Healthy Hair Beauty Supply

Mistake # 4 Thinking that clipping or trimming the ends of you hair promotes hair growth

This is the worst myth and mistake known to man. I can not stand the fact that this lie is perpetuated by people we should trust (Hairstylists). Although some do not perpetuate this lie, a lot do! This could not be further from the truth. In this article I will discuss why this has nothing to do with hair growth and is at the most just for appearance purposes.

I know every stylist under the sun has told you this, but I am so glad to let you know that that could not be any further from the truth. And no, contrary to popular belief, your split ends are not going to split its way all the way to the root! All trimming does is even out the hair and in some cases give the effect that you hair is fuller, which is simple because you are now evening out your ends which did not break of with the newest part of you hair and making them even with another. The hair closest to your scalp is going to be the thickest part of you hair because it has not been as damaged as much the ends of you hair have been, which is the portion of the hair that been dealt with abuse the longest. I personally feel that my hair, even the ends of it are a welcome guest and can stay as long as it wants. I don’t mind trimming the hair for the sake of making the hair even, but it is not necessary to grow you hair. More attention should be spent on moisturizing and strengthening the hair. With a good moisturizing conditioner, protein treatments, and as little heat as possible you can maintain the length of you hair and watch it get longer.

So As discussed in previous articles, no sisters, we do NOT need “grease” on our scalps for our hair to grow. What we do need is to moisturize and add protein to our hair to make it as resilient as possible to all of the damage, wear, and tear that we will put our hair through, now and in the future just because there are so many damaging elements that we can control being done to our hair and some that we can’t control like the environment. All in all, to be able to have long hair, you must know how to take care of it. Learn about your hair, as I am sure you are doing by one reading this information that I have given you today. Knowing that your hair as women of color is beautiful, unique, and well worth the extra effort to take the time out to research what makes your hair so different and special! Your hair can grow, in fact it does grow, and you just need to know what to do to maintain the health and length of that hair so that you can reach your goal of whatever length that you are looking for. So don’t be easy fooled by myth created by people who have never took the time to research anything about your hair or people who can’t relate!

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Mistake #3 Not moisturizing the hair

Not moisturizing the hair is a big problem.  This should be one of the first things you should do especially when you look at all of the damage we inflict on our hair on a daily basis.  Now that you know that you don’t need to “grease” your scalp to keep hair from becoming dry, you know need to know now what you can replace grease with for moisture retention.  Hair is made up of the same components as skin.  So wouldn’t make sense to moisturize you hair as you do your skin? Now I know what some of us are thinking, “Well I’ll just use Vaseline right!”  Now I could go into that but that would have to be another article because regardless to what our parents may have done to us in the past, Vaseline should not be for the face or any other body part! 

Some things that you can do to get optimum moisture in the hair:

Ø      Deep condition – Make sure you sit under a dryer so the hair shaft will lift up and the conditioner can penetrate the center of your hair.

Ø      Apply a daily moisturizer – Hair is made up of the same components as skin, so apply a light moisturizer, like the Hydratherma Daily moisturizing Lotion to keep your hair as moisturized as possible.

Ø      Wash you hair at least weekly – Contrary to popular believe water does not dry out the hair.  Water is good for the hair.  The problem lies in what happens after the water has dried out!  If you are going to let your hair air dry, try Quenched Curls Moisturizer to help retain moisture in the hair.

With all of that being said, we need basically a moisturizer that can penetrate the hair shaft via the cuticle (the cuticle being the outermost layer of the hair shaft).  The only way that you can impart conditioner to your hair successfully is to be able to lift the cuticle so that the moisturizing conditioner can come in.  You can lift the cuticle with heat, for example that is why in salons you have the option of a deep conditioner treatment.  They put the condition on you hair and put a plastic cap over you head so that when they put you under the dryer the conditioner has chance to go into the hair shaft.  With that being said if you wanted to close the cuticle, the opposite of heat seals, the cuticle in, that being cold water in this case.

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Healthy Hair Blog Series:  Questions to ask yourself when you have damaged hair

1)      What is the porosity of  my hair?

This blog  series this month will focus on damaged hair, and solutions for them.  I have found that I needed to dig deeper into how to repair damage hair.  So this series will focus on the types of products that will optimize hair repair.  This will be done by focusing on four questions that every women with damaged hair should be asking themselves.           

That first question would be, “What is the porosity of my hair?”  This  is  a very important question to ask yourself because this may be single-handedly the main road block to having healthy hair success.  To understand the porosity of hair you must understand what porosity means.  To give an easy and general definition of porosity is that porosity is how much moisture the hair can absorb.  Contrary to popular belief, hair with high porosity is not a good thing!.

 High porous hair means that the hair cuticle layer (The cuticle layer is the outermost layer of the hair and resembles shingles of the roof.  This is the main barrier or shield for the hair)  is damaged and can not lie down and takes in a lot of moisture in but also loses a lot of that moisture. When this cuticle layer can not lie down, it is lifted up and is an indication of damage.  So in a sense getting moisture to penetrate the hair may be good but not if it is losing that moisture just as fast as it is receiving it and at the expensive of a damaged cuticle layer! Below is a summary of the symptoms of Over Porosity/ Moisture loss:

Ø      Hair easily gains and losses moisture and other substances

Ø      Coloring solutions and chemicals process quickly

Ø      Hair dries fast

These three symptoms result in:

Ø      Natural moisture escapes from the inner fiber (the cortex which is the centermost part of the hair shaft) into the atmosphere causing dryness

Ø      Cuticle damage because the cuticle layer is no longer properly aligned and providing adequate protection for the inner most part of the hair shaft.

Now that we know that we don’t want over porous hair, the only thing left to do is figure out how to repair over porous hair if we have it.  Below is a great prescribed solution for Over Porosity/ Moisture Loss:

Ø      Deep Conditioner

Hydratherma Deep Conditioner

Ø      Reconstructor Monthly (aka Protein Treatment)

Hydratherma Protein Treatment

Ø      Daily Moisturizer

Hydratherma Moisturizer

Quenched Curls Moisturizer

Ø      Leave-in Conditioner

Hydratherma Leave-In Conditioner

Lacio Lacio Leave-In Conditioner with Mink Oil! (My favorite conditioner.  It has agents in it that smoothes the cuticle layer.  It’s like a conditioner with built in hair polish/laminate/blow-drying lotion!)

Lacio Lacio Leave-In Conditioner

Ø      Hair Polisher (Aka Laminate) and/ or Blow-drying Lotion

Lacio Lacio Leave-In Conditioner with Mink Oil!

Lacio Lacio Leave-In Conditioner

All is all when trying to repair damaged hair, you must get to the root of the problem, no pun intended.  Knowing that your hair is damaged is not enough.  You need to look deeper into problem to find the solution.  Today when just went over one of the possibilities but later on through the month we will explore other reasons as to why hair becomes damaged along with solutions!

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