The Hair Mask Keeping My Hair Manageable During Quarantine

I haven’t gotten a haircut since early February. Luckily enough, I had decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to grow out my hair and my bangs, so quarantine is only helping me achieve those goals. But, as anyone who has grown out their hair can attest, it’s helpful to still get regular trims to keep things looking nice, lose the dead weight of shaggy ends, etc. I cannot do that, and now the ends of my hair aren’t looking bad, but they’re not looking great. I’ve adopted an all updo, all the time lifestyle while stuck at home, so it’s not a huge deal, but I wanted to see if there was a way I could kind of cheat my way through a quarantine grow out.

Once again, I turned to Trader Joe’s. If you had told me years ago that one of my favorite places to get beauty products was a grocery store, and one with limited stock at that? I’d think you were joking. If you told me back when I was a devotee of Aveda products, that I would eventually give up on them and swear by Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle line? Lunacy! But here I am. I love TJ’s shampoo and conditioner, and now I love the hair mask as well.

Trader Joe’s Shea Butter and Coconut Oil Hair Mask is effective, cheap ($4!) and easy to grab when you’re stocking up on frozen pizza (lately I have been VERY into their Piccolo Pizza). They say to apply it roots to ends, but if decades of magazine reading has taught me anything, it’s to only apply conditioner from your earlobes down. I clip it up while I go about my other shower business, then rinse and my hair feels super soft and a bit less ragged. I of course then spend the next week loading it up with various dry shampoos, but this gives me a feeling of resetting my hair back to normal before I gunk it all up again. I don’t know when I’ll get a haircut again - maybe not even in 2020, but I’ve developed a decent system to keep me from coming out of this lockdown looking like Nell.