How To Keep Hair From Frizzing In Humidity?

To keep your hair from frizzing in humidity, you have to protect your hair from the environment, use anti-frizz hair products, up your moisturizing game, and reduce heat styling.

It's a common problem for most curly girls to struggle with frizzy hair in hot, humid summer environments. You see your time-consuming perfect hairstyle become frizzy and lose shape. It feels bad, I know. So we prepare this blog for you to solve this problem thoroughly.

Before we go into details on how to keep hair from frizzing in humidity and the steps you should follow, it is important to understand what humidity is in simple terms and how it can cause your hair to frizz.

First, humidity in simple terms is the amount of water vapour in the air. It is basically the measure of how much moisture is in the atmosphere.

How Does Humidity Cause Frizz in Your Hair?

Your hair is made of a protein structure within the hair shaft. Now, the water molecule in the air (in a humid environment) is attracted to the protein structure, causing it to swell. This swelling disrupts the hair's natural alignment.

This disalignment is what gives that frizzy look (yeah, the tumble weed looking hair! Yes.). Frizz is common with naturally curly/wavy hair and generally damaged hair, which is normally high porosity. Even if you do a silk press, the hair can still get frizzy and change shape in humid weather.

Now that you understand the whole concept of humidity and how it causes our hair to frizz, let's go through the top 10 ways to fix it.

Top 10 Ways to Keep Hair from Frizzing in Humidity

1. Wear Your Hair in a Protective Style

Have you ever wondered why curly-haired girls often wear braids or other protective hairstyles?

Women with tight curls or wavy hair are prone to frizz. The best way to keep your hair from frizzing in humidity is to wear a protective style. This is not the time to let your hair down and just go with the ride.

Leaving your hair down and loose exposes it to the water vapour that gets attached to the protein structure of the hair. The most cost-effective way to keep your hair from frizzing in humidity is to wear your hair in a protective style.

Protective hairstyles like mini twists, braids, cornrows, or even wearing your hair in a top knot can protect it from the environment.

Wearing a protective hairstyle allows you to care for your hair without too many manipulations that might require you to comb your hair often, which can further cause damage.

2. Reduce Heat Styling

One of the sure ways to keep your hair from frizzing in humid conditions is to embrace your natural hair texture and reduce or avoid heat styling. If you stay in a humid environment like Africa or during the summer, you need to lessen heat styling.

Heat styling, like the use of straighteners, curlers, etc, can cause damage, dry up the hair strands, and cause the hair shaft to become puffy, which will even worsen the situation of the frizz.

We understand that you want to sleek down your hair and curl it to achieve your preferred hairstyle. In humid periods or if you are in an environment with high humidity, it is safer to embrace your texture with protective styling and apply moisturizing hair products.

3. Get a Good Haircut

Getting a good haircut is a great way to keep your hair from frizzing in humidity.

You know why?

It is simply because split ends can travel up each hair strand, causing more damage and frizz. So, it is best to cut off dry dead ends.

This is specifically useful for people who live in high-humidity environments. If you start to notice some frayed or lightweight hair (that looks dead), it is best to cut it off.

Professional hairstylists recommend cutting split ends, especially to achieve a blunt cut. Which means that a sharp, blunt cut that clips the dead hair helps to give the hair more weight, which in turn helps to keep the hair down.

4. Wash your Hair with Lukewarm or Room Temperature Water

As much as you enjoy the soothing effect of warm water on your hair, it can greatly impact your hair shaft. The hot temperature of the water can cause the hair cuticles to swell and rise.

When the hair cuticles are raised, the hair will need more moisture. If the hair doesn’t get the right amount of moisture that it needs, it can cause it to frizz or even break from dryness.

If you can’t stand cold water running down your hair, then you can opt for lukewarm or room temperature water.

5. Use Oils and Shea Butter

Oils and butter are your best friends if you have tight curls/kinky hair in a humid environment. Oils and butter help to seal in moisture and protect the hair shaft while nourishing it. Hair oils like coconut oils and shea butters are great options.

