A new diffuser

September–October 2022

The amount of time it took my hair to dry was an immediate sore spot, and it was clear the small-ish diffuser that came with my Dyson Supersonic dryer was part of why drying was taking so dang long. (Also: in hindsight, this was a good clue that my hair is quite low porosity.)

So, when I saw Alyson Lupo whip out a truly massive diffuser in one of her videos, I had to have it. I ordered it on Amazon, waited impatiently for it to arrive, and did a quick refresh the moment it showed up on my porch. It isn’t compatible with my Dyson Supersonic, but it does work with my Dyson Airwrap. It’ll also work with lots of other less expensive hair dryers, I just wanted to use what I already had.

The Xtava Black Orchid became my new go-to diffuser unless I was travelling as the Supersonic and its matching diffuser are quite a bit smaller.

A lot of my learnings in this period of time were around hold products—which ones, and how much to use. I started with stuff I already had but quickly purchased a lot of products based on recommendations from YouTube videos and Reddit threads. I discovered I could use WAY more product than I thought I could.

I constantly tried new products and techniques, generally washing and styling my hair every three or four days (in large part because anything beyond wash day usually looked pretty bad, even with refreshing).

This is also when I started doing a clarifying wash every three-ish weeks. I didn’t notice a huge difference the first time I did one but it’s proven to be a good habit in the years since.