Healthy hair night time rituals.

So let's talk about hairstyles for sleeping time, which are not the same as daytime or heatless styling rituals, actually, they have completely the opposite needs.

Your nighttime hairstyle is for the protection of many issues of "the beauty battle".

Hair is one of the biggest beauty battles in the industry, eventually, I don't care how good your hair is at the moment you read this, you will find yourself fighting for it.

I am living it myself, and thought the years of researching and asking the right questions to specialist, doctors, and too many people I met that spends a good amount of money on this topic, hairstylists, models, and actors whose hair is so important for their looks and obviously directly affects their careers.

Actresses in Latinoamérica are known for beautiful hair, which is part of our culture, and I learned being surrounded by all of them, and the beauty department in charge of them, that, everybody, fights for beauty, and health, maintenance, and eventually, loss of hair.

This is a universal problem.

The solution is to attack the problem even before it starts. On my journey to fight face aging, a botox doctor told me "the key" but also gave me the principle of the worst part of aging, it all connected to me at that moment, I was 34 and at that moment I was not loosing my hair, I knew it was coming, from all the years I heard about the actresses to keep their amazing beautiful hair.

THE PILLOW IS YOUR WORST ENEMY.

Yes, it is overnight time that the biggest fight for healthy hair is done.

This doctor lectured me about the fact that no matter how much botox and facials I do regularly to keep my face young and tight, when I go to sleep I rub it on the pillow, creating wrinkles for 8 hours every day.

And then boom! I was like, “omg, yes, I do sleep on my belly overnight, I have since I was a kid, and I wake up with my face very buried on the pillow”…” would that be also the reason why I am losing my frontal baby hairs?”…

That opened a whole new approach to my sleeping habits, which until this day I am fighting, they take a whole life to achieve! That is why you have to start now! And that is if you even achieve them.

It is been a big fight trying to change my sleeping patterns, it has been one of the hardest battles for me. It is not just about protecting your hair, overall beauty also comes from a good night's rest and sleep.

She quoted Cleopatra, and that if I was so interested in beauty I had to check the information found in books about how she used to keep her beauty, and surprisingly she quoted her sleeping pattern, which, far from being an expensive tool that a queen/goddess like her could afford or obtain, it was more like, learn about the easy natural secrets that have existed for centuries and centuries.

She use to sleep completely flat on her back with both hands covering her chest, like a mummy, face up. If you are really into the "beauty journey", read and research about Cleopatra, as this is just one of the numerous beauty secrets.

And after a few weeks of analyzing my waking up patterns, I realized how much this made sense, and I noticed for the first that I was fucking up my hairline and, for the first time, I realized that there was hair in my pillow, I became aware of a problem, that I was creating. And maybe it is not your scenario, but now you are aware of it, on what dermatologists, hairs specialists, and facial aestheticians will call, their worst enemy, or their #1 client creator haha.

The pillow.

So I will go back on this same example for the face chapter, for now, let's continue with hair benefits, problems, and nighttime care.

Protecting your frontal hair (baby hair) and back hair (the one that holds the longest part of your hair) from the pillow, is essential over the years. Your head will touch the pillow 8 hours a day x 7 days a week x 52 weeks a year. In total your head will spend 2, 688 hours rubbing against the pillow, per year! Don’t you think is important to take care of this time, in the best way possible?

I know for most of us, changing our sleeping habits will be hard, I had fought with this for years, and during the first few years, I had really bad sleep sessions trying to force myself to sleep on my back. I have tried all kinds of hacks and hair do’s that match them, at the same time, the end goal is that I have to take care of my hair and the ends are the most important part. Until today, I still wake up on my belly, face down on the pillow and right on top of my ends, which I have crushed and now they look like this.

Image.

The idea is to avoid this at all costs. All of them. The position, the face in the pillow, and the ends breaking, please, take into consideration that as your hair grows you might have to change a hard o that worked better with short hair.

That is why, after trying, up buns, French braids, corn braids, ponytails, side buns, etc. and I stuck with side regular braids, I just part my hair in 2 and start braiding from the back of my hair, not the top, this has worked perfectly to help protect my frontal baby hairs, the back of my hair that holds the length of my hair, and it is the one that, if I braid until the very bottom of my hair, protect the better my ends from the weight of my own body in case I move and land on top of it. This has also, helped my hair grow, naturally curly and it had become easy to heatless style due to this daily routine. When I wake up, it does not look so messy, so for the ones that have a partner to look good for, this is not a terrible wake-up look, you can actually let your hair loose as soon as you are up and pretty much it would be under control and style. If you wash your hair and let it dry completely, use mousse for styling, and then get your overnight braids on, you could use this nighttime ritual as your everyday hairdo.

