5 Cheap Items You Need In Your Hair Arsenal

Healthy hair and all the products and tools that come along with it, can add up. If you also factor in the secret product junkie that lies within most of us, things can quickly get out of hand.

How many times have you honestly looked in the cabinet under your bathroom sink and mentally scolded yourself for how out of control you’ve allowed your product hoarding to get? It has happened to us all. You should regularly go through your products to check the expiration dates. Believe it or not, those products do expire and need to be thrown out at some point.

Product hoarding and overspending may seem like an easy problem to fix, but it isn’t like you can avoid buying hair products altogether. This makes the matter a tiny bit tricky.

Staying aware of costs, versus amount of product, versus how often you will really be using a product, can be a bit cumbersome when you’re shopping for hair products. Hopefully this article will make things a bit easier by giving you some go-to products that work and that don’t break the bank. At least you won’t feel so bad when you throw out an expired product that you only paid $2.00 for.

Let’s get in this list of 5 cheap items you need in your hair arsenal.

Shower caps*

Deep conditioning* treatments are more effective when used in combination with heat. We all know that. We also know that we need to cover the hair before we apply heat to it. Using a shower cap* is an extremely easy and efficient way to cover the hair while applying heat during a deep conditioning* session.

There are other ways to cover the hair, like warm towels, heat activating caps, and so on, but the cheapest way is to buy a bulky pack of shower caps and dive in. Plus, shower caps pull double duty because, well duh, you can use them when you shower too.

You can find a pack of shower caps* at your local beauty supply store or even your local dollar store. They should be less than $5.00. Pick up a pack of 100 and forget about having to repurchase them for a good 3-4 months.

Conditioner

Conditioner is a must have. Pricier conditioners that promise to add moisture, shine or protein tend to run more than a plain bottle of regular conditioner that doesn’t make any additional claims. If you’re looking for something specific, then go for the higher end conditioners.

However, if you want a simply conditioner that will smooth your strands, then a run of the mill conditioner will do. The best use for these cheap conditioners, though, is as a base for treatments you concoct at home. For instance, adding oils*, scents, anti-dandruff or moisturizing agents to a cheap bottle of conditioner is an awesome way to beef up your at home hair care without having to purchase multiply specialty products to accomplish the same goals.

Beauty supply stores and other local retailers carry cheap conditioners for as little as $100 per bottle. You can’t beat that and you can multiple sessions of use out of one bottle if you’re using it to mix in with other products.

Hair mask packets

Hair treatments and masks are sold one of two ways. They’re either in solid tub or bottle packaging or in packets. The ingredients are the same in most cases as the packets are usually just a smaller sized version of what the tub or bottle contains.

If you don’t use hair masks often, it’s more economical for you to pick up a few packets of your favorite mask or treatment than to splurge on an entire bottle or tub of a product that you may not be able to use up completely, before the expiration date.

These packets can be found near their bigger counterparts and can be as cheap as $0.75 per packet.

Gel

Gel is one of those hair products that seem to never go away. Can you think of a time when you didn’t have any hair gel at all? Even if it was the kind you didn’t particularly prefer, I bet you have always had at least one bottle of gel under your sink.

Gels are great for styling, edge control and quick touch ups. They are also cheap. Find a gel that is your favorite and buy one large tub of it. The larger the tub, the more you usually get for the price. If you don’t use gel often, consider getting a medium sized or small tub of your favorite gel.

Also, try throwing out all other gels except the one you genuinely like best and keep the size you know you will be able to get through before it expires. It is probably a smaller tub than the ones you’ve purchased before and it’s probably less than $10.00 too!