15 Rules To Always Follow For Healthy Hair

Every­body, from blondes to brunettes to red­heads, wants hair that looks healthy and shiny! If you can’t man­age to go to the hair­dress­er every week or you can’t squeeze in a deep con­di­tion­ing treat­ment every oth­er day, then we’ve got the main­te­nance solu­tions for you to keep health­i­er tress­es that are eas­i­er to man­age than ever. With our tips, it’s easy to make every day a good hair day!

1- Reach for a Sulfate-Free Shampoo

To make sure your locks stay look­ing their best, be sure to check the ingre­di­ents of the hair prod­ucts that you use, espe­cial­ly your shampoo. There are a lot of brands that have sul­phates, which help sham­poos to gen­er­ate lath­er as you’re mass­ing your scalp with sham­poo and water. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, while sul­phates might pro­duce the suds that help your hair get squeaky clean, they can also strip your hair of its oils, and this can lead to dry hair and frizz. Choose a Sul­fate-free sham­poo for mois­ture-rich, shiny, and healthy hair!

2- Go Easy on the Heat

Blow dry­ers. Curl­ing irons. Flat irons. Styling tools help us to cre­ate the look that we want, but some­times the long-term out­come of heat dam­age is exact­ly the oppo­site of what we want. Some­times, heat-dam­aged hair can’t be repaired, and there’s no way to restore it to its nat­ur­al state. Heat can lead to break­age and split ends as well as dry and brit­tle hair. Now you don’t have to send the blow dry­er pack­ing – it’s just a ques­tion of mod­er­a­tion and fol­low­ing a few guidelines. For exam­ple: choose styling tools that have mul­ti­ple set­tings. To pro­tect your hair, avoid high heat set­tings, and use the low or medi­um ones instead. Oth­er tips for keep­ing your hair at its health­i­est are to ensure that your hair is hydrat­ed before using any heat styling tools and use a pro­tec­tant on your hair to help keep it from being damaged. Pro­tec­tant prod­ucts form a bar­ri­er between the heat styling tool and your hair to keep it from get­ting damaged.

3- Get Regular Trims

Keep­ing your hair trimmed ensures that the ends are healthy, and it actu­al­ly even pro­motes hair growth. Be sure to get a reg­u­lar trim – around every 2–4 months for short hair and 1 ½‑4 month for medi­um-length to long hair. You can go to the hair salon to get your trim or even do it at home by your­self or with a friend. For trims at home, all you need are some scis­sors. It takes a lit­tle prac­tice, but just keep­ing the ends healthy is rel­a­tive­ly easy. Reg­u­lar trims will keep the hair free of dam­age and split ends. That, in turn, stim­u­lates the hair to grow. Keep­ing your hair trimmed ensures that it stays soft, boun­cy, and strong, which in turn makes it more resilient.

4- Brush Your Hair Before Showering

That is a secret that a lot of peo­ple don’t know. While a lot of peo­ple may have heard of Mar­cia Brady’s secret of “100 brush­strokes before bed” to keep her hair lus­trous and shiny. it’s a good idea to brush your hair before tak­ing a show­er! That is because your hair is more liable to break when it’s wet. The rea­son that brush­ing the hair makes it shiny is that it helps to dis­trib­ute the oils pro­duced by the seba­ceous glands in your scalp to the end of the hair shaft.

5- Keep a Healthy Diet

For shiny, healthy hair, it’s impor­tant not just to take care of your­self on the out­side, but also to make sure you’re tak­ing care of your­self on the inside, too! The hair needs nutri­ents like pro­tein and vit­a­mins like Vit­a­min C, D, and E to grow. Hair also relies on nutri­ents and vit­a­mins for its shine. Iron, in par­tic­u­lar, is respon­si­ble for giv­ing your locks their gloss, so be sure that your diet has plen­ty of iron by eat­ing veg­eta­bles, beans, and fish. Sources of pro­tein, anoth­er nutri­ent that’s vital to hair health, include nuts, legumes, and dairy. Last but not least, be sure always to drink lots of water, so you’re prop­er­ly hydrat­ed. That keeps your hair as well as your skin and nails look­ing their best.

6- Deep Conditioning

Stay hydrat­ed on the inside as well as the out­side! Experts agree that week­ly deep con­di­tion­ing is a great rou­tine to get into for hydrat­ed tress­es. What this involves is using a deep con­di­tion­er fol­low­ing your shampoo. These nour­ish your hair and can help with any break­age or frizzi­ness issues that you might have. Fol­low the instruc­tions on the bot­tle, being sure to apply the deep con­di­tion­er from the roots down the hair shaft to the ends for max­i­mum benefit.

