Hair-Care Secrets from a Long-Hair Lover

Hair-Care Secrets from a Long-Hair Lover

Check any shopping mall and you’ll see identical long manes on moms and their college-bound daughters. And whether you like it or not, most men do prefer long-ish hair (just ask any dating service counselor).

Spurred on by glamorous celebs in their 40s, 50s, and 60s like Demi Moore, Christie Brinkley, and Goldie Hawn, we’re actually growing our hair at the age we used to think about cutting it. I know from years of working on shoots in studio that even stars and ex-supermodels deal with age-related thinning, dryness, and damage from color, highlights, blow-dryers, and flat-irons. Extensions (a well-kept secret of many) are really expensive and annoyingly difficult to maintain (plus can you imagine a man running his hands through your hair and coming away with what looks like a pelt?).

Like us, they’re always looking for repair products and solutions to keep the scissors at bay. These three and the changes they encourage will improve the quality of your hair. Grab them in multiples before your friends snap them up — they’re that good.

1. Shampoo less frequently and use a dry shampoo like Ojon Rub-Out Dry Cleanser ($29 at sephora.com) to freshen your scalp and hair, plus add lots of volume between washes. It doubles the look of your hair better than any thickening spray and eliminates the stress of daily heat-styling. This is now my all-around favorite styling product.

2. Rene Furterer Vitalfan ($36 for 60 capsules, beauty.com, drugstore.com) I know, I know, dermatologists pooh-pooh vitamin supplements for thin hair as useless. So why are top hairdressers passing boxes of these along to their clients? Frankly, I didn’t believe it either but after three months of swallowing two capsules with my A.M. smoothie, my breakage stopped and my wimpy fine hair is growing thick as Malibu Barbie’s.

3. Terax Cream ($ 22 at sephora.com) This cult treatment is the one models count on after the trauma of Fashion Week’s runway shows. Apply it lavishly once a week to towel-blotted, freshly washed hair. Wrap your head in a Saran Wrap turban and let it “cook” 30 minutes or more to heal, mend splits, calm frizz and make color-treated locks feel like hair again.