Ever find yourself wondering why your hair won't grow past a certain length, why your salon color turns brassy, or why you can never quite replicate your stylist’s magic at home? In this solo episode, Sarah breaks down the top five hair related questions she hears behind the chair and gives you clear, honest answers that will help you take better care of your hair between salon visits.

From understanding the science behind hair growth cycles to learning why professional hair products and services come with a higher price tag, Sarah offers practical insight, heartfelt guidance, and empowering information to help you feel more confident in your hair decisions.

Have a hair question you have always wanted answered? Reach out to Sarah on Instagram @lessonsfromyourhairstylist or leave a review with your topic request. 

Well, hello and welcome to the lessons from your hairstylist podcast. I'm your host and hairstylist friend, Sarah Cruz. So today we are diving into some of the big questions I often hear from clients in the salon. These questions come up repeatedly and I want to shed some light on them to give you some insight into what you may not have even thought to ask your stylist. So I hope this will help you to understand your hair care a little bit better and empower you to make informed decisions. So are you ready? Let's go.

First thing I want to talk about, this comes up all the time. Are professional products worth it? Is it really worth the investment? This is something I hear all the time and the answer is actually a resounding yes. To illustrate this, let's think about hair products in the same way that we think about cars.

can get you from point A to point B.

but the experience varies dramatically based on the make and the model. So for example, a basic economy car will get you to your destination, but it might lack comfort, advanced technology, refinement, those types of things. So you may have features like a radio and air conditioning, but you're really like missing out on the luxury aspects. Now, when we flip the script and we consider a luxury car,

It offers what a more smooth ride, adaptive cruise control, a premium sound system, heated and cooled seats, even autonomous driving capability sometimes like the sky's the limit. And the question really is, do these features really matter? Well, absolutely. mean, driving is not just about reaching your destination. It's really about the whole journey, the whole experience.

So this analogy actually perfectly applies to hair products. This is the way that I like to think about it. I mean, just like hair products, not all cars are created equally. You can go to the store and you can pick a product off the shelf, but when you invest in professional grade products, you're not just paying for the brand name or the expensive packaging, you're paying for the quality ingredients and the concentrated formulas. So,

For example, a drugstore shampoo often contains fillers, diluted ingredients that might provide temporary benefits, but ultimately could leave your hair feeling less than its best. Now in contrast, professional products are formulated with higher quality ingredients. So you'll have like natural oils, vitamins, proteins, all of those things that really nourish your hair. And these ingredients sometimes can be more expensive and more challenging to incorporate into the products.

And these are the things that are going to give you the very best results. So when you're choosing between a drug store and a professional grade product, you can kind of think of it like choosing between an economy car and a luxury car. The luxury car is like the professional product built with precision and care to provide the best experience. It has a higher concentration of active ingredients that work effectively without the unnecessary fillers.

And this means that you're actually getting more bang for your buck in terms of performance and results. Now investing in professional grade products may seem pricey at first, but when you experience the elevated performance, like in that luxury car situation, and you have the quality ingredients, lasting results, you'll understand why it's actually truly worth it. And if you've recently invested in a salon color treatment, it's

perfect to follow up with professional grade products that is really going to protect your investment. So maintaining the color vibrancy that you have spent all of this money on is really going to be important with your take home products.

So are professional grade products worth it? I guess it depends on what your priorities are, but I think that if you're going into the salon and you are spending the money on a high end hair color, it's gonna make sense for you to then also make the investment in keeping it looking better.

So that's the difference between professional grade and drugstore products. You get to decide. Number two, why won't my hair grow past a certain length? Now, let's address a question that many of us have pondered. If you've ever noticed that your hair would not grow past a certain length and you struggle to grow your hair despite using salon grade products and following your stylist's advice, the reason actually may lie in something called terminal length.

which is determined by your DNA. I know that it can be kind of frustrating and disappointing, but here's the thing. Our hair goes through three distinct phases. The growth phase, which is the antigen phase, the transitional phase, which is the catagen phase, and the resting phase, which is the telogen phase.

