If you're anything like us, you love to change up your style often. But with hot tools comes the risk of heat damage. In this blog post, we'll talk about how heat affects hair, tips for styling with hot tools, and our take on heat protectants. Keep reading to learn more!

Hot tools work by heating up the keratin in your hair, which weakens the chemical bonds between the molecules of your hair, making it easier to manipulate & style. It’s really effective - but be careful. Using your heat tools too hot, for too long, or too often will eventually lead to increased breakage, dryness, split ends, and a decrease in your hair's overall health.

Protecting your hair from heat, whether you're spending a lot of time in the sun, or using hot tools often, comes down to using products that will protect your hair when heated. This will help to shield your hair from the damaging effects of hot styling and keep it healthy & strong.

So, what is the best way to style your hair with hot tools? We recommend keeping the temperature to a minimum and have some recommendations based on your hair type. In general, keep your heat only as high as needed to effectively style your hair, and under these temperatures:

If you have finer or thinner hair, keep the heat below 290 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you have thicker or curlier hair, keep the heat below 365 degrees Fahrenheit.

We also recommend using a leave-in conditioner (oh look at that, 

...) or thermal protectant before styling to help further protect your strands. And be sure to use a thermally protective shampoo and conditioner system to help maintain healthy hair.

Heat protectants serve a great function and are a must when using high heat. They work by coating hair in a thicker silicone that slows the transfer of heat from your tools to your hair

If volume is a problem for you, overuse of heat protectants will make your volume woes worse.

We hope this article has helped you understand a little bit more about how heat affects your hair, and how to style it using hot tools without causing damage. Be sure to use thermal protectants and keep the temperature at a minimum to help maintain healthy, strong hair. Thanks for reading!

Tips for Styling with Hot Tools, and Our Take on Heat Protectant

Hot Hair: How Heat Affects Hair

Have you ever heard of "hair slugging"? It's a new hair trend that is gaining popularity for its ability to give hair shine and moisture. The process is simple: you massage a natural oil (such as olive or avocado oil) into your hair, cover it with a shower cap, and let it sit overnight.

The trend has been gaining notoriety on Tiktok and in other beauty social media circles, with many different recommendations on how to slug your hair.

The concept of applying oil to one's hair has a long-standing history in many African and Asian cultures. Recently, "slugging" has resurged in beauty trends, starting with skincare, where one uses petroleum jelly or a heavy lotion on dry areas, usually hands or feet, and keeps the coated skin in a sock, or something similar, overnight.

Hair slugging is the same concept for your hair. When it comes to your hair, you don't want to be coating your hair in petroleum jelly (which will be incredibly difficult to get out), but rather, use an oil like avocado, coconut, or olive oil, and allow your hair to absorb it.

While some people recommend keeping oil in overnight, to prevent build-up & clogged scalp pores, we recommend starting with 2 hours, and adjusting as needed to create your desired result.

When practicing hair slugging, we have a few recommendations for keeping your hair healthy and build-up free.

Wash with a cleansing shampoo after slugging your hair. Use warm water and 

 to close the cuticle of the hair and lock in your moisture.

Rinse thoroughly, and take special care if you'll be using any heat products soon after. Hair + heat + oil = damaged hair.

If you are sleeping with your hair slugged, use a silk wrap. Cotton roughs up the cuticle and will rough up the cuticle, making it more difficult to close and lock in your new moisture.

Other ways to increase moisture and shine include switching to dimethicone-free shampoo and conditioner and finding the right frequency of hair washing.

Finding the right balance for your hair type is key to keeping hair healthy, hydrated, and shiny.

What is "hair slugging" and other natural ways to get shine & moisture

An old trend becomes a new trend

You may have noticed that our CBD products are no longer available on torsalonproducts.com - not to worry, we haven't stopped making or selling any of our CBD products.

If you've been a TOR customer for a little while, you'll remember last year when we were able to accept credit card orders - basically, our credit card processor at the time said "nope"! It took us quite a while to get back online, but we did it. So we were prepared to address any potential hiccups when we started working on our shiny, new website.

Our original plan was to sell all of our products on the new website, however, we realized keeping both product lines under the same proverbial roof was imposing undue constraints on how we could market and sell our hair care. Ultimately, selling hair care and CBD products requires totally different strategies, and speaking to different audiences, even if they overlap sometimes.

So, we've quietly launched TOR CBD, a sister brand of TOR Salon Products, so we can put more strategic focus on each segment of the business.

, and of course, give us a follow on Instagram 

If you've enjoyed TOR's CBD products, give us a shout and let us know how!

Shannon has a long history with CBD, going back to his grandparents, but TOR Salon Products CBD emerged when co-founder & CFO Tina, who is also Shannon's wife, was diagnosed with Crohn's disease.

After years of medical intervention, medication, and problems with inflammation, Shannon decided to harken back to his grandmother's advice and created a highly concentrated CBD “tincture”, knowing cannabinoids' ability to tame inflammation. Shannon just wanted to give his wife some relief.

Within a week, Tina was able to eat normal meals - something she hadn't been able to do in years.

CBD is federally legal, however, there are a few catches. CBD can not be derived from the cannabis plant, it must come from industrial hemp. The CBD must have less than 0.3% THC to be considered federally legal. Each state has different regulations on CBD and CBD-containing products.

Due to the volatility of regulation around hemp, marijuana, and CBD, payment processors like Stripe, Shopify, and others classify CBD sales as "high-risk". Their actuaries and insurance companies want nothing to do with CBD. So there's quite a bit more work involved to be able to sell CBD online.

TOR CBD isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We've just moved some things around to enable us to continue to grow and serve our customers as best as possible.

Like TOR's hair lines, TOR CBD is backed by extensive research and science - which is why our CBD products are on average 3-times the concentration of the rest of the CBD market.

Hot Hair: How Heat Affects Hair

An old trend becomes a new trend

Introducing TOR CBD