol spray with alcohol,” he advises. “Spray lightly at the root. Only do this one to two times max before you get another blowdry.” The alcohol will sop up just enough oil to keep your hair weightless for another couple days, but Vercher stresses using this method infrequently to minimize risk of over-drying follicles.

If you have naturally straight, smooth hair, you might want to try his easy, beach hair formula that’ll look great regardless of season. “Mist water very lightly throughout hair,” Vercher says. “Tie it back in a high bun and let it dry completely. Take it down and shake it out and gently comb into place.” That’s advice you can actually sleep on.