9 Ways We’re Ruining Our Hair
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Beauty is not just restricted to your skin quality, the color of your eyes, the shape of your lips or nose, or how your figure is. Your hair is as much a part of what makes you beautiful. Ergo, if you want to preserve your beauty, you’ll have to take proper care of your hair too. And that entails keeping it free of all sorts of damage.
Now, you may not realize it but you kind of harm your hair every day by doing simple, everyday things that seem ‘harmless.’ If you want to save your tresses though, you better steer clear of the following 9 ways in which you can ruin your hair!
1. Shampooing With Your Head Straight
The angle of your head while shampooing actually plays a pretty important role in maintaining hair health! Washing your hair while keeping your head straight might seem pretty comfortable but it can damage your roots by putting too much pressure on them.
The best way to shampoo is to bend your head down. This makes it easy to rub shampoo on your scalp, avoiding your hair ends and roots; and it also gives you a cleaner scalp, as your hair moves away and makes space for you to clean it properly. Plus, even conditioning is more efficient this way as you can easily avoid your roots.
2. Or With Hot Water
A hot shower might soothe your body but it’s not good for your hair. Hot water can strip your hair of its natural moisture, leaving it dry, rough, and brittle. To keep your hair healthy and bouncy, experts recommend shampooing with cold water. Or lukewarm water at the most if you need some warmth.
3. Blow Drying
It’s no surprise that prolonged use of a blow dryer will leave your hair damaged. If you don’t have an option but to use one due to your hectic schedule, make sure you use a heat protectant mousse before drying it. Also, always use heat protection hairsprays before styling your hair with a curling or straightening iron.
Additionally, the ideal way to blow dry your hair is to put your head down and use the dryer on medium heat. Once it’s semi-dry, set the temperature to cool to prevent damage and get smooth hair.
4. Not Hydrating Yourself Enough
Drinking water is absolutely vital to stay healthy. And as it turns out, it’s good for your hair too! 10-13% of your hair is actually made up of water. So, if you deprive it of water by not drinking enough, you will certainly end up damaging it. Besides, proper hair growth requires water.
Now you have another reason to increase your H2O intake!
5. Not Covering Your Hair In Cold Weather
Just like excessive heat can rob your hair of its moisture and ruin it, extreme cold can do the same too. In severely cold climates, water freezes to ice. Now, the moisture in the air can settle in your hair and leave icy shreds on your hair too, which can consequently lead to damage when these ‘icicles’ break. So, make sure you always cover your hair when out in the cold.
6. Using Natural Haircare Products Only
Advocates of natural products claim that there are no side effects to them, but organic haircare products are not as good as they are made out to be. Ingredients such as natural oils don’t work with hair styling tools. Natural oils, such as coconut, etc., burn at a temperature of 160-250°С on an average while the temperature of a hair straightener is around 170-230°C. So, if you use natural products only, your hair could burn!
7. Eating Too Much Junk Or Dieting
Your hair needs a generous dose of vitamins, proteins, and other nutrients to be beautiful. Iron and biotin are 2 nutrients that are absolutely vital for hair health, ensuring your tresses stay shiny, long, and smooth. When you diet heavily or eat too much junk, you deprive your hair of the nutrients it needs, resulting in poor hair quality. Ergo, maintaining a balanced diet is ideal and it should include foods such as broccoli, wild salmon, flaxseed, spinach, and more for optimal hair health.
8. Not Trimming Regularly
Most people don’t trim their hair in order to grow it longer, not knowing it’ll have the opposite effect. Split ends are an eventuality and they can decrease your hair growth if you don’t get rid of them. Hence, trimming them once in 2 months is vital both for hair growth and to prevent damage.
9. Not Using A Hairbrush
Brushing your hair is the magic formula to keep it long and healthy! Brushing helps exfoliate a dry scalp and increases blood flow to it, thereby promoting healthy hair growth. However, when brushing your hair, be careful not to let the bristles touch your scalp. Also, a boar bristle brush works best. You can start by brushing your ends and gradually moving up.
As a bonus tip, we’ll recommend never tying your hair up too tight. The strands which your scrunchie secures can weaken easily. That said, keep yourself from making these mistakes and you’ll have the gorgeous hair you’ve always wanted!
