Hi, Sars —

Here’s a technique, not a product — I have the same problem and my hairstylist helped me as follows:

Get a strong hairdryer of good quality that also has one of those attachments that narrows the airflow at the tip.Set the hairdryer as hot as it’ll go and dry the hair (using a large roundbrush) from the top of the head down, pointing the airflow towards the floor, not upwards.The high heat helps seal the surface of each hair strand quickly, vastly reducing frizziness.(If you blow the hair upwards, it blasts the outside of the hair out like a Christmas tree.)Also, dry it until bone dry.Leaving it any kind of damp completely defeats the purpose as it will immediately begin to frizz.

As far as products go, I use Maksou Relax before drying and it’s a miracle product.Smooths the surface without leaving a lot of product film on the hair.

Hope this helps —
Bad hair days are getting better

Dear Better,

Thanks!

As predicted, I got a handful of letters all “you really shouldn’t wash every day WAIT I KNOW BUT SERIOUSLY HEY WHERE’RE YOU GOING” — and it’s not that I don’t respect the reasoning, and it’s not that my man Roger at Le Cachet hasn’t told me the same thing, and it’s not that I haven’t tried it.I do, he has, and I did, for a month.It did not work.My hair does not respond to that.I do try to take the occasional day off from shampooing, just to give my color a rest, but seriously: no.

But this is one of those subjects that brings out the evangelist in people; fair enough.Let’s see what other readers had to say.(Entries with an asterisk were mentioned more than once.)

use conditioner before shampooing
Paul Mitchell’s Smoothing Style Gloss Drops
change from a nubby-end-bristle brush to a regular-bristle brush
Aveda Hair Whip
Baby shampoo*
Rusk’s Thick Spray
Redken’s Heat Glide
John Frieda’s Brilliant Brunette [or Blonde, or whatever] Satin Shine finishing cream*
John Frieda’s Dream Creme
Aveda Control Paste
an ionic hair dryer*
Kiehl’s leave-in conditioner
Prive Herbal Blend #37 Weightless Amplifier
Infusium23*
TIGI Bedhead Rubber Rage
Bumble & Bumble Tonic
Bumble & Bumble Thickening Spray*
Dove Volumizing (shampoo and conditioner)*
CitreShine anti-frizz silicone serum
Garnier-Fructis extra-strong spray gel
rinsing with cold water
Pantene Clarifying Shampoo
John Frieda’s Spun Gold
alternating shampoos to prevent buildup
John Frieda Frizz-Ease Hair Serum Lite
John Frieda Frizz-Ease Instant Touch-Up Serum Spray
Garnier Fructis Smoothing Milk*
Fruit of the Earth 100% Aloe Vera Gel
“Body” by Sebastian
Artec’s Volume gel
Pantene Daily Moisture Renewal
remembering to use the cool-shot button on your hair-dryer (seals the cuticle, seals the style)
using only the cool or low setting*
Biolage Detangling Solution
TIGI Bedhead Manipulator
getting your hair cut more often
MOP Hair Products in Lemongrass Lift
Artec Blow Serum (…heh)
Tresemme Extra Hold Mousse
Giovanni Frizz Be Gone
avoid any product with sodium laureyl sulfates
Bumble & Bumble Defrizz*
spray-on static guard (in the laundry aisle)
Dove volumizing mousse*
TIGI Bedhead After-Party Smoothing Creme
Kiehl’s Thickening Lotion*
Kerastase volumizing shampoo
Charles Worthington’s Big Beautiful Hair mousse
TIGI Catwalk Curls Rock
shampoo, condition, then shampoo again
cutting it short/in layers (my own personal strategy)
Sephora’s Phytospecific Moisturizing Styling Balm
L’Oreal Elnett Micro-fine spray (apparently favored on Hollywood movie sets)
Dove anti-frizz cream*
Aveda Light Elements Soothing Fluid
the entire John Sahag product line
Aveda Custom Control Emulsion
Redken Shine
Sexy Hair Concepts’s Frizz Eliminator
Avon Straight & Sleek Serum
Sebastian Laminates drops
wetting your fingers and patting down flyaways (hee)
Paul Mitchell’s Super Skinny Serum
a chi (AB Chao would approve)*
Loma products
figure out which product your husband steals, then use that exclusively
Kerastase Volumactive
spend the extra money
Neutrogena clarifying shampoo
Sebastian Potion No. 9
don’t blow-dry at all*
Aveda’s Phomollient
chuck the traditional conditioner and use a leave-in
use traditional conditioner as a leave-in
FCUK Hairwax
Rusk Str8
Lush’s Big shampoo (and I actually had great luck with their beer-rinse shampoo, which they may not make anymore)

