What a Durham Stylist and Esthetician Do for Their Own Hair and Skin

Ask The Experts - Featuring Emily and Danielle

Ask the Experts: What Our Stylist and Esthetician Actually Do for Their Own Hair and Skin

There's a moment when you stop just dealing with your hair and skin and start actually taking care of them. Maybe a few of your friends found a stylist they swear by. Maybe you've realized the products you grabbed at 22 aren't doing much anymore. Either way, you start asking better questions. And the internet gives you a thousand answers, most of them trying to sell you something.

So we did something simpler. We asked two of our own experts the same honest questions. Not what they're supposed to recommend. What they actually do at home, on their own hair and their own skin.

On hair, with Emily Milton

Emily Milton, a stylist at our Sutton Station location and our Downtown Durham studio at American Tobacco Campus, builds her everyday routine around four moments, not a cabinet full of products. Before the shower, an oil goes on the scalp and through the ends and sits for thirty minutes or more. Then a double shampoo and conditioner. After the shower, a detangler and a heat protectant cream, followed by a smooth blow dry most days. On the in-between days, a little hair oil softens the ends and dry shampoo refreshes the roots. That's it.

The one step worth protecting is that pre-shower oiling. For Emily it's what keeps ends strong and hydrated and helps prevent breakage. It's a small habit that does quiet, long-term work.

Two things Emily wants to clear up. First, air drying does not mean your hair needs nothing and blow drying does not require loading it up with so much product that it feels heavy or oily. Good hair days live in the balance. Second, on the myth of the daily hair mask: for her hair type, masking every wash just weighs it down and leaves it oily by day two. Sometimes less is more, and going a few days between is the better call.

If you've been spending money and your hair still isn't behaving, Emily's first question is always what are you using, and how are you using it. Using a product correctly matters more than most people think. From there, she often points toward the Kérastase Nutritive line, which hydrates without sitting heavy, and depending on how dry your ends have gotten, a small trim might do more than any bottle.

Where she'll splurge: Kérastase Résistance, especially for color-treated and bleached hair. It's deeply hydrating and doesn't leave hair feeling dry after lightening.

With only five minutes, Emily would still blow dry with a heat protectant. She'd skip the after-blow-dry styling, because a smooth, clean finish is beautiful on its own.

On skin, with Danielle

Danielle, an esthetician at our Sutton Station location, runs a full routine, and the structure is the real lesson. Mornings: cleanse, tone, a vitamin C serum, moisturizer, and always SPF. Nights: an oil-based makeup remover first, then a double cleanse, exfoliate, tone, the serum of choice, and moisturizer. It looks like a lot written out, but each step has a job.

The step she's been most consistent about lately is the one people tend to skip as extra: toner. She calls it small but mighty. It clears whatever the cleanser left behind, and you'd be surprised how much that is. A few weeks of staying consistent with it noticeably improved her texture and complexion.

What she's skeptical of: acne patches. Not that they never work, but most people use them incorrectly, and there are more effective ways to actually target a breakout.

What she stopped doing: removing makeup with water-based removers and cotton pads. The skin around your eyes is delicate, and that constant rubbing can contribute to wrinkles over time. Instead, she warms an oil-based remover in her palms and gently massages makeup away.

Her advice for the client who spends two hundred dollars a month and still looks dull: add an enzyme or exfoliant, and invest in a genuinely good vitamin C serum. Dullness is usually a buildup-and-brightness problem, not a spend-more problem.

Where she'll splurge: the serum or the moisturizer. Those are the products you leave on your skin, so it's worth getting the most out of the active ingredients.

And her five-minute, non-negotiable version is the cleanest summary of her whole philosophy: cleanse, tone, moisturize. She'd hate to skip the serum, but if time forces a choice, those three carry the routine.

The takeaway

Notice what neither of them said. There is not a miracle product and no twelve-step regimen you have to buy all at once. Both experts build around a few consistent habits, they know exactly what they absolutely must splurge on, and pay attention to how you use a product more than how much it costs.

That's the whole idea behind taking care of your hair and skin for the long term, and it's how our team thinks about every guest who sits in our chair. If you're ready to build a routine that actually fits your life, our stylists and estheticians across all three of our Durham and Hillsborough locations are here to help you start. A consultation is the easiest first step.