Master the Art of Hair Care
Thinning hair requires plenty of love, kindness and attention. This means you need to create and strictly follow a regimen that is meant to nurture your hair follicles and encourage them to produce healthier strands.
How you care for your hair depends on the kind that you have. If your hair does not get dry or greasy easily, has not undergone color treatment or perm, can hold style well, and looks healthy on most days, then you have normal hair. If your hair is frizzy and feels rough, looks dull, easily gets tangled, and/or has undergone treatment, then you have dry hair. Hair that is limp, hard to style, lacks volume, looks flat, and gets greasy easily is called fine hair.
To care for your hair, you need to have a certain standard to aim for when it comes to its healthy growth. So, what does healthy hair look like? Regardless of hair type, healthy hair should have smooth, soft cuticles. It should be resilient and should not break easily. The healthiest hair should have a natural gleam and should reflect light.
There are many hair care habits that you can start building right now so that your hair will grow back thicker and stronger.
Use the right shampoo and conditioner
There are so many shampoo options out there that you could just go crazy from choosing the best one for your needs. However, the best advice would be to always go for the organic kind; that is to say, they contain no harmful chemicals. The truth is that there is no such thing as a shampoo really strengthens the hair; all it does is clean off the excess sebum and dirt that have accumulated. Conditioners, though, treat your hair the same way that lotion treats your skin. Its slick formula also helps you remove any shampoo residue that clings to the hair.
Handle hair with care
Do you know how to wash and dry your hair properly? Let’s get down to it:
Wet the hair using warm water, then squeeze a bit of shampoo on your palms and rub your palms together to form a lather. Bend forward and point the top of your head down to the ground. Starting from above the nape of your neck, apply the shampoo, working your way into the scalp and gently massaging it using the pads of your fingertips. Straighten up and allow the shampoo to sit on your hair for a minute or two, then bend forward again and rinse it off gently using warm
water.
To condition long hair, apply first on the tips of the strands and then apply the rest on the hairs close to your scalp. Use just enough conditioner to moisten the hair but not overwhelm it, because too much conditioner will cause it to go limp. Let the conditioner sit for at least 2 minutes, then rinse off thoroughly using warm water.
Never comb your hair after washing and refrain from rubbing your hair dry with a towel. Instead, pat the hair gently or better yet use a softer piece of cloth. You should also avoid blow-drying your hair while it is still dripping wet.
If you want to use gel, mousse, or some other styling agent, then apply it soon after patting your hair dry; you want to apply it while the hair is still damp. Only comb your hair when it is 80 percent dry.
During those times when you absolutely have to use a blow-dryer, pat the hair dry as much as you can, then move the blow-dryer around using the lowest possible speed; do not concentrate on a single area because the heat will cause damages. Do not dry your hair until it is completely dry; aim to lightly blow-dry the roots and then let the rest of the hair blow dry.
Stay away from hair damaging habits
Your scalp and hair’s natural enemies are the sun (which dries it out) and the wind (which can tangle hair up and make it susceptible to breakage). However, you can be your own hair’s enemy, unless you follow the following advice:
Do not use a blow-dryer regularly. High temperature will boil the natural moisture in the hair and irreversibly damage the shaft. Hot rollers also do the same damage, if not worse. Opt for airdrying on most days.
Never expose hair to direct sunlight. The UV rays will damage the keratin. Use a hat and/or apply organic sunscreen spray.
Avoid hair sprays. What a hair spray does is it coats the cuticle and causes the strands to bind together and pull. The traction will then damage the hair cuticles and cause them to break easily. If you had to use hair spray, wash the product away thoroughly but gently within the day so that the hair is less likely to become damaged.
Say no to back combing and back brushing. Such habits that are supposed to volumize the air actually cause your hair to become even thinner in the long run. The shaft will be damaged for good and it will cause your precious hair strands to break.
Do not use a rubber band. A rubber band causes traction alopecia because of the pressure it applies on the hair shafts. If you need to tie your hair back, use a non-grip hair band.
Avoid perming, bleaching, and coloring. The chemicals in these treatments will damage the hair cuticles because they increase the hair shafts’ porosity, thus making hair much weaker.
Pamper your scalp
Contrary to what most people believe, the condition of the scalp actually has little to do with one’s hair loss, particularly if its cause is genetic. Even mild dandruff is not a factor to hair loss. Nevertheless, think of the scalp as the soil and the hair follicles as your seed. If the scalp is healthy, the chances of growing healthy hair will increase as well.
Oily Scalp
Those with oily scalp constantly experience flaking and dandruff. The excessive sebum clogs the pores and prevents the hair follicles from growing out hair easily. The oils also weigh the hair down, causing it to be limp and difficult to volumize.
To care for oily scalp, you need to shampoo the hair daily using a gentle, organic brand. Washing daily will also prevent the sebum from accumulating on the scalp and attracting a fungal infection, therefore dandruff is also avoided. Only apply conditioner on the tips of the hair as the scalp is already doing too good a job to keep the roots moisturized. If dandruff is still a problem, use nizoral once a week or so for treatment and maintenance. Do not use leave in conditioners.
Those with a normal scalp do not have a lot of problems, therefore they should only shampoo and condition two times a week using an organic shampoo for normal hair type. An occasional warm oil treatment is also advised for easy maintenance.
If you have dry scalp, you always experience flaking skin and itching. The hair also comes out frizzy, rough, and dull because of the lack of natural oils. To care for a dry scalp, use a warm oil treatment weekly along with a gentle scalp massage to encourage the sebaceous glands to produce oil. Deep condition the hair and scalp every other night as well. Shampooing should be limited to one time per week, and the choice of conditioner should be a thick cream type and should be left in the hair for 10 minutes before it is rinsed off.
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