Over the years, I’ve gotten all kinds of compliments (and passive aggressive comments) about my hair. I’ve had countless friends, colleagues, classmates, and acquaintances marvel over how low-maintenance my hair is, how “you probably wake up with your hair looking like that, huh?”, how envious they are that I don’t have to straighten my hair or use any type of texturing cream or gel to get it to look the way it does every day. Up until recently, I have been lucky enough to “wake up like this.” My hair is naturally straight and fine, though with fine hair comes issues like flatness and lack of volume.

Well, once I started highlighting my hair in the middle of 2017, that changed a bit. Highlighting or bleaching fine hair never really does anything good for you, and if anything, it tends to result in easier breakage, more split ends, and thus, a larger need for more careful maintenance. The amazing thing that has happened since dyeing my hair is that I actually need to shampoo LESS. Once upon a time, with daily weekday morning gym workouts, I washed my hair five times a week straight. I hated that process but didn’t want to go to work smelling like sweat and oil, so I sucked it up. Then, I reduced it to every other day with just a rinse after a sweaty workout every other day after my friend insisted a rinse would get rid of the funk. But finally, I realized my hair wasn’t as oily and was getting drier. Since late last year, I wash my hair only twice a week, which has been a dream because I truly hate the process of washing my hair and combing it out.

That has come with some hair extremes. I wash my hair, even with moisturizing shampoo or an all-natural shampoo bar, and it’s a bit dry right after. Three days later, it becomes extremely oily and looks as though I’ve added oil to my hair. It hasn’t been fun, but it’s what I have dealt with. I even have to use a hair mask or deep conditioner every other week now to keep my hair from breaking so much and feeling so brittle.

This is what it’s like to have “haircare,” huh?