Beauty Hair-Care Tips

How To Style 3 Different Hair Types (While Reducing Heat Damage), According to the Experts

Well+Good Editors

February 18, 2021

It's a dilemma you're faced with every hair-washing day: to heat style or not to heat style? Whether your method of choice is blow drying, straightening, curling, or all three, you know blasting your hair with heat isn't the best thing for your strands. But what are you supposed to do when air drying just doesn't have the same effect? Is healthy heat styling even possible?

The answer is yes, sort of—it just takes the right tools. On our most recent episode of Dear Derm, board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara, MD, teamed up with Matthew Collins, celebrity hairstylist and ambassador for Dyson (the experts in hair health and hair-care innovation, nbd), to answer three women's most pressing hair-health questions and to share tips on how to style their hair while preventing extreme heat damage.

Each woman has a different hair type, but the one concern they all have in common? Hair damage, and how to reduce it. "There are two main factors that really damage your hair: mechanical damage, so overuse of hot tools and extreme heat, and [...] chemical damage, so a large amount of bleaching, dying, or changing our hair too frequently." *Feels a little too seen.*

"Wear your hair however you want to wear your hair, but just use the right heat devices," Dr. Gohara says.

For example, Kara Jillian Brown, who has 4c hair—the tightest curl pattern of all curly hair types—struggles the most with the overuse of heat. She usually styles her hair in twists for her everyday look, but when the summer arrives she opts for curls, and then switches to straight locks for winter. And, every look starts off with a blow-out.

Experts In This Article

Mona Gohara, MD, board-certified dermatologist at Dermatology Physicians of Connecticut and associate clinical professor in dermatology at Yale School of Medicine

"I do not have a hairstyle that does not involve heat," Brown says. "So, if y’all could let me know how I can maintain my love affair with heat styling, but also still make sure my hair and scalp are getting the care, attention, and moisture they need, that would be lovely." (Retweet.)

"Wear your hair however you want to wear your hair, but just use the right heat devices," Dr. Gohara says. "One of my absolute favorites is the Dyson Supersonic™ [hair dryer with the diffuser attachment], because not only is it minimizing the amount of heat that’s coming in contact with your skin and your hair, but it also disperses the air evenly so it can really come super close to mimicking your exact curl."

Because it's engineered to disperse air evenly around your curls, the diffuser attachment simulates natural drying, which helps to reduce frizz and define curls and waves. So, you can blow dry your 'do and have your hair health, too.

Eager to hear the rest of these (all-too-relatable) hair-care stories and expert-backed answers on heat styling with less damage? You'll have to watch the video for that—plus, snag some celeb hairstylist-approved hacks to try for yourself.

Tune into the video above for more expert advice on heat styling with less hair damage.