You’ve heard about skin slugging, but have you heard of hair slugging? The latest TikTok trend aims to revive your hair overnight.
What is hair slugging?
Instead of rinsing out your hair mask, leave it on overnight for better results.
A quick overview: skin slugging is applying an occlusive skincare product — like Vaseline — in a thick layer as the last step of your nighttime skincare routine. It helps prevent moisture loss and dehydration in your skin, especially if you sleep with the AC on.
Its sister trend is called hair slugging, a buzzy term for keeping your hair mask or treatment on as you sleep. Instead of rinsing it out before you get into bed, you’ll wrap your mane to keep it in place and prevent the product from going all over your pillows and bedsheets. Similar to skin slugging, this lets the treatment soak in since the occlusive environment of the wrap and your head’s natural warmth help the treatment’s ingredients penetrate better into your scalp. Its benefits include making your hair soft, bouncy, and silky smooth.
Folks with particularly dry hair will benefit from hair slugging, but it should be done only once to twice a week. Doing it every day can strip your hair of its natural oils and dry it out further.
While it’s getting social media buzz, hair slugging isn’t exactly a new practice. There’s an ancient Indian practice called hair oiling, where you apply a blend of natural oils like castor, coconut, and olive to the entire length of your hair before bed and wash it off in the morning.
How to do hair slugging
@servinglocks #stitch with @moniquemrapier onboard with the hair slugging trend🙌 #hairtok #hairhack #hairtip #hairslugging ♬ Eenie Meenie (Radio Version) - Sean Kingston & Justin Bieber
Start by applying your hydrating hair mask, oil, serum, or treatment. You can either apply it all over your hair or keep it to the drier areas such as the midlength and ends. If your scalp leans toward the oily side, you can use a hair serum instead of heavier products like masks and oils.
Next, wrap up your hair in a smooth fabric. Silk head wraps are recommended since these are less abrasive and prevent frizz or breakage. Some TikTok users also use socks as their go-to hair wraps when they’re slugging in sections.
You can simply brush out your hair when you wake up in the morning if you used a lightweight hair oil or serum. If you used a hair mask, you’ll need to thoroughly rinse out the product from your hair. You need to get it all out or else your hair will look heavy and limp instead of the soft and hydrated bounce you’re aiming for. You don’t need to use shampoo, but in Singapore, you’d want to give your scalp a light wash with shampoo just in case!
Will you be hopping on the hair slugging trend?
Ready to try hair slugging? Check out these hair oils that you can use.
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