Here’s our top 10 list of product application tips:

10. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, take notes, or full-on record a short video of your stylist applying the new products you’re about to try! If you’re nervous about your own abilities, try out your new products on a day that you don’t have plans so that if everything goes sideways you have the time to rinse it out and start again when it’s time for the real deal.

9. For pastes and pomades, use the top of your thumbnail to skid along the surface until you have a healthy moon sliver as a portion, you can always go back for more, but it makes it easier to see how much you are actually using vs scooping with your fingers.

8. For liquids and foams, try using the “Lid Rule”, as a starting point, and use the diameter of the lid as the amount of product you need to start off (unless your bottle is very small and concentrated, certain finishing creams and oils go more by a lil-drop will do you because they are small due to their concentration of ingredients)…. and don’t forget, that foam will expand once you’ve hit your target base-size!

7. Use hair spray in thin layers, you can always go back and do another coat, but this prevents the moisture in the spray from weighing (or wetting) down all of your hard work for sprays, try the “Bottle Rule” and however long your bottle is, hold the spray about that far away when applying it.

6. If it’s liquid or oil rub it around to coat your hands.

5. if it’s a paste rub it around in your hands to warm it up and make it pliable.

4. If it is a foam, gently pat it into both hands to preserve the teeny tiny air bubbles that help it spread into the hair.

3. Apply in sections, not just into the fringe and pulling back towards the crown (even though that’s what our arms kinda want us to do).

2. If it’s meant to condition, start at the ends and work your way up.

1. Anything for the scalp goes first (scalp treatments and volumizers), then your leave-ins and moisturizers, then oils or anti humectants, and then your finishing stylers (your texturizers or anything that makes a cast or needs to stay on the outside of hair). 

And, we just wouldn’t be us if we didn’t have just a little bit more to add (because, hey! “More is More!”), and even though we thought we could do a whole limit-the-list-to-just-ten-things thing, we have just a few more  handy tips that we think are cool are:

Put on your dry shampoo BEFORE you do something strenuous (or before bed) so that it can work preventatively, rather than reactively).

Apply SPF products to your hair right out of the shower and refresh as a part of your routine (many leave-ins and detanglers have SPF in them these days, not just for color retention but just for hair health!)

And… (iykyk)  BRUSH YOUR SCALP (!!!) to help increase blood flow and ensure that you’re not getting build-up.

Whew!

Did you learn some things? Did we mention that we’re total hair nerds?

Fox Den Salon: Lake Street offers *free* 15 minute product recommendations to help you get the custom support you need to do reach your hair goals,

AND offers one-on-one styling lessons to help you have all the skills you need

to ensure a good hair day, every day!