Growing and maintaining a healthy hair can be daunting especially if you don’t know what to do. Some tips to follow includes trimming your hair, using natural oil, avoiding frequent blonde hair, keeping your scalp healthy and clean, maintaining a good diet, minimizing the use of heat styling tools, avoiding excessive use of shampoo, and using products rich in vitamins.
Hair growth for some is as easy as breathing. It happens for them without going out of their comfort zone to try distinct and novel hair massages or diet changes. But for the rest, it can turn out to be a test of patience. Enviably long hair does require a little bit of an effort on your part, and they certainly do not grow overnight. The pro tips given underneath can help you grow your hair at a pace you want them to while keeping their volume and shine, all intact.
11 Ways to Grow and Maintain Healthy Hair
1. Frequently Trimming
As counterintuitive as it may sound and some people also seem to deny the approach, but experience shows that trimming does help with the growth of your hair. Untrimmed hair leads to split ends which further break your hair and thin them down, thereby, decreasing the volume of your hair. You can notice the length of your hair between your trims and not having your hair trimmed at all. Furthermore, trimmed hair is way shinier, smoother and voluminous. No wonder how unruly untrimmed hair makes you look like.
2. Avoid Going Blonde
Platinum hair costs you more than the darker shade you are trying to get rid of. Bleach damages the cuticles of your hair which further lead to more split ends and hair breakage. So, fewer chemical treatments ensure healthier hair.
3. Use Natural Oil
We all know our scalp releases oil, but if utilized well, the same oil can make our hair look shinier from root to tip. Going to sleep without brushing your hair might seem like a tempting practice, but a few strokes can go a long way for the health of your hair. A boar bristle brush is preferred for distributing the oil off your scalp unto the tips so that your hair remains naturally moisturized.
4. Keep Scalp Healthy
Hair growth is, in a lot of ways, quite similar to the growth of a tree. The branches cannot be strong if the root is not healthy enough. Same goes for the hair. If you are not treating your scalp with good ingredients, you cannot expect to have volume, length, smoothness or shine in your hair. A little test recommended by renowned hairstylists is to take a couple of your hair stands in hand and notice the thickness of them from root to tip. If the ends are thin, then your hair is screaming for a better haircare regimen.
5. Maintain a Good Diet
The external care of your hair sure does guarantee some success with better hair growth, but the root gets nourishment from what you eat similarly the rest of your body does. A diet high in protein is usually ideal for the growth of your hair. Especially foods like meat, fish, whole grains, nuts, and beans are enriched with protein so make sure to make at least one of them your ultimate favorite victual.
6. Avoid Heat Styling Tools
Even celebrity hairstylists like Ken Paves warn to style your hair too often with heat styling tools. Heat leads to more frizz and damage in the long run. If you must use such a tool, use a heat protectant or lower down the intensity of the temperature.
7. Avoid Excessive Use of Shampoo
Shampoo enables the natural oils in the scalp to penetrate the hair enabling it to repair and hydrate, but too much buildup can lead to abundant quantities of oil in the scalp, therefore, avoid shampooing on a regular basis. A better practice is to use shampoo 3 to 4 times a week.
8. Vitamins are Important
Our hair, skin, and nails greatly benefit from vitamins. If your lifestyle is mostly hectic and you are unable to take care of your diet, make sure you take multivitamins that are available for your skin, hair, and nails. This is going to act as a three in one and might give you better nails and skin as well during the process of getting healthier hair.
9. Cold Water is a Great Help
Most people enjoy a super steamy shower after a hectic day, but for when it comes to skin health, it is not considered as a good option. Moreover, some experts also say that it isn’t good for the hair too. Lukewarm water, but on a more cooler side, can help retain the moisture your hair needs without stripping off the natural oil on your scalp – like hot water does. Cold water helps strengthen your hair before you style them and also seals the cuticles.
10. Don’t Ignore Your Scalp
Don’t be tricked by the products you use whenever you see how good or shiny your hair looks all the time whenever you use hair cosmetics. Most people start believing that the products they use are the ultimate cure – when in actuality, the products lead to more damage over time. A product showing quick results also has more harmful chemicals added to it. The question remains how you are going to identify whether or not the product is healthy for your hair. The answer is simple. How does the skin (scalp) of your hair react to it? Does it feel dry, itchy, heavy, sticky, greasy, waxy or worse, does it hurt? If so, avoid using any such product.
Contrarily, if a product makes your scalp feel hydrated, silky, smooth and supple, then this is the product for you. Congested and clogged hair is not going to help in efficient hair growth, therefore, pay attention to the scalp of your hair like you attend to our skin.
Bottom Line
Nobody wants to harm or hinder their hair growth or health deliberately. But some of our habits which we keep following out of our comfort become all the wrong reasons for unhealthy hair. Therefore, haircare regimen mentioned above has been jotted down with the intent that it will provide awareness on the healthy habits that we must adapt to help our hair grow longer and stronger.