Whether you’ve got long, flowing, flaxen locks or a sporty brunette bob, you run a real risk of damaging your hair every day - but how serious, and how permanent, is the daily damage we do?

When we talk about damaged hair, we mean hair that has a flat, lifeless, or unnaturally frizzy appearance. Hair can be damaged by any number of things: sun damage, artificial coloring, curling, blow drying, excessive brushing, chlorine from swimming pools, and even the wrong shampoo or conditioner. But again, how serious, and how permanent, is this damage?

Luckily, most of what we do to our hair will be un-done, naturally, in a matter of weeks if we stop the damaging behavior. If your shampoo is flattening your do, you’ll notice your hair bounce back to life a few weeks after you’ve switched shampoos. Similarly, if you’ve been swimming in a pool and lying out in the sun all summer, your hair will probably perk back up sometime in October or November. {relatedarticles}

Nevertheless, as the saying goes: hair today, gone tomorrow, so let’s look at the difference between temporary and permanent hair damage, and what to do about it.