anti-frizz 3 min read

A Low-Effort Hair Routine That Actually Sticks

A Ablu RitualConsidered care · June 2026

The best hair routine is the one you'll actually keep doing. If a twelve-step regimen sounds exhausting, good news: looking after your hair is mostly about a few small, gentle habits, not more product. Here's a low-effort routine built around the everyday rinse, with the simple tools that do the quiet work for you.

Start with the water

Across New Zealand and Australia, shower water is treated with chlorine to keep it safe to drink, as the regulator Taumata Arowai explains, and many areas also have hard water that's high in dissolved minerals. Neither is a problem to wash in, but both can leave hair looking a little dull. A filtered shower head reduces the chlorine taste and odour and the fine sediment as the water flows, so what reaches your hair feels gentler and rinses cleaner. It's a cosmetic, feel-good upgrade, not a treatment, and it's the one change that quietly improves everything after it.

Wash less, lather better

Most of us wash our hair more than we need to. When you do, a silicone scalp brush helps work a little shampoo into a fuller lather and turns the whole thing into a few soothing minutes. It also helps lift product build-up, so hair rinses properly clean, which, more than any single product, is what makes hair look fresh.

Condition where it counts

Through the mid-lengths and ends, the oldest, most worn part of your hair, a little conditioning goes a long way. A rice water and keratin mask once or twice a week, left on for a few minutes in the shower, smooths the look and feel of dry or frizzy lengths and adds gloss. Skip the roots; they don't need it.

Handle wet hair gently

This is the step most of us get wrong, and it costs nothing to fix. Hair is delicate when it's wet, and the American Academy of Dermatology recommends that, rather than rubbing it with a rough towel, you “wrap your hair in a towel to absorb the water”, then comb gently with a wide-tooth comb and avoid tugging. A microfibre hair towel wrap does exactly that: it absorbs water quickly with far less friction than terry cotton, so hair dries faster and looks less frizzy. Then a flexible detangling brush eases out knots without pulling.

A drop of oil to finish

Once hair is towel-dried, warm two or three drops of rosemary and coconut hair oil between your palms and smooth them through the mid-lengths and ends. It tames the look of frizz and flyaways and adds shine, without the greasy weight. That's the finish, no heat required.

The whole routine, in order

Rinse in filtered water.
Wash with a scalp brush for a fuller lather.
Condition the mid-lengths and ends (a mask once or twice a week).
Wrap, don't rub, in a microfibre towel, then detangle gently.
Finish with a few drops of hair oil.

Five steps, most of them under a minute. If you'd like the core pieces together, the Complete Ritual Kit brings the filtered head, scalp brush, microfibre towel and refills into one set.

Ablu makes cosmetic claims only. These are feel-good upgrades for the look and feel of your hair, not treatments for any condition. Sources: American Academy of Dermatology; Taumata Arowai.