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How to Achieve the Perfect Blowout at Home

The perfect blowout starts in the shower. You need to use a professional shampoo that has very little or no sulfates in it, you do not want the cuticle of the hair to become roughed up. When you are trying to achieve a smooth look you want the hair to be smooth from beginning to end. So you are going to need a few things to achieve this.

1. Sulfate free shampoo and conditioner. I would recommend either Deva Curl or Elucence Moisture Benefits, both are my favorites. Don't let the marketing of Deva Curl deter you for using it to achieve a straight style. Although Deva Curl was formulated and marketed for curly hair styles. It is fantastic to achieve a smooth look due to the lack of any sulfates at all. It is a no lather product and it is amazing.



2. Smoothing product. My favorite products are Paul Mitchel Skinny Serum and Semi Di Lino Cristali Liquidi. Before you apply the product to your wet hair. Take a towel and remove as much as the excess water as you can. It is better to spend as little time as you have to with the heat on your hair. After you have towel dried thourouly, apply the product to you hands and rub together. Then distribute the product root to ends of your hair. Try not to just rub it into the hair, I use a technique I call "tickling". Turn your head upside down and lightly draw your hands through and over the hair. The weight of the hair will pull the product off your hands. When it is almost gone then you can go ahead and apply the rest the hair.

3. An ionic tourmaline blow dryer with a nozzel on the end of it. It drys the hair fast and prevents frizz. You can make do with the dryer you have as long as it has the nozzel on the end of it. This is important because you do not want to rough up the cuticle of the hair when you are round brushing. But before we pick up the clips and brush you are going to tip your head upside down and dry your hair until it is about 80% dry. It doesn't sound very pleasant but I always say "blast" dry. If the hair isn't all the way dry it doesn't matter if you spend 30 minutes or 7 minutes with the round brush in your hand. And believe me, you want to spend 7 min and this is the best way.

4. Round brush that is ceramic. You want to use a ceramic hair brush for a smooth look. The heat from the dryer is going to heat up the ceramic the brush is made of. As you pull the brush through the hair the heat from the ceramic is going to smooth the cuticle of the hair and make it shiny so there is very little fuzzy stuff. You want to choose your brush size depending on the finished look you want to achieve. If you want the hair to have a soft sexy wave at the ends then you want to use a 2.5 to 3 inch brush. And if you want a very stright look you want to use the biggest barrel you can find, a 4 or 5 inch.

5. Clips. So you have your hair 80% dry and it is looking like you just got out of bed. Don't fret...in just a few minutes you are going to have a professional looking blow out that you achieved all by yourself. Section the hair into 4 sections. Start at the crown of the head, top of the head. Make a halo part and clip the hair. Next, slide your index fingers right above your temples and meet in the back of your head, clip up the section. Next slide your fingers near your ear lobes around to the back of the head and clip up. Leave the fourth section down. This is where you are going to start.


6. Finishing product and hair spray.  Don't go crazy with spray wax. I could be your best friend or your worst enemy. You only need a tiny bit. When it comes out of the nozzle and lands on the hair let it set up for about 10 seconds before you start smoothing any flyways. If you use too much you will end up back in the shower for another shampoo, yes I am serious. I love Masterpiece hair spray. It has a strong flexible hold, has some shine properties to it and smells fantastic. 

Secrets of a blow out.

Take your first section at the back of the head. Place the brush under the hair near your scalp. Start to turn the brush so the hair gets imbedded into the bristles as you pull it down the hair shaft. Be sure when you are pointing the blow dryer near the hair that the nozzle is pointing down the hair not at the hair. You are controlling the air flow coming out of the dryer not the dryer. And never touch your hair with a blow dryer especially if you do not have a nozzle on your dryer. You will end up with a head full of frizzled hair. You should be able to dry the section you left down in 2 or 3 brush sections. 

Drop the next section. Work from left to right or right to left. You want to have a method to the madness. If you are going for the super straight look never let the hair wrap all the way around the brush. Pull the brush through the hair while turning the brush to pull the hair against the ceramic and have a good follow through all the way to ends and off the hair.

Drop your next section. If you are going for a soft sext curl at the ends of your hair. When you get near the end of the hair shaft. Pull and turn the brush so the hair is clinging to the brush, pull close to ends of the hair and then stop. Turn and roll the brush like you would wrap a curl around a curling iron. Let the heat from the dryer heat up the brush and the hair. Remove the heat from the hair, count to 15 so the hair can cool off some and then remove the brush. You should have a nice soft wave. If you want to cool the hair off super fast. You can turn your blow dryer around and touch the brush with the air return end of the dryer, this will suck the heat right out of the hair.

Finish off your top section, add a tiny bit of spray wax and finishing spray and Voilà, a perfect blowout!