BEAUTY

Move Over, Beachy Waves: It’s All About Shine This Season

Get your gloss back

A quick glance at recent runways and red carpets makes it immediately clear: highly textured, tousled hair is out; sleek, shiny strands are in. Think Bella Hadid’s perpetually polished locks, Margot Robbie’s glossy blonde bob and the poker-straight centre part favoured by Olivia Palermo at Paris Fashion Week.

“Shiny, healthy, beautiful hair is a huge trend for 2018,” confirms stylist to the stars and Dyson Supersonic™ hair dryer ambassador Renya Xydis. “Shiny hair looks expensive, touchable and timeless.” 

Shine is also the key to the trending hairstyles of the moment, from increasingly popular French-style bobs and curtain fringes to the glossy waves worn by the likes of Victoria Beckham and Jenna Coleman. 

But after seasons of matte texture, you’d be forgiven for forgetting how to get your gloss back. Whether you like to wear your hair out, tucked into a neat ponytail or slicked back into a low chignon, shine is essential; read on for how to master the look yourself.

olivia palermo hair
(Credit: Getty)

1/ Avoid extreme heat damage

Keeping your hair as shiny as possible is as simple as not overheating it, says Xydis. Sadly, this is easier said than done, with many conventional hair dryers capable of reaching extreme temperatures, resulting in extreme heat damage. The result? Hair that’s dull, rough, brittle and prone to breakage – the very opposite of the shiny, healthy look we want to achieve. 

Enter: the Dyson Supersonic™ hair dryer, which has been designed to protect against extreme heat damage and protect hair’s natural shine. Dyson spent an impressive four years studying the science of hair, harnessing the brain power of 103 engineers to create this first-of-its-kind hair dryer with an intelligent heat control system. Thanks to a glass bead thermistor that measures the hair dryer’s exit flow temperature 20 times per second (yes, really), it ensures it never reaches above  150°C to better protect the hair. 

Case in point: the Dyson Supersonic™ hair dryer is used by Xydis on celebrity clients including Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts and Cate Blanchett. In other words, three women with some of the shiniest heads of hair in Hollywood right now.

2/ Boost your brushing

Smoother hair equals shinier hair, so the right brush (in terms of both tool and technique) is also essential. “For perfectly shiny, healthy and untangled hair, you need to brush your hair twice a day, once in the morning and once before going to bed, for about a minute each time,” guides Xydis. “Don’t be rough with your hair: treat it nicely and it will repay you by looking healthy and shiny.”

Xydis recommends detangling wet hair with a wide-tooth comb, not a brush, as it is more susceptible to breakage when wet. “At home, I have a round brush for blow-drying, a Janeke round brush for styling and a tail comb to move hair around a little,” she adds.

3/ Use the right products

Having the right products in your kit can drastically improve your style’s finished result – although it is worth noting that while treatment products and serums can repair the signs of damage, they can’t reverse the underlying damage itself. The take-home? Prevention is better than the cure (see point one above). 

With that in mind, keep a shine spray handy to spritz on post-blow-dry, and brush a small amount of hair oil (we like Wella SP Luxe Oil Reconstructive Elixir and MoroccanOil Original Treatment) through the mid-lengths to ends to give them more gloss.  

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