Dry, thirsty hair? Green House Effect (GHE) to the rescue!

For some reason, in the last week my hair has been feeling dryer than usual - I suspect my constant need to be in air conditioning (because of this heat wave we've been experiencing) has something to do with it. My hair was feeling rather crunchy two nights ago while I was trying to moisturize and seal and I'd just clarified and deep conditioned the day before so I didn't think it was due to product build up

Anyway last night I decided I'd do a super duper moisturizing deep conditioning treatment today and remembered that I could also do something called 'The Green House Effect' which helps to moisturize hair.
Essentially how it works is you apply some oil to your hair, cover with a shower cap and then tie it tight with a scarf or two or three :)  (the objective is to trap as much heat as possible in your hair which will in conjunction with the oil, help moisturize your hair and also allow the sebum from the scalp, nourish the hair)


A lot of people use this technique to actually retain length particularly as this is so great for moisturizing your ends - by keeping them in tip top moisturized shape means they are better elasticized and aren't breakage prone. If you've ever heard of the term 'baggying your ends' it's essentially the GHE done on just the ends of hair where a natural oil is added to damp hair,  hair is then put into a ponytail, covered with a plastic bag and then a faux ponytail is attached on the baggied ponytail ( unless you want to walk around with a plastic cap on your ends!)

Hair progress pictures using the GHE method

Baggy method

A great sign to determine if you got the GHE working is when you take off your plastic cap in the morning, you should see drops of moisture trapped in the cap.

So I did that last night and woke up this morning to much softer hair. Phew! Normally with a GHE you don't need to wash anything out as the whole purpose is to keep the moisture produced in the hair. But I was due for a deep conditioning anyway so will go ahead and do that today and follow up with a co wash.

What I will do is over the course of the week, do a few more nights of GHE without washing anything out just to keep my hair nice and moisturized.

Quick tip: You need to be able to 'listen' to your hair while doing this - some people are able to get away with doing it every day while for some, that will be too much and you'll end up with mushy overly moisturized hair. Start gradually and see what your hair is able to handle.

For more on this you can visit this link

xoxo!