13 Healthy Natural Hair Tips You Need to Know

“Bad Hair -- Don’t Care” is fun... until you have bad hair every single day. Soft, shiny, and healthy-looking hair is something everyone strives for. However, this goal might not be as easy to achieve as they show it in tv commercials or glam articles.

Expensive shampoos and frequent hairdresser appointments aren’t enough to maintain your hair in great condition and promote its growth. If you want to improve your hair structure and make it look naturally healthy and beautiful, you need to adjust your lifestyle, diet, and habits accordingly.

So, what does it take to find the perfect hair routine that would save your hair from damage, dullness, thinning, and dryness? It’s time to get to the bottom of it. 

Tips & Best Practices for Healthy Hair

More than 74% of women admitted that they feel less confident on a bad hair day, according to the Redbook poll. If you also tend to feel down when it becomes hard to handle your own hair, here are a few things you can do to get that glossy, tv-star hair you’ve always dreamt of.

1. Know Your Hair Type

To create the most effective hair care routine, you need to know the type of your hair and choose the products that would enhance its natural beauty. So, first, define whether your hair is straight, wavy, curly, or kinky hair, and go from there. Each type requires different care, so don’t overlook it.

2. Do Not Wash Your Hair Too Frequently

Of course, everyone’s hair is different, and there’s no one-fits-all suggestion on how many times you should wash your hair. Generally, try to do it once in 2-3 days to prevent your hair from drying and losing its natural shine. However, if you’re an avid fitness enthusiast or have very oily hair, wash it as many times as you feel your hair needs it.

3. Condition Properly 

While the shampoo takes care of your scalp, conditioner ensures your hair is moisturized from top to bottom. Try to experiment with different brands and types of conditioners to find the one that wouldn’t leave your hair greasy afterwards. When applying, pay more attention to the ends and mid hair to ensure it’s well hydrated. 

“Coconut oil has some of the best ingredients for natural hair strengthening and color you can find. Other than being a natural ingredient, you can purchase it at any superstore and use it for different purposes, whether it's cooking, looking after your skin or your hair. Apply a small amount of coconut oil onto the palm of your hand, rub it together and run through

your hair. Leave it for a couple of minutes and wash it off. After a few uses, you may start to notice more colour in your hair, less split ends and an overall increase in strength of your hair.”

Dr.Giuseppe Aragona, General Practitioner, M.D. at Prescription Doctor

4. Maintain a Healthy Diet

What you eat directly affects your hair condition. Just like any other part of your body, hair requires sufficient amounts of nutrients to stay strong and healthy. For example, people who are struggling with hair loss might have an excess of vitamin A or iron deficiency. 

So, if you want to ensure your hair grows faster and stays healthy, try including fish, nuts, eggs, milk into your diet and drink plenty of water throughout the day. A balanced diet that combines proteins, vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates is the key to achieving your hair goals sooner.

5. Trim Your Hair Regularly

Unlike one of the popular myths sate, trimming your hair is important to keep it looking healthy and neat, not to boost its growth. If your goal is to grow hair, then focusing on your diet should be your number one priority. Also, don’t forget that hormones and genetics define how fast your hair grows. Trimming your hair once per 6-8 weeks should be enough to keep it strong, get rid of split ends, and make it easier to handle.

Bad Hair Habits You Need to Get Rid Of

Apart from introducing new healthy habits into your daily life, it’s critical to eliminate the bad ones too. Here are a few bad habits you need to get rid of to protect your hair:

Fad Diets

As tempting as they might seem, fad or crash diets can negatively affect your hair by decreasing protein levels in your body and leading to hair loss. If you don’t want to lose more hair than needed, make sure to look after your diet and take care of any eating disorders. And if you strive to impose your eating habits, check out these five nutrition hacks to make your hair stronger.