Now the antigen phase is where all of the magic happens. This is where your hair is actively growing. So depending on your genetics, this phase can actually last anywhere from two to seven years. The length of this phase is what determines how long your hair actually can grow. and this is something that's just basically baked into your genetics.

If your antigen phase is shorter, your hair may go into a replacement mode before it ever has a chance to grow longer.

Now during the catagen phase, which only lasts for a few weeks, the hair growth slows down, the hair follicle shrinks, and the hair strand detaches from the follicle, preparing to enter into the telogen phase. And then the telogen phase is the resting phase, and that lasts about three months. And then during this time, the hair doesn't grow at all. After this phase, the

begins all over again.

So understanding this cycle, it can be a little bit disappointing when you realize that there's not really a lot you can do about how long your hair will grow. And especially if you're someone who has a relatively short antigen phase.

For example, if you're like me and you find that maybe your bangs never grow or your hair always seems like it's layered,

it's always shorter on the

simply because the hair follicles in that area have a shorter growth phase, which kind of sucks sometimes. That's what I have going on and I think it's pretty common. I've seen it a lot.

Now, while there's not much you can do to change your genetic makeup, there are still effective strategies to optimize your hair health. Using professional products is good, of course. Minimizing heat exposure is also really good. You also want to avoid over-processing your hair, and that can help to ensure that your hair grows as long as possible without breaking off first, and that it remains as healthy as it can be. So you always want to talk to your stylist.

or somebody who truly understands about hair growth so that they can give you some tailored advice for your own specific situation. And then there's a lot of testing that you can get done as well, say through a dermatologist office or a trachologist. A trachologist is someone who studies hair loss

Just a short Google search and you'll be able to find a trichologist that can maybe help assess exactly what's going on with your hair if you feel like what your situation is is maybe not exactly normal or you feel like your hair is thinning or you have something else going on. But most of the time when your hair is not getting past a certain length, that's kind of has to do with your DNA. Unfortunately, we can take great care of it.

and take care of the hair that we have the best that we can so that it can make the most progress possible for us. But in the end, they haven't found anything that really extends that growth phase. But if they ever do, believe me, I'm gonna be the first one on that because I'm always looking for that research.

So I will let you know if any new developments come up on that because I got my eye on that.

Okay, next up, why does my hair always seem brassy?

Okay, let's discuss a common frustration and this is brassy hair. So if you have ever noticed that you seem to have unwanted yellow or orange tones after coloring, you're not alone. This brassiness often occurs when the underlying warm tones in your hair, such as yellow or orange, become prominent after coloring.

Several factors can contribute to brassiness. One significant factor is oxidation. Over time, exposure to air, sunlight, environmental pollutants can cause color-treated hair to oxidize, leading to a warmer and brassier appearance than many of us would want. Another culprit could be the quality of your water. In areas where the water is hard, such as where we are here in parts of Middle Tennessee,

The minerals in the water can react with the hair dye and strip away color, revealing those unwanted warm tones again. Hard water, which contains high levels of minerals like calcium and magnesium can be particularly harsh on your hair. So it's essential to understand that most people have an underlying warm tone in their hair already.

For example, if you're a brunette, your hair may have a naturally orangey undertone. When you color treat your hair or you chemically lighten it, that natural pigment is lifted to allow new color to show. However, this lifting process can also reveal those warm undertones, making brassiness more apparent over time. So to combat brassiness, of course, I know you've seen the purple and the blue shampoos in the salon or even on the drugstore shelves.

but the purple and the blue tones help to neutralize unwanted yellow and orange tones.

Also, regular deep conditioning treatments can help to keep your hair nourished, providing a better foundation for your color to adhere to. So it's very important again, to go back to those high quality ingredients in those salon or professional products to make sure that your hair is super nourished so that the color's got something to grab onto.

