In the hair care battle of women versus their curly locks, monotony often comes out the winner. Curly hair, in all its varieties of texture and curl patterns, can be maddeningly difficult to manage. Small wonder that once curly-haired women find a cut and style that works for them -- more or less -- they settle into wearing that day after day.

“Women with curly hair struggle a lot,” says Craig Carter, an ethnic-hair expert with the Carlos Lobo Salon in New York City. Dealing with curling hair’s twisty ringlets, tight coils or something in between may require additional deep conditioning and preparation with styling aids -- such as curl-defining or enhancing mousses and gels -- than other types of hair, he says. But with a regular at-home conditioning regimen and a few new and simple styling tricks, you can easily bust out of a hair rut.

Braids
If your hair grows in spiral curls, twist it into five French braids down your back and then sleep in them, suggests Daven Mayeda, a Los Angeles hair pro who styled Mariah Carey’s hair during her Angels Advocate tour. “When you wake up and take out the braids, your hair will be an amazing texture,” says Mayeda. “It’s a great no-heat, organic way to do a curly hairstyle, and it will last for several days.”

Buns
For a full, wavy look, create five or six small buns in places where they won’t interfere with your sleep, says Mayeda. Dampen hair with a mix of water and conditioner, then coil hair into ropes, twist into buns and secure with bobby pins. Let the hair dry overnight and simply unpin and tousle in the morning.

Asymmetry
“With curly hair, anything asymmetrical is amazing,” says Mayeda. He suggests experimenting with a few coils pinned up on one side. Another off-center look that’s a cinch to achieve: side-part your hair, and then plait it into a low-slung loose braid on the heavy side of your part.

Layers
“I’ve been giving women with really curly hair a few shorter layers or a bit of fringe around the face to help create shape, instead of letting the top and sides be flat,” says George Gonzalez, owner of George the Salon in Chicago and the hairstylist for Oprah’s in-house spa at Harpo Productions. With layers and bangs, you’ll have loose pieces that you can keep free when you create the half-up-half-down hair trends you’ve long admired on women with straight or wavy hair.

Creativity
With her waist-length, shiny black ringlets, Timon Cana, a Beverly Hills hairstylist, has lots of opportunities to experiment with new styling options. Unlike slick, straight hair that can slide around, “curly hair will stay where you put it,” says Cana. She’s a fan of a loose ponytail that you secure wherever it looks and feels best -- high at the crown, low on the nape or folded into a loop on the back of your head. Curly hair looks great slightly mussed, so Cana often allows some portion of a ponytail, braid or bun to hang loose.

Accessories
Curly hair is a great anchor for all types of accessories, including chopsticks, banana clips, combs, chignon pins and silk head scarves. Bun cages are a favorite of Cana’s; these cages or domes fit over a bun and are held in place with a hair stick. You can find them online or at your local beauty-supply shop in a wide variety of materials, including tortoise shell, beads and rhinestones.

You don’t need a meteorologist to tell you that this winter has created a beauty SOS! Record snowstorms and punishing winds, combined with dry indoor heating, are leaving your hair static-y and dull, and your skin rough, dry and peeling.

What kept your tresses lustrous in summer and your skin dewy in July doesn’t work in February and March. Here’s how to tweak your beauty regimen so you can achieve healthy skin and healthy hair during the frosty season.

Hair

1. Hydrate every time you shampoo.
Switch to moisturizing shampoos and conditioners, and skip at least one day between shampoos so you don’t deplete your scalp of the natural oils it’s able to retain. To fight flat tresses, apply conditioner only from mid-shaft to your ends. Your roots are just a few weeks old and still getting nourished form your scalp’s sebum, so keep them lifted by skipping the added weight of conditioner.

2. Protect against heat damage.
Parched locks are especially vulnerable to the damage caused by hot styling tools. Letting your hair air-dry in the winter is unrealistic, and walking out in near-zero temperatures with a wet head will cause your strands to freeze and lead to damaged hair.

