How to: DIY Your Salon Blowout at Home

How to: DIY Your Salon Blowout at Home

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diy salon blowout

Lattes, spa pedicures, and perfect blowouts: they all top the list of those elusive things we can never quite master as well as the pros. After wrestling with our blow dryer—limbs tangled in cords, elbows twisted, brows furrowed—for far too long, we decided we need to knock one of those wonders off the list and figure out how to dry our hair like the hairstylists do. To guide us on our journey, we caught up with Natasha Sunshine-Antonioni, Byuti Salon Founder and Pureology Ambassador, for her expert advice on the perfect blowout.

How To: The Perfect Blowout 1. Prime and Prep

It a step you might not have heard before, but the perfect blowout starts by spraying your hair before styling. “A primer sets your hair up to receive the benefits from your styling product. If you think of a painter and their canvas, they always prime their canvas before applying the paint to get the best results. Spray a product such as Pureology Colour Fanatic Multi-Tasking Hair Beautifier from the mid shaft to the ends of the hair—just a light mist,” Antonioni recommends. Next, “choose a product that’s appropriate for the look you’re going for. If you’re going for a sleek style, you want to use something that’s a bit creamier or shinier,” Antonioni says. If you want a more voluminous style use a volume spray or mousse at your roots.

2. Pre-Dry

“I am definitely a believer in the fastest way to get the best results, so start by pre-drying the hair with your blow dryer. Use your hand to stretch your hair and pull on it while you’re blowing with the tip of your blow dryer pointed down. If you have curly hair you want to use a lot of tension and really stretch your hair, if you have finer hair, you just move the blow dryer back and forth and do it hands free. Do that until the hair is about eighty to ninety percent dry before you pick up a brush,” Antonioni advises.

3. Section

“Next, make your part where you want it, and section from ear to ear—one section on the left, one on the right, and then the remaining back of the head you want to put into four different sections,” she says.

4. Choose the Right Brush

Now it’s time to get down to business with the right tools. Antonioni likes to use a round bristle brush and says, “the bigger the brush, the straighter the hair. The smaller the brush, the tighter the curls, so choose according to the result you’re going for.”

5. Dry Like a Pro

When it comes time to dry, keep these expert tips in mind.

Start from the Front: “Start in the front of your hair. Especially if you have fine hair, and you start in the back, by the time you get to the front it’s pretty much dry, and you’ve set your hair up to be flat,” Antonioni recommends.

Focus on Your Ends: “A lot of times people will spend all this time and energy by going from the root to the tips of the hair, but for a beautiful, polished blowdry you really just need to focus on the ends of the hair. Place your brush from the mid shaft to the end, and then once it’s in there, the tension of that will smooth out that root at the same time.

Roll Inwards: If you want a smoother blowdry with polished ends, roll your hair in towards the face, wrapping your hair around your brush.  A lot of times I see women drying their hair and they’re using a round brush, but the hair is not wrapping around the brush so the ends look frizzy.

Bring the Back Forward:  When you’re drying the back of the hair, it seems like everybody’s always killing themselves with their elbows up in the air, sweating, but if you actually just take your hair from the back and pull it around to the front, and you blow dry it in front of the face it will expend a lot less energy and you’ll get a better polish to the ends. You won’t believe how much easier it is,” Antonioni says.

6. Finish

Once your salon-worthy blowout is done, Antonioni recommends setting your style with a light mist of flexible hairspray.

7. Make it Last

So you’ve mastered the perfect blowout but a couple of days later it’s suddenly a greasy, deflated mess. Enter dry shampoo. Antonioni recommends Pureology Fresh Approach Dry Shampoo and Dry Condition. “Make a horse shoe shape parting on the top of your head from temple to temple, and start at your part, taking one inch sections and spray it right in at the root, about six inches away from the hair. Next, vigorously brush it through your hair,” she advises.

Curious about how a dry conditioner varies from dry shampoo? “The Pureology Dry Condition is really awesome for fine hair because it’s a weightless shine product. If your ends look a little dry, but you don’t want to layer a serum because it’s too heavy, the Dry Condition is wonderful because it leaves you with light freshness. Start from the mid shaft to the ends and spray vigorously, then brush through,” she advises. Wondering if you can use both products at once? Yes—according to Antonioni—as long you brush the products thoroughly between applications and concentrate the conditioner on your ends and shampoo at the roots.

We don’t know about you, but we feel fully ready to take on that blow dryer. Do you have any hair dilemmas for our experts to tackle? Leave them below in the comments!

Photo: Thinkstock

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