Many people also mentioned, and I agree, that you shouldn’t be using more than three products post-conditioning, and that you should use very little of each one (remember, styling suggestions on the packaging are designed at least in part to get you to use more so you’ll buy more product faster).

One last suggestion: have different “hair routines” for different weather.I actually use less product when it’s dry than when it’s humid, because fine hair loooooves to suck it up some ambient humidity, so I need bigger weapons in the summertime.Alterna pomade works great in the summer, but in the winter it gives me these spindly dreadoids, so it’s worth having a variety of battle plans.

Dear Sars (and readers),

How does one go about finding a reputable tattoo artist?My boyfriend
and I have decided to each get a simple, small, one-color tattoo.
Neither of us has done it before, and we want to find someone who’s
talented and clean.I have some friends with beautiful tattoos, but
sadly they (and their tattooists) are inconveniently all across the
country from us.(We live in LA.)I’ve seen some tattoos that are
works of art, but I’ve also seen some that turned out very badly, and
I definitely want to do this right.

Thanks,
Hoping Not To Be the Next “Wino Forever”

Dear Wino,

The best way to do it is word of mouth; if you see someone at work or the coffee shop with a cool tat, ask where he/she got it and can they recommend a good place.

Once you’ve got a few names, hold auditions — go to the parlors and have a look around.Ask the artists how they’d do your tat, or to see their book, or for them to do you a drawing.I can’t draw, at all, so I always had a sketch done first so I could see how they worked.”Clean,” you’ll know when you walk in, and if the lighting is poor, if you smell booze, or if the waiting area’s all clotted with skaters, leave.

Probably the most important no-go sign of all: you tell the artist your design idea and she/he pulls a face.I got the tomato at the place I did because the dude who did it was the first one who didn’t roll his eyes.

L.A.-area readers, hit it.

Hi Sars –- love your advice, eager to get some for myself.

Last year, I started grad school.My roommate and I met through
a mutual friend and she is probably the best roommate I’ve ever had.
There’s no passive-aggressive horseshit -– when we fight, it’s
woman-to-woman, face-to-face, and once the dust settles we’re both
eating pizza and watching Sex and the City.Since we are in different
programs, we have independent social lives and we’re pretty good at
respecting space with one another.

When we moved here, we immediately
befriended two of our neighbors who happen to be in her graduate
program.The four of us started hanging out on a fairly regular
basis, and roommate was dating one of them within a week.After that,
our respective programs started and I was hanging out with the other
three less because I’d struck up stronger friendships with the people
in my own program.The four of us still hang out probably once every
two weeks, and Boyfriend of Roommate is over…a lot.

Roommate’s boyfriend has become a problem.After I got used to the
idea that he’d be over all the time, I started to notice what a
negative person he was.I’ve never known a guy to whine so much.I
figured, though, that he must be different with just Roommate, so I
kept my mouth shut.But I was unnerved –- our mutual friend told me
that Roommate was typically very social, but she wasn’t making many
friends besides the original three.Whenever her department would
host Happy Hours, she would want to go, but Boyfriend would pout or
sulk about it and usually she’d give in and stay in to watch a movie
with him.Whenever I’d invite my friends over, he’d get upset (note:
he’s here all the time) and either leave and pout to Roommate later,
or convince Roommate to barricade herself with him in her room away
from my friends (or, in a scene I’d like to forget, when their
relationship was still shiny-new, practically made out with her while
watching movies with me and my homies…an event earning him the
nickname “Mopey McFeely” with my friends.)