Instead, partially dry your hair by blotting it with a microfiber towel. Then, apply a heat-protecting hair care product before firing up the hair-blower. Or, eliminate blow-drying by shampooing at bedtime, suggests Natasha Sunshine, owner-stylist of the Byu-ti Hair Therapy Salon. In the morning, style your hair with a flat iron or curling iron. Use the lowest heat seating that will still allow you to achieve the styling results you want, and keep the hot tool moving to avoid scorching your strands.

3. Warm up your hair color.
Hair color that worked beautifully against summer’s bronzed skin can look ashy with winter’s paler complexion. Add warmth to your palette by taking blond hair from beige to golden, brunette tresses to chestnut, or chocolate-brown and red hair to copper or auburn.

Skin

1. Modify your skin care routine.
Your summer skin challenge is most likely controlling oil, while during winter, it’s combating dryness. Replace your exfoliating or sudsing cleanser with a milder, non-sudsing one. Ease up on your use of retinoids; switch to a less-concentrated formula or use them only every other night. Moisturize twice a day, in the morning and at night. Consider switching from a light formula, such as a gel-based moisturizer, to a slightly thicker one. Or, boost the potency of the year-round moisturizer you love by layering a serum underneath.

2. Choose the right soaps and moisturizers.
Long, hot showers or baths can feel great on a bone-chilling day, but they’re extremely drying. “The intense heat actually breaks down the lipid barriers in the skin, which leads to a loss of moisture and dehydrates the skin,” says Naomi Donnelley, a dermatologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Keep showers and baths short and lukewarm.” Use a soap-free body wash instead of a harsh antibacterial soap. Apply a body moisturizer while still slightly damp for smooth skin. “In general, lotions don’t cut it in winter,” says Donnelley. “Choose a cream, or if your skin is very dry, a petroleum-based product. Some ingredients to look for include ceramides, dimethicone, urea, hyaluronic acid, glycerin, petrolatum and lanolin.”

3. Invest in a humidifier.
If you experience itching or flaking, consider a home humidifier. The extra moisture it pumps into the air not only soothes chapped lips and hands and relieves all-over dry skin, but also helps nourish midwinter’s straw-like damaged hair. Just be sure to clean your humidifier regularly to prevent the growth of mold and bacteria.

Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com/piskunov

Shiny, bouncy, healthy hair -- it’s every woman’s best beauty asset. But as much as we treasure our tresses, we put them through a lot of torture. Blow-dryers, flat irons, hair dyeing or bleaching, chemical straightening and tight ponytails can leave our hair dry, fried and unable to hold a style. Hair expert John Gray, author of The World of Hair, explains all this rough handling strips away your mane’s outer protective layer -- the “F” layer -- leading to a degradation of the cortex, the central core of the hair shaft. Ouch!

Dire as that sounds, with just a few tweaks to your hair care routine, your damaged hair will act, look and feel healthy while you prevent future harm. “Hair care technology has come a long way,” says Pantene senior scientist Jeni Thomas. “You can still color your hair, use styling tools or spend time out in the sun and have great hair -- as long as you are taking the right steps to protect it.”

Here’s how to mend your damaged hair from the four main types of assault.

Over-processing
If you dye or lighten your hair, staying within two shades of your natural color will be far less damaging than going from dark brown to blond -- or the other way around. When you touch up your hair at home with permanent or semipermanent color, focus on the roots so you’re not processing your porous ends again.

Be cautious about exposing your color-processed hair to chemical straightening or permanent waves. If you love the results you get with chemical straightening, talk to your stylist about switching to a gentler process that improves the texture of your hair -- leaving it soft, glossy and manageable rather than pin-straight.

Use a shampoo and conditioner formulated for colored hair. Chemical treatments alter the structure of the hair and these products contain ingredients, such as certain polymers, that enhance this new structure.

Heat Damage
The highest setting of your flat iron, curling iron and blow-dryer may actually exceed the boiling point of water. Instead of poaching your tresses, apply a heat-protecting spray and use the lowest setting that will allow you to get the results you want and maintain your healthy hair. Don’t blow-dry your hair when it’s sopping wet; wait until it’s two-thirds dry, or blot with a towel to absorb extra moisture. When you use your flat iron, keep it moving: Try to go through each section of hair only once.

Look for hair care products that contain the words “moisturizing” or “hydrating” on the label; these will provide your thirsty locks with the restorative drink they need.

