Since beauty school, I’ve been pretty rough on my hair. The lighter the better, in my opinion, and between lightening it with color, heat styling, and generally doing too much to it on a regular basis I’ve learned that I need to use a deep conditioner about once a week. And frankly, I may be able to get away with doing one more often than that!
But there are a few things that I do to care for my hair that don’t require products! If you feel like your hair is in need of a little TLC, but a deep conditioner isn’t in the budget, try making these few changes.

Brush it out before washing it. Not only does this loosen up any dirt, product, etc. but it removes any tangles so you can adequately wash your hair after it’s wet. Wet hair is up to 50% more elastic than dry hair, so tangles on wet hair will stretch and tear much worse than tangles on dry hair. Start at the bottom, working your way up toward the root area, brushing in long strokes until it’s completely smooth before washing. Let the conditioner sit in your hair for a few minutes. That will give the product some time to work and soften up the hair shaft. My routine is as follows: wet hair, shampoo hair, let the shampoo sit on my hair while I apply facial exfoliator, rinse shampoo and exfoliator, apply conditioner, rake through with my fingers, wash body, shave legs, generally enjoy the hot water loosening up my sore shoulders, rinse conditioner.
Do not FULLY rinse out the conditioner. ...