I need a haircut SO BAD. The last time I had it cut was August. AUGUST! The problem is that I don’t trust anyone new to cut my hair, and I haven’t been home to New York for a while. I was home for Holidays but it was too hectic to get it done. The health of my hair is still pretty good, because I really baby the crap out of it, but when it’s SO long and the layers are grown out I have a harder time getting it to hold a style.

If any of you out there have hair that is straight with a fine texture, but you have a TON of it like me, you know what I’m talking about. What I’m fixin’ to talk about today is the type of product that I wish I knew about sooner, because it’s a game changer if you have this hair type. . .even when you desperately need your layers shaped like I do.

I’m taking about styling creme . . .or cream. However you want to spell it. What I used to do when I was going to heat style my hair was literally spray each piece of hair with individually with hairspray after I curled it, which kept the style in . . . but the next day it was crunchy and dull and tangled. With styling creme my style is more touchable and flowing, and the next day the style is softer but it is still shiny and not crunchy, and it doesn’t have that dirty “12 lbs of product stuck together” feel.

This is what my hair looks like on day one, after using styling cream and making it wavy. The picture was taken about 5 hours after I did my hair, so you can see that it definitely has a good amount of hold. The only other product I used along with it was a heat protectant spray, which does have a little bit of hold in it, but doesn’t keep everything together as long on it’s own.

At the end of the day, I simply tied my hair in a loose bun and slept on it.

When I woke up, literally all I did was shake it loose and then add some dry shampoo to the roots to get some of the volume back in. The waves are definitely looser than day one, but it still looks polished and styled. More importantly it’s not crunchy and dull. If I really wanted to make it look great for day two hair I would have gone over it with the curling iron again, but for the sake of this post I wanted to show what it looks like if you literally do nothing more to it.

I have tried a few different incarnations of styling creme, and all of those have had a similar effect. I have tried the Wen Styling Cream, and liked it but it’s pricey. Same goes for the Living Proof Styling Creme. But the one I keep going back and buying is the KMS Silk Sheen Styling Creme. I find that it works just as well as the more expensive ones that I’ve tried, and out of all of them it gives me the most shine that lasts into the second day. To be clear though, I really just recommend you try a styling cream in general, because I think it’s a totally overlooked product that can seriously up your hair game, and cut down on the time it takes you to get ready with day two hair.

Adding it to your routine is pretty simple, just put a few pumps into your hands and spread it through your ends while it’s still wet. Then run your hands with the remaining residue through the top and front of your hair to get a small amount of product in those areas. Then just do whatever else you normally do.

Oh, and another kinda huge, amazing thing is that if you use a styling cream and then air dry your hair, it will look WAY better than if you air dry without it. From what I’ve seen this applies to most hair types.

I wish I had known the magic of styling creme sooner, so hopefully I can be the bearer of good news for some of you! Or maybe everyone else has been using this stuff for years and left me out of the loop, meanies. Joking, joking. nobody could be THAT mean.