Rough Handling
Use only a wide-tooth comb to detangle wet hair. Cut down on how frequently and aggressively you brush your hair. Forget the 100 nightly strokes maxim and use the minimum number of brush strokes that are needed to achieve or refresh your style. If you wear a ponytail, be sure to use seamless elastics and take care when you remove them; carelessly ripping out your pony holder can lead to breakage. If you already have signs of breakage, such as flyways around the crown, use a smoothing cream. Rub a dime-size amount between your palms, then lightly apply to your flyaway zones.

Sun Exposure
Just as UV rays damage your skin, they also wreak havoc on your locks, weakening the protein structure that keeps hair strong and healthy. The best way to protect your healthy hair from damage on a sunny day is to wear a hat; choose one with a wide brim and you’ll protect your skin too. If your tresses have already seen more sunny days than you can count, choose a shampoo and conditioner that are designed to strengthen your hair, and pick the formula that’s right for your texture (fine/fragile or medium/thick).

As fall sets in, you notice that your skin and hair have gone from sun-kissed to sun-stressed. “When a patient comes to me in September, the most common complaints are brown spots, broken capillaries and fine lines,” says Rebecca Fitzgerald, M.D., a Los Angeles dermatologist. And while a season of sun, sea and chlorine has left your skin dehydrated and blotchy, your hair is likely to look fried and lifeless. “Hair needs extra TLC at the end of summer,” says Los Angeles hairstylist Rebecca DuMoulin, “especially if it’s color treated.”

Here are the top fixes for summer’s beauty blunders; some you can do on your own and others with a little help from the pros.

How to Get Your Glow Back
Your dermatologist can help erase sun damage by literally shining a light on the problem. Intense pulsed light treatments (also known as IPL, Fotofacial or Photofacial) deliver high-intensity bursts of light to areas of pigment that don’t match your regular skin tone, such as red, tan and brown spots as well as tiny broken capillaries. The melanin in those areas absorbs the light, and over the next few days, the spots darken and then flake off, replaced by new even-toned skin tissue. (IPL, however, may be less effective on skin that already contains a lot of pigment, so women with darker skin tones should discuss with their dermatologist whether the treatment is right for them.)

Another option your doctor may suggest is a light chemical peel that uses salicylic or glycolic acid to exfoliate the top layers of skin, helping to slough away discoloration, fine wrinkles and coarse texture. Your doctor may also write a prescription for a topical retinoid -- a vitamin A derivative -- that smoothes the skin and evens out discoloration by speeding cell turnover. “The only caveat with retinoids is that the gain is long haul and not overnight. Give them a few months,” advises Fitzgerald.

Skin Fixes From the Drugstore
Over-the-counter retinoids are lower in strength than their prescription sisters, but still highly effective. Look for the word “retinol” on the product’s label. And while nonprescription retinoids are less likely than prescription formulas to irritate your skin, they can still cause dryness, so start by using your new cream every other night.

Other great drugstore ingredients to look for are AHA’s (alpha hydroxy acids, commonly listed as glycolic or salicylic on the ingredients list). Like the chemical peels you’d receive in a doctor’s office, these products work to exfoliate the top damaged layers of skin.

Moisture and Shine Repair for Hair
“End-of-summer hair looks dry because the cuticle on the hair shaft isn’t lying flat, causing strands to lose moisture and gloss,” says DuMoulin. A trim at a salon is the only way to get rid of split or ragged ends, but there are also deep-conditioning treatments available that help the scalp and flood your hair with moisturizers. These deep-conditioning treatments smooth the scale-like cells of the cuticle, instantly boosting shine. At home, switch to moisturizing conditioners and fake shine with a silicone spray. Silicone gives hair an instant gloss and tames flyaways while you are babying your hair back from summer damage.

Reversing Hair’s Brassiness and Blahs
After months of sun exposure, hair that has been colored often looks brassy and dull. “Women who color their hair dark brown or red suffer the most because these colors really fade in the sun,” says DuMoulin. A toner can help add some extra depth to your hue. While blondes don’t suffer from fading in the summer, too much sun “and their hair looks one-dimensional,” says DuMoulin. One solution is to add some lowlights to give your light tresses more depth.