It's been over 100 degrees F here in New York the past couple of days, friends, and everything about me is beginning to feel fried. Especially my hair.

The heat, the sweat, the dirty city air, when combined, make me want to wash my hair umpteen times a day. But then I'm left with dry, dull strands of straw. It's a vicious cycle, people!

So this week I sought solace in the Tui Hair Oil from (Brooklyn-based!) Carol's Daughter. My experience with heavily oil-based hair products that are meant to be left in has been routinely bad, but my hair is so dry right now, I'm at the point where I'd probably slather duck fat all over it if I thought it would help (and, of course, if it didn't make me smell like confit de canard).

Tui (twee) Hair Oil is an uncomplicated formula: corn oil, chamomile, calendula, and fragrance. It has the consistency of a thin bath oil and smells absolutely divine, of guava, mango and passion fruit. Tui is great on paper but is definitely one of those products that requires some "playtime" to get the hang of it. After a couple of days of experimenting, I'm now getting consistently great results with it; so, learn from my mistakes/experiments/successes and save yourself from fried locks this summer:

• Start with a tiny bit - maybe 4 little drops. Unless you have very thick or coarse hair, more than that at once will likely turn it into a stringy mess. Just the right amount will banish the fried feeling and leave your hair shiny and smelling lovely.
• It is most certainly possible to OD with this product. Again, start small, add more if you like. It took me a day or so to get the amounts right but I'm glad I took the time to play with it!
• Try working it into your hair while it's still wet.
• Do keep in mind that underneath the scent, it is corn oil. A little of it made its way onto the plates of my flat iron and made the bathroom smell a bit like a Fryolator. Fortunately, this did not carry over to my head; my hair just smelled of fruit-and-flower goodness.

Now that I've gotten the hang of it, the Tui hair oil is my mainstay styling product; I don't need much more in terms of smoothing and shine. The 2 oz. bottle will set you back only $8; and used sparingly, you'll get quite a bit of mileage out of it.