7- Deep Treatments with Hair Masks

When your hair needs a lit­tle atten­tion, one easy pick-me-up is a hair mask. There are many dif­fer­ent kinds, and you can use them to help your hair get back to nor­mal after it’s been exposed to exces­sive heat or when it’s espe­cial­ly dry. They can revi­tal­ize your hair and also pro­vide nutri­ents to the scalp as an added ben­e­fit. There are a lot of do-it-your­self recipes for hair masks as well as a vari­ety avail­able at the drug­store and beau­ty sup­ply store. You can also ask for advice from the salon, which might also car­ry hair masks for purchase. There are many dif­fer­ent hair masks you can make using ingre­di­ents from your kitchen. Some of the dif­fer­ent com­mon ingre­di­ents include avo­ca­dos, straw­ber­ries, hon­ey, cin­na­mon, olive oil, and even coffee! There are count­less recipes you can look up on the Inter­net. Just iden­ti­fy what prob­lems you want to pin­point and find your best recipe. Yogurt and hon­ey, for exam­ple, is a great com­bi­na­tion for a hair mask to com­bat frizz- it smells great, too! Some are for short treat­ments, while oth­ers can be left on overnight. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less!

8- Don’t Braid Tightly During Bedtime

When you go to bed at night, loose­ly braid your hair to avoid a frizzy mess, a side braid is a bet­ter option. Leav­ing your hair open tends to cre­ate knots, which means you need to sub­ject it to pulling and brush­ing in the morn­ing. Over brush­ing results in frizziness.

9- Stop Touching Your Hair All the Time

You want to min­i­mize “trac­tion,” so any tug­ging or pres­sure on the hair shaft. One of the biggest caus­es of unnec­es­sary trac­tion is con­stant­ly putting your hair into a tight pony­tail. “Con­stant mild pulling on the fol­li­cle will slow­ly trau­ma­tize the hair. In a few years, you might even notice a reced­ing hair­line. Twirling your hair or pick­ing at split ends isn’t good either—to play it safe, do your best to leave your hair alone.

10- Taking Care of Your Hair While You Sleep

Cot­ton pil­low­cas­es can pull at your hair and cause fric­tion. Opt for a silk or satin pil­low­case instead to pro­tect your hair cuti­cles as you’re sleep­ing. That makes it pos­si­ble for your hair to rest while you’re catch­ing some Zs 🙂 Anoth­er way to take care of your hair while you are sleep­ing. Is to put your hair into a loose chignon on the top of your head, or a braid before turn­ing in for the night. This way, your hair is sub­ject to less move­ment and pulling while you’re asleep.

11- Don’t Take Really Hot Showers

Hot show­ers do feel great after a work­out or a long day at work, but it’s not that great for your skin or your hair. There’s no need to take a cold show­er, but at least opt for luke­warm water instead. Scald­ing hot water can dry out your hair and get colour treat­ments to wash out faster, too.

12- Give Natural Products a Try

Chem­i­cals and tox­ins aren’t good to ingest, and they’re detri­men­tal to our hair’s health, too. Nat­ur­al prod­ucts with ingre­di­ents like coconut oil, argan oil, aloe vera, and hon­ey offer their ben­e­fits for your hair’s health and have the added ben­e­fit of being gen­tle on the hair.

13- Hydrate with Oils

Reach for nat­ur­al oils like coconut and argan to give your hair some pep if it’s get­ting dull and dry. These oils can reju­ve­nate your hair with­out mak­ing it heavy or greasy.

14- Scalp Massages to Stimulate Blood Flow

Hair­dressers don’t mas­sage your scalp to get you relaxed before your hair­cut: it’s ben­e­fi­cial to your hair’s health. Scalp mas­sages stim­u­late blood flow, which in turn leads to bet­ter growth and over­all hair health. You don’t need a trip to the salon; how­ev­er – why not just add a scalp mas­sage into your dai­ly rou­tine? It’s free and relax­ing and has so many added benefits!

15- Ditch Your Towel for a T‑Shirt

A reg­u­lar ter­ry cloth tow­el can lead to frizz because hair can get snagged in the loops. Using a cot­ton t‑shirt is gen­tler on your hair because the tex­ture is smoother. You can get smoother, tamer locks sim­ply by dry­ing your hair with a t‑shirt.

Lastly!

Fol­low these easy steps for shinier, health­i­er hair. Regard­less of the length or colour of your locks, healthy hair is always in style!