Heat Styling: How to Protect Your Hair

Heat styling gives quick, polished results, and used with care it does not have to ruin your hair. The damage comes from three things: too much heat, heat applied to wet hair, and heat applied too often. Controlling those three protects your hair far more than any single product.

What heat does to hair

Hair is made of keratin protein protected by an outer cuticle. High temperatures:

• Dry out the water that keeps hair flexible.
• Crack and lift the cuticle, so hair looks dull and tangles.
• Weaken the protein inside, which leads to breakage and split ends.
• Fade hair color.

If a very hot tool is used on wet hair, the water inside the strand can turn to steam and form tiny bubbles that leave the hair brittle.

Signs of heat damage

• Dry, rough or straw-like texture.
• More split ends and short broken hairs.
• Curls or waves that no longer spring back.
• Hair that will not hold a style.
• Dullness and faster color fading.

Choose the right temperature

Start at the lowest setting and raise it only if the hair does not respond after one slow pass. Very few people need the maximum setting on a tool. Hair Straightener Buying Guide: Plates and Heat Settings explains what to look for in a straightener with adjustable heat.

The rules that matter most

1. Dry hair first. Never use a flat iron or curling tool on damp hair unless the tool is designed for it.
2. Use a heat protectant every time. See How to Choose and Use a Heat Protectant.
3. Work in small sections so that one pass is enough.
4. Keep the tool moving. Do not clamp and hold.
5. Limit how often. Give your hair days off. Many dermatologists suggest using flat irons no more than every other day, and less is better.
6. Let hair air dry partly before blow-drying, to shorten the time under heat.

Safer blow-drying

• Blot hair with a towel first.
• Use a medium heat setting and keep the dryer about 15 cm from your hair.
• Point the airflow down the hair, from root to tip.
• Finish with cool air.

How to Blow-Dry Your Hair at Home has a step-by-step method.

Look after your tools

• Clean plates and barrels when they are cool. Product residue burns onto hair.
• Replace tools with chipped or scratched plates, which snag.
• Check that the temperature control works. A tool that only has an on and off switch usually runs very hot.

Care between heat days

• Condition after every wash and use a mask weekly.
• Apply a leave-in conditioner to the ends.
• Trim split ends before they travel up. See Split Ends: Causes and Ways to Reduce Breakage.
• Try heat-free styles on some days. Heatless Hairstyles for Short, Medium, and Long Hair has ideas for every length.

Extra care for some hair

• Bleached or colored hair is already weakened and needs lower temperatures.
• Curly and coily hair is more fragile at its bends. Repeated high heat can loosen the curl pattern permanently.
• Fine hair heats through quickly and burns more easily.

Can heat damage be repaired?

Not truly. Conditioners, masks and bonding treatments can make damaged hair feel and behave better, but the only complete fix is to grow new hair and trim the damaged lengths over time. Prevention is much easier.

When to stop and seek advice

If your hair is breaking in large amounts, feels gummy when wet, or your scalp has been burned, stop heat styling. See a hairdresser for a repair plan, and a doctor for any burn that blisters.

Related on ArniSun

• How to Choose and Use a Heat Protectant
• How to Blow-Dry Your Hair at Home
• Heatless Hairstyles for Short, Medium, and Long Hair
• Hair Straightener Buying Guide: Plates and Heat Settings
• Split Ends: Causes and Ways to Reduce Breakage

Sources and further reading

• American Academy of Dermatology: 10 hair care habits that can damage your hair
• American Academy of Dermatology: How to stop damaging your hair
• American Academy of Dermatology: Tips for healthy hair