Snowflakes? Sledding? Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Yeah, all those winter wonders aren't worth it if we've got to deal with the other winter mainstay that haunts us all season: static hair.
The minute the temperature dips and the air dries up, electrons, which are negatively-charged, fly off your hair, leaving your strands with positive charges that resist each other. Thus girls with thin, limp, fine and otherwise vulnerable hair are hit hard with static. Hair sticks to our cheeks, flies away from our heads and ruins just about every photo we take.
But this season, we're putting our feet and flyaway hairs down. We vow to fight static with every weapon we've got in our arsenal. Here are the solutions we've stockpiled for the good of static-haired women everywhere:
Avoid using a plastic comb. Plastic will only make your hair more staticky, whereas a metal comb won't. (It has to do with the metal being conductive. Science!)
Rub dryer sheets on your hair. Yes, the urban legend is true: Many women have had success taking dryer sheets and gently running them over their strands or their hairbrushes before using them. An alternative: Rub the dryer sheets on your pillow before going to sleep.
Run some light moisturizer or hair serum over your ends. Most fine-haired girls would rather give up their left arms than get a moisturizing product near their grease-prone strands. But focusing the hair product just on the bottoms will beat the staticky hairs back quite effectively.
Dry your hair with an ionic blow dryer. Not everyone will find this equally effective, but these special blow dryers supposedly emit negatively-charged ions that attach themselves to the positively-charged hair for a neutralizing effect. The ionic molecules are also supposed to break down the water molecule rather than evaporate it, without stripping your hair of its moisture -- and the less dried out your hair, the less static.
Comb hair with hair spray. It sounds a little yucky, but it's an oft-used trick: Spray your comb with a bit of hairspray then run through your hair to tame those flyaways.
Spritz on Oribe Cote d'Azur Hair Refresher. This yummy-smelling product is actually formulated to cut static, among other things. Spray a bit on the bottom half of your hair for an instant de-static effect. Other recommended products: Moroccanoil Frizz Control Spray and Alterna Bamboo Smooth Kendi Dry Oil Mist.
Use water. Yep, it's simple, but it still works. Heading into a meeting and your hair looks crazy? Pop into the office bathroom and smooth those strands down with water.
Pin the most annoying pieces down. The worst part of static hair is when it clings to your face, so cut your losses and pin back the most bothersome hairs framing your face with a simple set of bobby pins.
Resort to a braid. It may sound defeatist, but pulling your mane into a manageable style with as few loose hairs as possible will minimize the static problem. Plus, with a braid tight to your head, you can avoid hat hair.
Even celebs aren't immune:
