5 Things a Hairstylist Would Never Do to Her Own Hair (And Begs You Not to Do Either)

I have been doing hair for almost 30 years. In that time I have seen a lot of things go wrong -- and most of them were avoidable. On a recent Beauty Lab Podcast episode, Monina and I each made a list of the things we would never do to ourselves as professionals, and why. Here is my hair list.

Never Perm Your Own Hair

Perms are one of the two most chemically damaging processes you can do to your hair. The timing has to be exact. The saturation has to be even. The wrapping has to be precise. The neutralizing step is critical. If any one of those elements is off, your hair will start to break down -- and in some cases it will literally begin to melt.

Trying to do this on yourself at home means you are managing all of those variables at once, on your own head, without a second set of hands. There is no scenario where that ends well. This is true even if you are already a professional. I would never do it to my own hair. Neither should you.

And if you have been coloring your hair or doing any other chemical process: please do not add a perm on top of that. The combination of compromised hair and perm chemicals is a serious problem waiting to happen.

Never Bleach Your Own Hair

Every few weeks there is a new video of a home bleach disaster making the rounds online. I have seen the real-life version of those disasters in my own salon chair, and I want to be very direct about this: do not bleach your own hair.

Bleaching is one of the most technically demanding processes in hair. Getting the formula consistency right, the saturation right, the timing right, and the result the client actually wants -- all of that requires training and experience. Even professionals find it challenging.

When it goes wrong at home, you are looking at one or more of the following: uneven color, breakage, having to cut off a significant amount of hair, scalp burns, or blisters. Yes, blisters. I have seen them with my own eyes. Bleach applied incorrectly can burn the scalp, and it hurts.

Best case scenario: you end up in a salon chair paying for a corrective service that costs more than a professional bleach appointment would have in the first place. You saved nothing. You gained a problem. Just book the appointment.

Never Cut Your Own Bangs or Layers From Scratch

I want to be clear about what I am and am not saying here. If you already have bangs that I cut, and you want to trim a little bit between appointments because they are getting in your eyes, I encourage that with guidance. What I am talking about is starting from scratch and cutting your own bangs or your own layers from a YouTube tutorial.

The rubber band techniques, the triangle partings, the pull-it-straight-up-and-cut-across methods -- they look logical. I understand geometry. I understand angles. I have done this for almost 30 years. And I am telling you it does not translate to doing it on your own head the way it looks on a mannequin or in a tutorial.

Everybody's hairline is different. Everybody's hair texture and density behaves differently. The partings are not as simple as they look. And the scissors matter enormously -- kitchen scissors or kids' school scissors bend the hair rather than cutting it cleanly, which leads to an uneven ragged result even if your partings were perfect.

When this goes wrong, you will be coming in to see someone to fix it. That fix costs more than a regular haircut because it takes longer. You did not save time or money. You just made more work for everyone.

Never Train Your Scalp

If you have an oily scalp and someone on the internet told you to stop washing your hair as often so your scalp stops producing as much oil -- please stop doing that.

This advice is based on a flawed theory that washing strips the oils off your scalp and that reducing washing will reduce oil production. That is not how your scalp works. Unlike the skin on your face, your scalp has a very different kind of follicle and oil gland, and the factors driving oil production are largely hormonal and not responsive to washing frequency.

The actual driver of excess scalp oil is often DHT -- a byproduct of free testosterone that comes up through the oil glands and signals them to produce more oil and the follicle to shrink. Washing your hair less does not reduce DHT. It just leaves the DHT sitting on your scalp longer, which can actually accelerate follicle miniaturization.

We have a full episode on DHT linked in the show notes. If scalp oiliness is something you deal with, I strongly encourage you to listen to it. The answer is not fewer washes.

Never Regularly Put Your Hair Up Wet

This one is subtle and a lot of people do not know it is a problem until they start to experience symptoms.

When you shower in the morning, do not have time to dry your hair, and put it up in a ponytail or bun for most of the day on a regular basis -- you are keeping your scalp wet for extended periods of time. Damp hair and scalp is a feeding ground for malassezia, a fungus that naturally lives on your scalp but causes no problems when conditions are normal.

When you feed malassezia -- with oils, with moisture, with a warm wet environment -- it grows. And when it grows visibly, it looks exactly like dandruff. But it is not dandruff. The fix is not dandruff shampoo. The fix is stopping the behavior that is feeding the fungus.

The same applies to going to bed with wet hair regularly. Once in a while, life happens and it is fine. As a consistent routine, it is a problem.

If you must shower in the morning and your hair is too thick to dry quickly, something in your routine needs to shift -- whether that is wash timing, dry shampoo strategy, or getting up a few minutes earlier. Your scalp health is worth the adjustment.