Softresses
Active Member
How to Make Your Hair Accessories Hair Friendly
Are the things you use to do your hair doing you more damage than good?
If so here are some of the things I have learned to do to help me keep and use the hair accessories I have collected. I work on my barrettes, combs and clips and make ALL of them hair friendly before they go into my hair.
- Try to always purchase quality hair toys (barrettes, clips, pins, etc.)
- Run the barrette, french comb or accessory against the cloth on your clothes, if it snags it should not go in your hair. If you feel seams, they should not be put in you hair, over time they will cause damage to your hair shaft.
- If you buy a piece that you cannot pass up, get some fine grade sandpaper, sand down the seams. There is also a tool called a Dremmel that is used by crafters, it has a small attachment that you can sand down ruff seams on barrettes and accessories with.The sandpaper can be ran between the teeth on wide toothed French combs to sand down the seams.
- A metal nail file will often work in small tight places that you may not be able to get the sandpaper.
- The square buff pads for nails that you find in the beauty supply store are great for smoothing down the little parts behind crystals, or rhinestones to keep them from snagging. your hair.
- If you have a smooth metal barrette or pin that is losing it's paint, you can get spray stripper, spray it, the old paint will wipe off. Then wash it in the sink, take the square buff pad and buff it lightly, rinse it dry it and you can paint it the color you want. I like to use nail enamel because it has a wider varitey of colors and they tend to peel less frequently. I recently did one of my FIccare clips this way that had peeled and polished it with black nail enamel. GOOD AS NEW! looks like I bought a new clip.
- Some of the alligator, or butterfly clips will have springs in them you can cover these with felt, or tape that cannot be seen when the clip is on.
- Take a kitchen knife and angle it at the base of the little rows of teeth ithat some in some larger plastic barretes, moving the knife away form you, shave away all the little teeth. They will pop off. Then take your fine grade sandpaper and sand down any litlle stumps that may be left.
- When you are working on a piece, take an old wig or phony pony and drag it through it to see if you need to continue to smooth the piece or not.
- The barrettes with the metal french spring clasp on the back can cause damage to your hair, look for the kind with the plastic coating over the metal parts, some of the new ones come this way, If you buy one that you think you will be wearing often, Duct tape can work wonders on these. Remember to make the seam of your duct tape so that it will be away form your hair in case it starts to peel away (hair could then get stuck in the tape),
One more thing, the storage of your barrettes is very important, if you buy al lot of things with crystals or rhinestones keep them in the little velvet jewlry bags, and put them in a safe place. These items can be very expensive. I keep mine in a metal tool box that I bought for this purpose, you can even lock these if need be.
These are just some of the things I do to hair accessories that I use. I love a good hair clip, but I refuse to use anything that I know will pull, or tear my hair.
I hope these will be helpful to those of you who love accessories as much as I do. If I come up with anything new I will post it.
Softresses
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EXCELLENT POST! 
!! I have avoided all my cute barrettes with the metal because I was afraid to snag my hair. I will add the tape and switch up from these satin scrunchies
While everyone else is a product junkie for conditioners, shampoos, leave-ins etc. I am a product junkie for nice accessories.
