Every season has its hair issues. Spring is known for wind, sun, rain showers and, mostly, unpredictability. Depending on where you live, the air around you may be getting more humid or staying dry as always – and either one will affect your hair’s condition, because spring is the season that beckons us outside no matter what that means for our hair.

I regularly interview hairdressers and asked a couple of them for springtime hair care tips to share with women my age. AnneMarie Krainich owns three locations of Ottalaus Salon in the dry climate of Utah, while Ronnie Dag owns Palm Sunday, a salon in Toronto. They came up with a good list.

For Dry Hair

As we age, our hair tends to be drier in all seasons, not just spring.

“Most professional product lines offer a shampoo and a conditioner that return life and bounce to older hair,” Krainich says. “We carry the Kevin Murphy line and recommend Kevin Murphy’s Young Again, which tames the frizziness in gray hair and gives volume to both coarse gray hair and thin, lifeless hair.”

Ask your hairdresser to suggest a similar shampoo and conditioner from whatever brand your salon carries. After you rinse out the conditioner and towel-dry your hair, add product from the brand’s styling line. Oil is one popular choice.

“In Utah in the spring, we see a lot of dry hair with static,” says Krainich, who recommends using drops of oil before any kind of heat styling and then adding a half-drop of oil at the finish.

Humid Climates

“In Utah, I can put tons of product in, and my curls don’t move for a week!” Krainich says. But we don’t all live in the desert. If your geography is humid, use as little product as you can while still controlling your hair.

“Product weighs hair down in the humidity, especially if you have curls,” Krainich says. “Dry shampoo is a must! It helps make the transition from dry to humid conditions.”

Protection from Nature’s Elements

Oh, springtime, we love you with your brightness and breezes, your drizzle and thunderstorms, your wild temperature jumps.

“Utah can be winter in the morning and summer by afternoon,” Krainich reports. “We tell our salon guests to remember that the weather is unpredictable.” She suggests stashing a few just-in-case necessities in your purse or your car.

“Keep a hair tie in your purse for the wind,” she recommends, adding that a travel-size hairspray also can help keep hair in place. “For the humidity when it rains, keep a texture spray to refresh the hair so it doesn’t look flat and weighed down.”

Don’t underestimate springtime sun. It can fade your color and damage your hair. While a sunhat will shield your hair effectively, if you don’t want to cover up your hair you can apply products that have UV protection built in.

“We use Davines OI, which has natural UV filters from the roucou oil in the product,” Ronnie Dag says. “Roucou is a natural antioxidant that grows in the Amazon rain forest.” The Davines OI line includes a shampoo, a conditioner, several styling products and just the oil alone.

As temperatures rise, you might swim in a pool with chlorine or in an ocean’s salt water. Hairdressers always recommend rinsing your hair after exposing it to either of those, and Dag adds that wetting your hair before you swim is a good idea as well.

“Take a pre-shower, because the hair will absorb the still water’s hydrogen molecules and then not absorb as much of the more damaging chlorinated or salt water,” she explains. “A clarifying shampoo is great to use every two weeks to remove any buildup on the hair.”

Hair Color Trends

A change in seasons often inspires a change in hair color. Typically, blondes go blonder in spring and summer. But the pandemic made everyone cautious. No one used to worry that dark or gray roots would crawl their way across the head as salons remained closed for months or that, even as salons opened, people would be afraid to go inside. Now we hedge our bets, and the trend is “lived-in color” that looks natural and is more forgiving.

“Blondes have been more sun-kissed, with soft, natural-looking babylights,” Krainich says. “When the color grows out, you can’t see a line of demarcation.”

Dag agrees, saying this season’s blondes are as pretty and shiny as ever but bring in more gold tones to soften the features. There’s not a lot of platinum.

“This look is low-maintenance,” Dag says. “You can get your color done only every 4-6 months, because it grows out beautifully. These blondes have a lot of depth, not just one shade. Leave some grays in there or some darker lowlights. You can even keep your roots but have your colorist do a little toning with a demi-permanent color to make the roots less noticeable.”

Low-Maintenance Tricks

Women over 60 can cut down on shampooing. Especially if you are blonde, Dag says you should wash your hair only 2-3 times a week.

“With blondes, the cuticle has been opened and doesn’t require as much washing,” she explains. After age 60, less frequent washing trains your hair to get less oily because then it won’t produce as much sebum. Dag recommends using a soft brush to bring the oils from your scalp through the lengths of your hair.

Hot styling during hot weather feels, well, hot. Dag says air-drying is a nice option when you don’t feel like blow-drying or using a curling iron or straightening tool.

“Embrace your natural texture with a curl serum,” she suggests. “And dry shampoos are amazing to get extra time from your wash cycle and put volume and texture into finer hair.”

How do you care for your hair in the spring season? Do you use special shampoo for your climate? What products make your hair look and feel lovely? Please share!