Hair Care Tips for Men, By Men

So I got tired of seeing only women's videos for how to take care of long hair, so I decided to make a hair video series for men, a men's video for caring for long hair.

So these are some of my hair care tips for men—of course women can watch these videos too, but there are a plethora of women's videos out there.

A lot of the info is what you will find elsewhere, but for me I find it helps to not feel this negative stigma of having to watch a female video to learn to care for your hair—makes one somehow feel like less of a MAN.

Our culture has somehow taken a 180, and deemed it unfit for REAL men to have long hair—when the past 30 years seemed to embrace it—long hair should be celebrated—whether you do it for mental reasons, personal reasons, spiritual reasons, or you just plain like it.

All you really should do though is make sure it doesn't look like crap—nobody likes a guy in long stringy greasy hair. The haircare tips for men are just the same for women, and I find it bizarre that men are supposed to not care about their hair in order to appear more masculine—regardless you have to care for your hair—it's a big investment, and can take a lot of time out of your day, but IMO it is worth it.

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I have had several long hair styles—from long and straight, wavy, curly, layered, puffed up rocker, giant mane, you name it! I will showcase eventually how to achieve all the different styles—hair is one thing you can really have fun with, and it's something that is not permanent, so it's not something you have to live with forever.

Fun fact: if one never cuts their hair it will grow a max of two meters in their lifetime on average and stop. However if they keep cutting it it can grow an average of 10 meters in a lifetime, because the function of the hair is to protect your scalp from harmful rays, so it grows fastest when it is short to try to protect your scalp as soon as possible—who knew!

So let's dive into the video—this video is for long curly hair, but can work on any style:

The hair style I have in the video was my hair when it was all one uniform length and just naturally curly. This is the baseline of how I generally kept my hair (it is since layered) in the wintertime as it was just too much hassle to do as my apartment is cold in the winter.

So step 1: Wash your hair

Yes I know very witty—first you must have clean hair. I use shampoos that have argon oil in them.

I use warmish hot water to wash it as this opens up the pores. I then run it under the tap, starting off warm, and then slowly increasing the coldness to cold, so that the pores close up after, running my fingers through all the hair until all the loose hair is out, and the hair bunches together in snakey little tendrils. Then I pat it dry after squeezing as much water out of them as I can.

Step 2: brush and then comb your hair

For this stage I use a soft boar bristle brush in a wooden base —do NOT use a plastic base and do not use a hard boar bristle brush or you will wreck your hair. Gently brush all your hair out until the curls are brushed out, and its straight and slowly starting to curl back.

Then take the wide teeth side of the comb, and comb it through. When you find a knot, slowly ease it out with your fingers by pulling the strands out strand by strand to release the knot. If you have to break the final knotted strand so be it, but do not yank as this is how you break and fray your hair.

Then take the fine teeth side of the comb and comb it through. You can add more argon oil creme at this point—sometimes I run it along the teeth of the comb, and then run it through my hair so it coats it evenly—other times I just put some in my hands with a bit of water, rub them together and then run it through with my fingers. The goal is for you to be able to get your comb through all of your hair on the finest settings, as tangled curly hair only gets worse as time goes on. This is your most vital step.

Step 3: style your hair

Once it's all combed out, you have to consider HOW you want your hair style to rest. In this case I simply combed my hair tight to my head on one side and twisted it on the other side. When you are twisting it, you want to make sure that all rough strands are smoothed out—you can add a bit more argon oil when you do this. Eventually it should feel smooth and look shiny by the time you are done—with few flyaways if any of your hair is healthy and uniform with minimal breaks.

How your hair dries will determine what shape it keeps for days on end. My hair is pretty light and low on the greasy side, so I only have to wash it one to two times a week.

DO NOT OVERWASH IT—for one you will build up chemicals in your scalp which is not good—if you do this be sure to reset your scalp and hair by washing in pure white vinegar—not apple cider vinegar—this will make you smell like a chip wagon for about an hour, but the smell dissipates and it strips off all the buildup.

For another, you will strip all the natural oils and sebum that the hair naturally produces. The reason why peoples' hair looks greasy at the scalp and dry at the ends is because they don't distribute the sebum all along the hair. In victorian times the 100 brush a day method was used—in which they used soft boar bristle brushes, and from the scalp, combed all the way to the tips. This distributed the sebum evenly. This will result in a bit of a frizzy look at first—but just apply some water and oil, and everything will go back to normal. Let your body do its natural job.

Step 4: Dry your hair

Now for the important part—drying your hair.

You can do this one of two ways—if your hair is twisted, you can simply let it dry—this will override your natural curls if you do it this way, but will give you curls that look more uniform. I have more S-shaped curls, so it overrides mine to look more bouncy and lazy spiral.

You can also simply shake it out and let it dry how it would naturally go. This will allow you to have more natural curls that will clump together nicely.

You can also blow dry or flatiron it dry—you have to be very conscientious however that the tips will dry faster than the roots, and that the heat source close to your scalp will give your skin a heat rash over time—little red bumps. Also flat ironing your hair too much can make it brittle and break—leaving you with short hairs sticking up near the forehead. Do this sparingly!

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The key is to keep your hair hydrated as you dry—you don't want to dry your hair so much it looks like a doll's hair. I tend to, for this style, use a combination of warm air and cold air—cold air can dry, because it sucks the moisture out of the air, and is actually better for your hair, as it gives it a shine as well.

Then once your hair is dry, simply shake it back and forth—back forth back forth back forth to the left and right, and then see where it falls. This will represent how your hair naturally sits on your head. Everyone's is slightly different depending on the crowns on their head, and how their hair grows out of their head.

Then simply run your fingers through your hair, add any spray or styling product you might want to for moisture and hold, and away you go!

The best results will be if you immediately sleep on it—if you want to keep it straighter tie it up, otherwise just sleep on it—some of your natural oils will seep back into the tips of the hair, resulting in a more natural look.

So yeah, if you like these videos, let me know what else you would like to see or hear from me! :)

Click the video to learn more :)

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