To top it all off, there
was a time at the end of the semester that I invited Roommate to come
to my department’s end-of-year celebration (read: drinking-fest
post-finals) and she came, had a great time meeting new people, was
really social…and Boyfriend went into a SULK because she skipped out
on their implied, ambiguous movie plans for some indeterminate evening
which he claimed was that evening. Even so, I thought, “This really is
none of my business,” and stayed out of it.

Well, the new semester started, and immediately I noticed that
dynamics had changed.Roommate was becoming more social with her own
department and the fights between her and Boyfriend were becoming
more…public.As in, they were fighting in front of me.I tried to
diffuse the situations (“Mommy, Daddy, please don’t fight!”) but it
only really worked whenever the fourth element, Boyfriend’s Roommate,
was around.He’s not around much because he’s pretty much a monk, so
that’s not always an option.Anyway, after about three weeks of this,
Roommate came in my room one evening, sat on my bed and cried for two
hours, telling me how unhappy she was with him and asking for my
advice.My advice was pretty much, “Dump him if you aren’t happy,”
and after a long talk, she decided I was right.Then they made up,
but the fighting-crying-asking me for advice cycle continues.

Since the first time she actually told me she was unhappy, I’ve
realized that he’s not just a whiny bastard, but that he’s really
emotionally manipulative and that she’s become really weak.Every
week she comes to me for advice, every week I give her the same advice
— dump the bastard — every week she resolves to do so and every week
I come home from class/work the next day to find them cuddling on the
couch, still together.He acts like a human for two days and then
he’s back to being a child.She’s trying to become more social and
keep him at the same time, but the more social she gets, the more
sulky he gets and the more distressed SHE gets.

Also, he’s jealous of
how successful she is -– he doesn’t admit it, she doesn’t seem to
notice it, but anyone can see a mile away how it irks him that she’s
so good at what she does while he’s floundering in the same program.
He’s a complete drain on her existence — she knows this, has SAID
this — and she DOES NOTHING.She says he’s depressed and thinks
he’ll do something drastic if she dumps him.

Sars, I DON’T GET IT!This girl is brilliant, one of the best
students in her (highly competitive) program, and, to top it off,
she’s one of those girls who could snap up any guy she wanted (I’d
hate her if we didn’t get along so gosh darn well…and if she were in
my program).Do I need to start leaving notes around for her?
“Roommate: Working on a project, I’ll be back late, P.S. Dump the
Whiny Bitch.”What more can I say to her?

I’d rather be single than date someone bitchier than me

Dear Me Too,

You can’t really say anything else to her — except, of course, that you won’t be saying anything else to her on this particular topic, because while you like her and you support her, you really can’t deal with any more discussions that don’t go anywhere.

People have to learn things for themselves sometimes, and what it comes down to in this case is that she knows what she has to do, but she won’t do it, because she feels like it’s easier not to — so you can either try to make it less easy to stay with him, by requiring that he not come over as much because you don’t like him (which you should do anyway, because he sounds annoying), or you can decline to deal with the situation at all anymore.”We’ve had this identical conversation, like, a dozen times, you realize.I’m just saying…I’ve got nothing else to add.You know you need to break up with him, so.”And then change the subject.

I know I say that every time with these situations, and there is a certain heartless aspect to it, but really, people — if you’re having these analysis/weepies summit meetings over and over again with your friends and nothing’s changed?Because yeah, it gets a bit boring for them, but beyond that — nothing’s changed, is the salient point, especially that you. are. still. unhappy. hello.When you think to yourself, “God, how many times to do I have to tell him [XYZ] before this issue is finally put to bed”?When it always comes back to the same issues, even though you thought you finally resolved it the last time?

I have been there, in the all-too-recent past, believe me; please, learn from my mistakes.Cyclical fighting over the same fundamental differences over and over again is not “just part of relationships.”It’s evidence that you don’t belong together.Find a boy or girl you don’t fight with over who you are.

…So, you can tell her what I just said, or you can tell her that, honestly, you feel for her but you’re off the service because enough already.I know it’s hard to come off that hard-hearted, but sometimes it’s what people need to hear in order to realize for their own sakes that enough already.

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