Kim Kardashian’s beauty advice completely changed my hair

“You really should keep your hair healthy,” Kim Kardashian posted on her website, I’m assuming, with the same knowing inflection my mom uses to remind me to eat my vegetables. Since I only had a seven-day trial of Kim’s site (which costs $2.99 a month otherwise) I didn’t have time to get hung up on the tone.

According to this post, Kim’s secret to shiny, soft, healthy hair is a combination of at-home hydrating masks and limiting washes to twice a week. To be honest, I was already doing those things, and my hair was pretty boring. So, I consulted the six-item list of Kim K’s “fav” products to see if there were steps I could add to my routine to get closer to ~celeb~ hair.

The list was confusing: it ranged from $14 styling cream to $67 shampoo. Nowhere did it say anything about how wearing extensions (which I know the whole Kardashian clan does) can also make your hair look miraculously healthy. Oh well.

I contacted all of the companies on the list, asking for samples of Kim’s suggested products. By the end of the week, I was armed with Olaplex Hair Perfector No. 3 and RODIN’s Luxury Hair Oil. Since I was already used to washing my hair twice a week, I decided to challenge myself and limit myself to washing it once a week for two months.

Here’s how my hair looked when I made that decision.

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The Products

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Olaplex No. 3 is a strengthening treatment that is supposed to be left for ten minutes on towel-dried hair before regular shampoo and conditioning. According to a contact at Olaplex, ten minutes isn’t long enough for Kim: she leaves the treatment in overnight. So that’s what I did.

The Olaplex smells just like the Juniper Breeze scent from Bath & Body Works, which made me an immediate fan. Usually I ration expensive products like this, allowing myself to use only a quarter-sized dollop at a time. I cannot imagine Kim, or any member of the Kardashian family, skimps on hair strengthening treatment solely based on its price. I went to town, and it was awesome.

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Normally, I wash my hair at night so I have time for a blow-dry – there’s so much of it, the process takes a solid hour. Because I kept the treatment in while I slept, I had to wash and dry my hair in the morning. I didn’t have enough time for breakfast and was ten minutes late for work. I did, however, have enough time to slather my ends in the RODIN oil, which comes in a beautiful glass bottle with a dropper that made me feel like a mad scientist.

The $70 oil (yes, that’s right: seventy American dollars) reeked of lemons and grass, a scent too refined for my peasant nose. I have to admit that it was effective, though. When I got to work, several people commented on how thick and healthy my hair looked.

This started becoming a trend. Over the next eight weeks, people who see me on a regular basis were asking me my favorite question ever: “Did you get a haircut?” To me, this translates to, “It looks like a professional groomed your hair.” Major. Compliment.

Meanwhile, I started noticing a difference in my hair’s strength. It was basically becoming a body-builder or like your friend who gets Class Pass and is suddenly jacked. Surprisingly, it got harder to curl with my curling iron, but when I let it air-dry, became wavier than it’s ever been in my life. I embraced the waves and saved the curling for the middle of the week when they started to fall flat.

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The only days that my hair’s texture turned iffy were Fridays and Saturdays before I would do my weekly wash on Sunday. My roots became greasy past the point of being saved by dry shampoo, and my ends developed a dehydrated crunchiness. These days, I was generous with the luxury hair oil, slicking my mop back into a top bun. Thanks to RODIN’s powerful smell, no one noticed (or at least told me) that my hair was emanating a sort of five-day musk. Delicious!

Results

So did my hair get healthier? I got my answer when I went to my hair stylist for highlights and a cut. My entire life as an unnatural blonde, I’ve gone into the salon for trims and left with bobs, only because my hair gets so damaged from the chemicals and my love for Lorelei Gilmore curls. After a month of using Olaplex once a week and RODIN every few days, my hair didn’t look shinier. It might have felt smoother, but not necessarily softer. I was ready for my stylist to tell me we’d need to chop off two to ten inches.

But then she told me I didn’t need a haircut. Literally. “You don’t need a haircut,” she said, not even joking at all. Apparently, my hair had gotten so strong that it was barely damaged. I left the salon feeling as if my hair had magically gotten longer. Who needs extensions anyway?

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Verdict

As always, it’s important to remember that Kim Kardashian West pays a team of professional super hair-oes to make sure she never has split ends. I don’t think there is one, life-changing thing you can do for your hair to make it healthy. While Kim boiled down her routine into one step (wash your hair less), I am positive that using high-quality products to strengthen and protect my hair made a significant difference, maybe more than skipping daily shampoo sessions.

I’ll definitely keep this routine up … at least until I run out of luxury hair oil.

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Olaplex Hair Perfector No. 3: available at Olaplex salons
RODIN Luxury Hair Oil: $70.00

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