Tips On How To Keep Your Hair Healthy

As a woman, your hair is without a doubt one of your best features. It is the first thing people notice when they look at you and when styled nicely, it also enhances your facial features. For this reason, whenever you step out with your hair looking great, you also feel great. This makes it essential that your hair always looks presentable. And the best way to achieve this? By keeping your hair healthy!

How do you keep your hair healthy?

When you have healthy hair, your tresses glow beautifully without shedding. They also have a very smooth texture with great elasticity that prevents hair breakage and dryness. For tips on how to keep healthy hair, keep reading below!

• Choose hair care products with beneficial ingredients 

To ensure your hair stays healthy, you need to make use of quality ‘hair food’. So when shopping for hair care products, check the label on each for their ingredients. Look out for products with seaweed as it helps control the level of oiliness on your scalp. Rosemary helps boost hair growth and coconut oil makes your hair glow. 

Other ingredients to look out for when buying hair care products include olive oil, clay, charcoal, avocado oil, tapioca, and honey. Occasionally, you can also choose to treat your hair with homemade masks such as mashed bananas and coconut milk, argan oil and rosemary oil, and egg whites.

• Always comb your hair before taking a shower

Do you step into the shower with your hair all tangled? Do you comb it shortly after stepping out of the shower? If so, you need to adopt another shower routine to keep your hair healthy. 

Before taking a shower, take a few seconds to run a comb through your tresses. This is because when wet, our hair becomes weaker and more likely to break. So if you choose to comb it only after taking a shower, you will lose a sizable portion of it. To avoid this, comb your hair before your showers and detangle it. After your shower, it’ll be much easier to comb hence you can do so a few times without risking breakage.

• Condition your hair properly 

To have healthy hair, you must learn how to condition it properly. To do this, measure out the right amount of conditioner keeping in mind that if your hair isn’t flowing all the way down to your feet, then it doesn’t require more than a quarter-size drop. Next, apply the conditioner on your ends and then slowly work it downward to the mid-shafts before taking it to your roots. This is to ensure that every inch of your hair is moisturized. 

When you get to your scalp, take a few minutes to massage the conditioner in. Afterward, leave the conditioner on for about sixty seconds and then rinse it out. This careful and attentive method of hair conditioning can also be very beneficial for people who make use of dry shampoos.

• Eat healthily

Our diet does not just affect us internally but also externally. Therefore to have healthy hair, you also need to pay attention to your diet. Fill your kitchen with protein sources like eggs, fish, beans, and meat to promote hair growth. Eggs are highly beneficial for the hair because they also contain biotin, which helps produce keratin (a kind of protein that makes up the hair, nails, and skin). 

Other foods to add to your diet for healthy hair include berries, which are loaded with vitamins and antioxidants, fatty fish, spinach, sweet potatoes, nuts, avocados, shrimp, and oysters.

• Make out time to rest

Stress doesn’t just affect us mentally. It also has telltale signs that mar our physical appearances. To avoid dull strands or hair breakage, make sure you get enough rest. Go to bed early, lessen your workload, find time to meditate, and just relax. 

Your hair is a part of your body and when you are relaxed, your skin will also be relaxed -including your scalp. So if you want to keep healthy hair, you need to find time to rest.

• Reduce heat on your hair

To keep your hair healthy, it is essential that you limit how often you bring it in contact with heat. The first way to do this is to reduce your use of a blow dryer. Generally, too much heat causes hair damage, and blow-drying removes the moisture in your hair, keeping your cuticles dry and brittle. This can lead to significant hair breakage. To prevent this, reduce how often you blow dry your hair and when you do, make use of a leave-in conditioner or a heat protector spray. Also, choose the low heat option on the dryer. 

The second way to protect your hair from heat damage is to reduce your use of flat irons. Note that when you use a flat iron on dry hair, it can cause the cuticles to crack and when you use it on wet hair, it can cause blisters on your cuticles, which also results in breakages. To avoid this, make use of conditioners with cetrimonium chloride to reduce the risk of breakages.

The final way to protect your hair from heat damages is to avoid super hot showers. Though it’s understandable that most ladies prefer steamy showers because they can be relaxing, taking them frequently will weaken your scalp and the hair it produces. So on days when you want to takes hot showers, wear a shower cap, and on other days, keep the temperature lukewarm.

Reducing the heat application on your hair will keep your hair glowing and your cuticles closed.

• Use scrunchies instead of hair ties

If you’ve used hair ties in the past, then you already know how painful taking it off can be –especially when the tie latches onto strands of your hair! Also, besides the pain of pulling it off, they yank off chunks of your hair which can cause serious damage in the long run. This makes scrunchies the better option for packing your hair. 

How? For one, hair scrunchies are elastic, which makes them very easy to wear and take off. Scrunchies also do not squeeze your hair tightly enough to leave dents when removed as hair ties do. So to keep healthy hair, swap those hair ties for a colorful, attractive scrunchie!

• Choose the best shampoo for your hair type

When buying shampoo, keep in mind that there are different shampoos made for different hair types hence it is essential that you select one that suits you. If you have an oily scalp, avoid shampoos with words like ‘moisturizing, hydrating, and smoothing’ on their labels. These types of shampoos make your hair greasier. Instead, seek out shampoos that are said to strengthen your hair and balance the ph. 

If you have a dry scalp, avoid shampoos with labels that say ‘fortifying or strengthening’ as these will most likely remove essential moisture from your scalp. Instead buy shampoos that moisturize and keep your hair hydrated. You might also want to avoid shampoos with sulfate as those will only make your hair drier!

• Style your hair with care

Another tip for keeping healthy hair is to style your hair with care. While there are occasions that may require you to flat iron and thong your hair or to hold it back in tight plaits, make sure you do so rarely. Constantly making tight hairstyles will weaken your scalp and lead to hair breakage. Also, using hot tools as mentioned earlier will strip your hair of moisture and cause it to break. So choose gentler styles that will cause little or no damage to your hair and keep it healthy.

• Get a hair trim

Though some people feel hair trims are counteractive to hair growth, it is actually the other way around. When you get a hair trim, you nip split ends right in the bud, giving your hair room to grow well. 

Trimming your split ends helps reduce hair breakage, giving it a voluminous and brighter look. So if you haven’t gotten your hair trimmed in a while, consider giving your stylist a call soon!

• Consider using silken pillowcases

While cotton makes a very comfortable material for bed sheets, it is not the best choice when it comes to your hair. Cotton pillowcases create friction against your hair that affects it in the long run. Silk pillowcases, on the other hand, lessen this friction and do not stress your hair. 

If for some reason you do not want to use silk pillowcases, consider tying your hair up in a bun and securing it with a scrunchie to reduce its contact with the pillowcase. This will help you take care of your hair, even while asleep!

Conclusion

Though the process involved in keeping your hair healthy may seem like a lot, having long, voluminous, and gleaming tresses make it all worth the effort. So put all of these tips above to practice today and keep your kinks healthy!