Stylish girls: September 2014

This article was written by Tara Rasmus and repurposed with permission from Refinery 29.

We've all been there: You're in the salon, discussing a potential new cut, and your stylist says that, no, that would never work on you. Or while getting a blowout, you watch the pro's jaw drop when you own up to using whatever shampoo came in the huge, cheapo bottle at Costco. As a result of all that behind-the-chair judging, we tend to walk around with certain beliefs about what our hair needs, doesn't need, or will never, ever do.

Well, we hate to be all dramatic, but you've probably been lied to. Hair myths are one thing, but in our experience, it seems that some hairstylists throw around commands and rules that we should maybe just take with a splash of salt (spray). To get down to the bottom of it, we asked a few of our personal hair gurus to set the record straight on some of the common tall hair tales we've heard. Read on, and breathe easy. We'll get to the bottom of this hairy situation once and for all!

Drugstore Products are the Devil
If you've ever been shamed at the salon for still using the drugstore shampoo you fell in love with in middle school—we feel you. Not everyone has the desire—or the funds—to support a pricey product habit.

The pros agree that, at the end of the day, if you love the results that you get from your trusty Tresemmé, there's no shame in stocking up. The most important thing, says Nora Croft, a hairstylist in New York City, is knowing your ingredients and actually reading the label. "Even more expensive products will list their 'star ingredient,' such as argan oil, as the sixth ingredient, following a bunch of un-pronounceable [ones]," she says. Just because a product is expensive doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work better for your hair.

No matter whether you go high or low, hairstylist Sasha Alekseyeva of Woodley and Bunny recommends selecting a gentle shampoo that won't strip your hair of essential oils. And to ensure that your conditioner is actually absorbed, squeeze out excess water before applying it—all of that moisturizing goodness will simply slide off of waterlogged strands.

"Ask your stylist or educate yourself about anti-aging products if you use hot tools or color your hair," says Croft. Those things, along with your environment, all contribute to free-radical damage [aging], which leads to split ends.

You Must Trim Every Six Weeks
Ah, the hair commandment we block out every time: Thou shalt get a cut every four to six weeks. Um…we're sorry, but who has the time and money to hit the salon that often?

Alekseyeva says that most women don't need to get their hair cut nearly that often—it all depends on the state of your hair and what you're aiming to do with it. "Honestly, I'm never going to try to tell a woman with healthy, low-maintenance hair that she needs a haircut every six weeks," she says. "Women who barely heat-style or color their hair can actually go for five to six months without a trim."

One caveat: If you're prone to split ends and want to keep growing out length, it behooves you to keep up with those trims. Split ends can travel up your hair shaft, so the longer you go without a cut, the more length you're likely to lose when you finally get in the chair.

Layers Make Hair Look Thicker
Okay, so our hair pros are a little bit split on this one. When done correctly (correctly being the operative word), layers can add the illusion of more volume by creating space between each hair. "No layers on super-fine hair pulls everything down to the same line, drawing attention to the thinness and flattening the top," says Croft.

On the other hand, Alekseyeva says that if your hair isn't super-fine (or if your hair is fine but you have a lot of it), you don't necessarily need layers to add volume. When it comes to fine hair, what's more important than the cut itself is the method by which the hair is cut. "Fine hair should always be cut dry," says Alekseyeva. "When fine hair is damp, the strands clump together, and the stylist can easily cut too much, leaving you with 'holes' in the haircut." Cutting fine hair dry maintains the "perimeter" of the hair [the ends], ensuring that you don't end up with scraggly and sparse-looking layers.

Fine-Haired Women Should Always Go Short
If you're a fine-haired girl, it's possible that a hairstylist has told you at some point that your hair "can't handle" being grown out past a certain point—and that is a load of baloney. "Nobody should 'always' do anything," says Croft. "If your hair isn't stringy or breaking off, and if it looks good, then don't worry about going any shorter." If you do want to grow out fine hair, take extra good care of your locks: deep condition, trim frequently, and skip the heat styling as often possible.

Washing Your Hair Every Day Is Bad For It
We're all going a little dirtier—thanks to the no-poo movement—with the assumption that suds are drying out our strands. The truth: Any damage or dryness from your shampoo pales in comparison to the damage from the extra heat styling that goes with it. So if you're washing and conditioning every day but are air-drying your hair, you don't have much to worry about.

That being said, if you're a frequent shampooer, you'll want to make sure that your suds are as gentle as possible. Alekseyeva recommends a super-natural gentle shampoo such as Goldie Clary Sage Shampoo—it's packed with essential oils that will condition your hair as you wash it.

Women now account for over half of people who play video games, a study has found, driven by the ever-burgeoning app market (and hopefully a little bit less gender stereotyping).

A major study carried out by independent research agency Populus for the Internet Advertising Bureau found that 52% of people who have played some form of video game in the last six months were female, up from 49% three years ago and pushing women into the majority.

The growth in women gamers can has been driven primarily by free mobile apps, with six in ten games acquired in the last six months having been free.

"There are three key reasons why there's an upsurge in women playing video games," commented psychologist Dr Simon Hampton. "Gender stereotypes say women don't play video games so mobiles allow them to do so on the quiet. Many games now don't feature characters to beat or kill which appeals to women as they're less likely than men to simply play for competition's sake.

The majority of the women surveyed cited trivia/word/puzzles games, usually found on smartphones, as their favourite genre (Picture: Getty)

"There's also a lot more word games, it's quite widely accepted that females tend to be more competent linguists."

Smartphone and tablet apps have had a huge impact in recent years and turned us into a nation of gamers, with 33.5 million Britons now engaging with gaming – 69% of the population.

It is cause for celebration among the gaming community, traditionally seen as on the cultural fringes, though the arrival of gaming apps is not entirely positive.

Indeed a screen grab circulating this weekof what Final Fantasy developer Square Enix is up to these days shows how profiteering is put ahead of creativity in the format.

4,058 British individuals aged 8 - 74 were surveyed online for the study between 19 and 29 June 2014.