Professional products incorporate high quality ingredients and advanced technology to protect your hair from losing its tone and preventing the cuticle from opening up, which can lead to color fading. So for example, sulfate free shampoos are essential because sulfates can rough up the surface of the hair, allowing the tone to escape quicker and leaving you with that unwanted brassiness. if you want to maintain your beautiful hair color,

Investing in professional products is vital. They provide the benefits needed to preserve your hair's color and its health, ensuring that your investment in your hair shines through.

Number four, why can I not style my hair like my stylist? This is something I hear all the time. My clients say, Can you come home with me and style my hair? Why can't I style my hair like my stylist does?

First off, you have to understand that your stylist has years and years of experience under his or her belt.

you already knew that.

But one significant difference is their technique. Your stylist has styled hair day in and day out for years. They've honed their skills and they've developed techniques that work best for various hair types. They understand the nuances of their tools, their products, and the specific techniques that can make a world of difference in styling.

Also, when you're in the salon, your stylist has some leverage over you. They're standing above you, which allows them to achieve angles and styles that may be awkward for you to replicate at home. I when you're trying to hold your arms up and maneuver your tools, it can be difficult to get the same effect that a professional achieves more effortlessly when you're working below them. If you want to achieve similar results at home, you really want to communicate with your stylist.

They should be educating you anyway. They should be providing you options for styling

demonstrating the techniques. Ask for some detailed instructions on what tools they use, how to actually hold your hands, and which products are best for your hair type. The more you practice these techniques while in the salon, the more confident you're going to become in replicating them

Just remember that styling is a skill that takes some time to develop. If you're interested in it and you want to practice at it, then you'll be able to get better at it too.

And finally, number five, why is my hair color so expensive when I go to the salon? And this is a tough question. It can feel frustrating from a client's perspective. However, there are valid reasons behind the pricing structure. And depending on where you go and your salon, they all have different factors in place that go into their pricing.

Unfortunately, the cost of providing salon services, especially hair color, has increased significantly over the past few years. A considerable part of this increase is due to general inflation, which has affected the cost of goods and services, including salon products and labor costs. The price of high quality hair color products and supplies has risen, forcing salons to adjust their service prices accordingly.

Also, the profit margin in a salon is often razor thin.

Any salon at all really has to carefully balance the costs of overhead, including rent, utilities, payroll, all of those things against their pricing to stay afloat. And the reality is that many salons have had to increase their prices simply to cover the costs and to remain in business. Also, the techniques used to achieve modern hair color these days, such as balayages and complex lived in colors, they require special skills and a lot of time.

These services can take hours to complete and stylists invest in ongoing education to stay current with the latest trends and techniques. This level of expertise and the time spent on each client directly contributes to the price of the services.

Also, after the pandemic, salon color actually went up by 10 to 20 percent.

So while it might be easy to think that your salon is gouging you, you really do have to understand all of the complexities that go into providing high quality hair services. Most salons are not trying to gouge clients. They're genuinely striving to offer the best services possible while maintaining their business. It's all about staying afloat and being able to serve the customer. So for the most part, salons are doing their very best to keep costs down, but at the same time,

You just can't operate a business at a loss.

so this has been a really quick episode, but I wanted to go over the top five questions that I have heard over and over again. And I hope that they have informed you and shed some light on some of those things that you may have been thinking about yourself, but didn't want to ask your stylist.

I hope this episode has provided you with valuable insights into some of the most common questions I hear in the salon. Understanding the reasons behind professional products, hair growth, color maintenance, styling techniques, and pricing might empower you to make informed decisions about your hair care. And I hope that it helps. Thank you so much for joining me on the lessons from your hairstylist podcast today. If you have questions or topics you'd like me to cover in future episodes, feel free to reach out.

Until next time, take care of your hair and remember that investing in quality products and services is essential for maintaining its health and beauty. I'll see you on the next one.