Smoking & Alcohol

You probably already know that excessive drinking and smoking has a very negative effect on your health. However, did you know that these activities impact your hair too? Smoke contains tons of toxic chemicals that slow down your blood circulation, which leads to the poor blood flow to your hair follicles. Alcohol makes your body use protein to reduce acidity, which means it takes away protein that helps your hair grow.

Stress

It’s not easy to control your stress levels always stay calm.  it would be best if you tried to reduce stress in your life. Emotional stress and shocking events can ruin the hair growth cycle and lead to hair thinning and even loss. That’s why it’s vital to avoid stressful situations as much as possible. Make sure you get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and find activities that make you feel happy.

“Some of the most damaging processes we can do to our hair are color processing, applying relaxers, and heat styling. All of these are chemical processes that can literally break the bonds in hair, resulting in split ends, broken-falling off ends of hair. Another huge mistake is conducting

these processes on your own hair if you are not a licensed professional. Licensed professionals have the expertise on how to properly use products, and they have access to better quality products that you can find in the stores. There are certain products that you can use on your hair that will aid in preventative care. It is important to pay attention to your hair. If you are seeing excess damage, and you are doing any of these processes on the regular, these protective products will not reverse the damage done and you should lessen the frequency of these processes such as relaxing the hair or coloring.”

Vanessa Thomas, Cosmetic Chemist & Founder of Freelance Formulations

The Hair Care Routine That Will Become Your New Habit

Now that you know what it takes to have healthy and shiny hair that can take a breath away, here are a few simple guidelines you can follow to perfect your hair care routine:

1. Brush Your Hair Before Washing

Your hair is much weaker when wet. To avoid brushing or combing wet hair, try doing it before you wash your hair. This habit will help you prevent hair damage and eliminate painful feelings while detangling it. If you must brush your hair when it’s still wet, start doing from the ends and part by part. 

2. Avoid Hot Showers

Scorching hot water doesn’t do any good to your hair, unfortunately. It can make your hair dry and make coloured hair duller. If you switch to taking lukewarm showers, both your hair and skin will be thankful. And if you’re ready to go the extra mile, you can try rinsing your hair with cold water at the end. 

3. Get Some Added Support

If you see that you cannot get enough vitamins and minerals from your current diet or simply want to improve it, make sure you take all the necessary vitamins your body needs. 

4. Do Not Overheat Your Hair

Try avoiding using blow dryers and other hot styling tools. The heat has a terrible effect on your hair and makes it more susceptible to breakage. So, if possible, let your hair air dry as much as possible to regain its natural strength and prevent it from becoming thinner and less radiant. If you need to use a blow dryer, keep it at a cooler setting and use heat protecting sprays.

5. Let Your Hair Relax

Just like you, sometimes, your hair needs to have some off time. If you want to help your hair be healthier and look nicer, let it take a break from ponytails, braids, dying, and blow dryers. Let it be natural and relax from all the negative environmental effects. For example, next weekend might be a perfect time to put on that nice-smelling hair mask and give your hair a chance to dry by itself and regain its strength. 

“There are many ways in which meditation can help with your hair. Meditation reduces stress, increases circulation, and helps eliminate toxins, all of which can help with hair growth and health.

Stress causes cortisol to increase. Cortisol causes hair to move out of the growth phase and into catagen, which can cause hair to fall out. Meditation reduces stress, and in turn, reduces cortisol, to prevent this problem. Meditation also increases blood flow to the scalp, which leads to more oxygen to nourishing hair cells, ultimately improving the physical appearance of hair.

Meditation also improves breathing, which leads to increased secretion of toxins through sweating. 

The human body is designed to remove approximately 70% of toxins via the breath, so by improving the quality of our breathing meditation helps to remove toxins, which in turn reduces the risk of alopecia (bald spots) along with other hair related problems. I’d personally recommend adding twenty minutes of gentle breathing meditation to your daily practice to help your hair to stay healthy.”

Paul Harrison, Meditation Teacher and Creator of The Daily Meditation

 

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