Heat Protection Spray: Why I Finally Stopped Skipping It

Heat damage is slow, and slow damage is easy to ignore. One straightening session won't leave a mark you can see. Do it a few times a week for a couple of years and the outer layer of the hair, the cuticle, starts lifting instead of lying flat. Raised cuticle means moisture escapes faster, strands catch on each other, and light bounces off the surface in all the wrong directions. You get frizz, rough ends and breakage, and then the split ends turn up to finish the job.

You're never seeing one bad day. You're seeing the total.

A good heat protection spray for hair leaves a thin coating on each strand that helps it cope with hot tools and slows moisture loss. Most also give a bit of slip, so the comb glides rather than yanks. That alone saves you some breakage.

What it doesn't do is make your iron harmless. I wish. It softens the blow, that's all, which is still well worth having.

Searches for how to use heat protection spray are oddly low, which tells me most people assume there's nothing to it. There's a bit.

Read the bottle first. Some sprays want damp hair, some want dry, some don't mind. I spent a year spraying the wrong way round before I checked.

Don't just mist the top layer. I did this for ages and wondered why the underneath still felt like straw. Clip your hair up, work through it in sections, and run a comb through each one so the product is spread evenly rather than sitting in patches.

Go lightly. Drenched hair goes sticky and stiff, and you'll hate the result.

Then wait. If you've sprayed damp hair, dry it fully before any plates touch it. Pressing a hot iron onto wet hair is how you get that faint sizzle, and that sound is not a good one.

Last, turn the temperature down. Everyone's instinct is to crank it up for a sleeker finish, and it rarely helps. Fine or already-fried hair often sets fine at a lower heat, and even thick hair seldom needs the top setting. Start low, and only go up if the style won't hold.

Straighteners are the worst offender, full stop. Hot plates clamp onto the hair, you often go over the same bit twice, and the heat is both high and sustained. A hairdryer moves around and cools between passes. An iron doesn't. So if you're only going to use protectant for one tool, make it this one, and a heat protection spray for straightening hair is not something to skip on a "quick" day either.

Here's what I do now. Spray on towel-dried hair, comb through in sections, blow-dry completely, then straighten thin sections on the lowest setting that works. One slow pass beats five rushed ones. If you keep re-doing the same piece, the section is probably too thick or the iron too cool to grip, so fix that rather than going over it again.

I'm wary of anyone crowning one "best heat protection spray for hair" for everybody, because hair is not one thing. But if you straighten or blow-dry regularly and frizz is your daily argument, I'd start with the Tresemme Keratin Smooth Heat Protect Spray.

It's made for smoothing and frizz control, which is exactly what you want when the goal is a sleek, glossy finish. It's easy to pick up, and it's the sort of thing you can use every time without wincing at the price. If your hair is very fine, you might find a lighter formula sits better. For everyone else who's at it with the flat iron weekly, it's a sensible place to begin.

I can confirm that for those who need constant heat tool styling for day or night looks, a gel or an ordinary spray might not be the solution. At the recent Lakme Fashion Week, we caught up with the renowned hair and makeup stylist Daniel Bauer using Tresemme Keratin Smooth Heat Protect Spray on models. He said, " the secret to being runway ready apart from makeup is a good hair style and a spray that helps you achieve it." On being asked his favourite product he didn't hesitate from endorsing Tresemme spray.