If you have loose curls or wavy hair, light-weight oils will help to nourish your hair and protect it from the humidity.

6. Use Moisturizing Shampoos and Conditioners

We understand that shampoos and clarifying conditioners are washed off, but they still have a big impact on your hair.

Have you ever noticed your hair dry out or feel brittle after washing?

That’s the exact result you don’t want on your hair, especially in a high-humidity environment. That is why it is important for you to choose a moisturizing shampoo, so that you can safely wash out your hair without suffering from more damage and extreme dryness.

So, when you are looking for shampoo and conditioners, always check that they are moisturizing shampoos and wash-out conditioners. You should also avoid sulphate and alcohol-based shampoo and conditioner.

7. Moisturize Your Hair

This is a non-negotiable. The best way to deal with keeping your hair from frizzing in humidity is to up your moisture game. You can up your moisture game by infusing moisture, like leave-in and deep conditioners.

Instead of just waking up to styling your dry hair, it is better to first dampen your hair with water (water is the basic moisturizer), but water evaporates. So, if you dampen your hair with water, you can add lasting moisture by adding leave-in conditioners, hair oils, and butters.

8. Reduce Friction on Your Hair

Friction can cause more frizz and damage to the hair. When you are washing your hair, avoid rubbing your hair against a cotton towel. Rubbing your hair with a cotton towel can disrupt the alignment and structure of the hair shaft.

Instead of using a cotton towel after washing your hair, use a soft towel and tie your hair up in a turban for the hair to dry slowly.

Another way to reduce friction is to replace your cotton pillow case with silk or satin. These fabrics do not cause friction that can increase dryness or misalign the arrangement of the hair strands.

9. Use Heat Protectants

We have talked about reducing heat styling during humidity and the negative consequences it can have on your hair. If you must use a heat styling tool like hair straighteners, curling iron, etc. You should use a heat protectant.

Heat protectants give an extra layer of protection that reduces the level of direct heat on the hair strands and possible heat damage. If you have never heard of a heat protectant, you can walk into any hair supply store and ask for a heat protectant.

10. Consider a Keratin Treatment

All the methods we have talked about throughout this article are preventive measures. What if you are already suffering from hair frizz or damage, and you are in a high-humidity environment?

A keratin treatment is a good option if you are already experiencing a great amount of frizz on your hair. This works for both kinky and curly hair. The keratin treatment not only reduces frizz but also makes it a lot easier to manage and manipulate your hair strands while styling.

Keratin treatment can be done by infusing doses of keratin into brittle hair strands. This treatment can be administered at home or in a salon.

Keratin treatment smoothens hair strands and creates a barrier that locks out moisture that causes frizz. The keratin treatment is not a permanent solution (it requires top-ups), but it makes a huge difference.

Keratin treatment helps the hair to maintain a glossy appearance that makes styling and hair manipulation easy. Which in turn reduces hairstyling time.

Will Human Hair Wigs Get Frizzy in Humid Weather and How to Tame

Yes, human hair wigs can get frizzy in humid weather because it is made from “real human hair”.

Human hair wigs can experience a higher level of frizz than the natural hair on a human’s head because the hair is not in its natural habitat and it’s not receiving natural nutrients from the scalp.

However, with a good care routine that includes the use of anti-humidity hair products can keep the hair smooth and fine.

Routine human hair wig care practices like:

1. Moisturizing with moisturizing treatments like leave-in conditioners and deep conditioners.
2. Gentle detangling (using finger detangling method and wide-tooth combs).
3. Proper storage, like keeping wigs in a cool, dry place and away from sunlight.
4. Wearing a silk or satin cap while having a wig on.
5. Avoiding heat styling as much as possible.

Following the tips, you can enjoy your human hair wig even in a humid environment.

Protecting your hair from humidity, which causes frizz, is an intentional effort. It is not a one-time shot kind of stuff; it is something that requires you to build a routine around. If you follow the tips we have shared, you won’t have problems rocking your hair even in high-humidity environments.