All about: Getting easy, breezy summer hair

Summer is a great season for hair, a time when you can get away with beachy waves and lock your straighteners away for a few months. Unfortunately, it's also the season when hair can sustain the most damage, leading to faded out colour and split ends that get left to your stylist to sort out come autumn. Lest we forget the onslaught of oily roots, which leave one looking akin to having collided with ExxonMobil’s finest vessel.

Which brings me to one hair problem that is specific to the warmer months: combination hair. And yes, that is an actual thing. This is when you have oily roots and super dry mid-lengths and ends, and the longer the hair the more you have to deal with. A great addition to your hair prescription to help with this is Kérastase Bain Divalent, a daily balancing shampoo for combination hair, leaving the scalp and hair feeling clean and nourished, but also like it’s had a proper wash. It’s gentle too; unlike many other “detox” shampoos that smell medicinal and get your locks a little too squeaky clean. Use it only on roots then add in a nourishing conditioner like the same brand’s Nutritive Fondant Magistral for dry to severely dry hair on the mid lengths and ends.

Summer’s beachy waves are best achieved with sea salt spray, but steer clear of actual sea water, which whilst free, has high salt content and is thus osmotic, meaning it leaches moisture out of your hair. When ends start to split and your colour is rapidly fading, you’ll wish instead that you’d reached for Bumble & Bumble’s Surf Foam Spray Blow Dry from Mecca, which is perfect for those seeking sun-dried waves with a polished edge. It’s a foam-mousse hybrid to be used on damp hair before blow drying, and is ideal for fine-to-medium hair in need of some sea-swept volume with less grit than the brand’s traditional Surf Spray. 

For those that get excessively dry ends, keeping a nourishing hair oil in your bag at the beach or by the pool is a good idea post-swim, when if long, you can use it to pull your newly-slick hair into a braid. Morroccanoil and Davines OI/OIL are both rich options in portable form, and will keep things manageable until you can get to a shower. 

If your hair is regularly coloured and you want to keep it looking fresh over the summer, consider investing in a bottle of Kardashian-endorsed Olaplex Number 3 Hair Perfector. Apply to damp hair, comb through, and leave on for a minimum of 10 minutes before washing as normal. If you want to maximise the effect, leave it on overnight (as Kim K recommends) and reap the benefits.

Another summer essential is a good dry shampoo, especially if you have a fringe or hair that’s prone to oiliness around the face. Oribe’s Gold Lust is pricey but highly effective and smells amazing, and leaves zero telltale white residue. A pro tip is to apply a dusting of dry shampoo before you sweat – thus absorbing any oil before it has time to properly bed in and weigh down your ‘do.

Lastly, many haircare brands offer products containing sunscreen at this time of year, but the experts agree that a hat is always the best option as it will protect both your colour and your scalp.