It is up to you but this daily routine is a must to add to your everyday calendar.

You can try any hairdo you find comfortable and that gets the job done, maybe your experience would be different than mine, it is up to you and your kind of hair, also your braiding skill will become useful in this beauty fight.

Why did I not like it?...

Top buns. I don't care how fine and little hair you have, top buns are only good for a little while, like when you're working out when you're sleeping all the weight of your hair is holding from the top part of your head, which in time, will provoke loosing hair and weakness of those frontal roots, that are a priority to protect along your lifetime.

Side buns, get on the way when you're trying to move as you sleep.

Corn braids and French braids, curl my hair from the top and I do not like that kind of tight curl when I lose them up, so it did not work for a heatless hairdo, this kind of braids require a little more time, if you do not braid very well the top part where your hair might be having short hair areas, those loose little hairs will end up loose and rubbing against the pillow, that will result in breakage, weakens of roots and eventually, losing those hairs.

Those hair do's are great to protect your hair and keep away from your face for sports, beach days, adventure days, days that you are running late, etc but I would definitely not recommend them during sleeping time. Now, if you are a relaxed sleeper and you mostly don't move, lucky you, any hairdo that will style your hair for the next day, will work.

Let’s recap, any hairdo you try for overnight ritual must...

Take care of your frontal hair.

Protect your ends

And protect the back part of your head where the length of your hair is held.

This is not about growing your hair, which will be useful too, it is about protecting you from creating bad sleeping habits, that over the years worsen the fight we all have against hair loss. And even with this, one day, the fight will come for you to keep your healthy beautiful hair.

Having a healthy daily nighttime ritual will battle this fight even before it begins and delay the “fight” that we all as humans will eventually have to face with aging.

Now, if you have short hair (or you are a man), be aware of the topic I am bringing up, it is not just about the hair, it is about the sleeping position and being aware that, with all the hours that we pass on top of a pillow, make it our worse enemy against hair loss battle.

Change your sleeping patterns, and believe me, the. I say this, it is not beautiful how you look and feel on the days you are trying your hardest to change your sleep. It is challenging. In my experience, it changed my everyday behavior, as I wasn’t sleeping well, eventually it caused migraines and lack of energy as all I wanted to do was sleep.

The bad took me to the good eventually, funny enough, this pushed me to start taking naps. I was so tired that I would just lay on the bed or couch and in the same position I slew I woke up, and eventually, it started happening more and more as I sleep in the nighttime. I would notice that I did not move since I fall asleep until I woke up to use the restroom for example and slowly, I am getting there to my end goal. Finding 2 big body pillows that I set on my sides had been a great hack, tough if you have a partner or cats like they might not it=ke this solution so much if they like to cuddle with you.

Being single is the best time to make changes to your beauty routines. Take note of that. During this process, my mood swings were so up and down I am grateful nobody was there to be a part of it.

Noticing that little progress with my nap times, made me be aware of several other points,

When you are exhausted you have no problems with insomnia or hard to fall asleep. So I started working out at night to make sure I could fall asleep laying on my back as soon as I hit the bed, and it worked. Double gain as it forced me to go to the gym and use the last 5% of energy gas on my tank every day 5 to 6 days a week. I probably never looked better, I was sleeping great, my hair was styled every morning and I had a killer body after 2 months of this daily routine.

Now, my hair loss battle is starting to get harder, I am grateful I already passed the hardest part, which is changing such a difficult habit. You are not conscious, and that makes it harder! Start now, do not take this advice for granted beaches you're not losing your hair yet. If you're a man of shott hair, be aware of the pillow and your sleeping positions.

Hair loss will come to you over your lifetime with...

Stress.

Sickness.

Aging.

Hormonal changes and for some of your pregnancy.

Bad hair products.

Lack of hair products.

Too much or the use of the wrong hair products.

Bad eating habits or lack of the right vitamins.

Use this nighttime routine hack to prepare for one of the toughest beauty battles you will ever have, and start being aware of one of the worst beauty enemies we have… the pillow!

With love,

Jay Rodriguez

The Beauty Designer