These past few weeks, I’ve been clocking a minimum of an hour a day in the pool, and usually it’s more like two – the first around late afternoon, helping my kids figure out this whole “move your arms and legs at the same time” thing, and the second after they’ve gone to bed, when I have nothing more pressing to do than swim a few laps all by myself in the silence.
I’m trying to remember to do this more lately: find opportunities to be quiet with myself. It doesn’t come naturally at all, but I read something Brené Brown wrote about letting go of the idea that exhaustion is a status symbol, and it’s something I’ve been trying to remind myself of as often as I can. Basically: that it is okay to rest, and to do something for no other reason than because you enjoy it.
Anyway, this is a new thing for me: wanting to spend more time than I have to in a pool (as opposed to “next to a pool”; I’m pretty much always happy to do that). The reason I’m finally enjoying it now is because I realized that my rationale for not swimming every day was a completely ridiculous one: I didn’t want to get my hair wet, because blowing it dry again is a pain.
I mean, come on: that is a terrible reason to miss out on splashing around with my kids every single time I possibly can. And so I’ve decided that this is the summer of going au naturel. In other words: I’m going to let my hair do what it will.
My hair with zero heat-styling
Which, just to be clear, is not to say that I’m not going to do anything to it, because I have an actual lion’s mane, and “wildlife creature” isn’t really my vibe. But I have discovered a system that de-bush-ifies my waves with virtually no heat-styling of any kind. It is the single best combo I have ever tried (and I have tried a lot of them), so now I’m going to share it in case you too feel like getting as far away from a blow-dryer as possible this summer:
- I switched my shampoo and conditioner from what I usually use – Nexxus’ New York Salon Care Hydra-Light line – to their more moisture-intensive Therappe & Humectress shampoo and conditioner. My hair is still (still!) recuperating from the horrifyingly bad cut-and-dye job I had nearly a year ago, and still in need of products specifically geared towards restoration.
- When I get out of the shower, I spray Nexxus Humectress Luxe Lightweight Conditioning Mist all over my hair and brush it through for extra moisture.
- And then I put Split End Restoring Leave-In Creme on the ends to seal them and make them look less frizzy. This crème provides instant repair to split ends by binding and smoothing broken hair fibers.
- And then I apply Nourishing Hair Oil (the blend includes marula oil, which I’ve been using on my face for years) to my ends periodically throughout the day, including post-swim.
I know, that sounds like a lot of products. But I have never before been comfortable just letting my hair do its thing, and what I’ve discovered is that – as with most beauty-related routines – if I put a little extra time into making my hair healthy and shiny, I get to completely ignore it the rest of the time and still feel confident that it looks the way I want it to look. Which is exactly the way I like to operate.
This post was created in collaboration with Nexxus New York Salon Care. Pool photos by Sue Hudelson.
