It’s no secret that hair holds significant cultural and social weight. A mode of self-expression, hair allows individuals to navigate different facets of their personality, mood, and identity by experimenting with style, color, and length. The choices we make with our hair are rife with messages about identity, status, religion, and cultural affiliation. Given the cultural importance of hair, it should come as no surprise that the loss of hair can have profound psychological effects. Studies have found links between hair loss and low self-esteem.
Hair Health: Why You Should Care About Your Hair
While the emotional effects of unhealthy hair are clear to see, it’s easy to underestimate hair’s impact on our physical well-being. However, hair is very much entangled in our physical health. Hair helps us preserve heat when it’s cold, and it acts as a shield against UV rays when the sun is out and shining. In addition to providing much needed insulation and protection, hair can help reveal deep-rooted issues within our bodies. For example, the sudden loss of hair may be a symptom of an illness like lupus or hypothyroidism. Clearly, hair plays a key role in our health. So, how do we keep our hair healthy?
Understanding Hair Health: What is Healthy Hair?
Type the words “healthy hair” into any search engine and you will almost certainly come across the words “smooth,” “shiny,” and “thick.” While appearance may seem like a superficial metric, it can provide a great deal of information about the health of your hair. Hair thickness, for example, is a good indicator that your body is healthy and that it is getting the nutrients that it needs to support hair growth. Strength, texture, shine, and luster can also provide insight into the state of your hair.
While hair health is routinely assessed according to these measures, it’s important to note that healthy hair can look different in different people. As dermatologist Dr. Angela Lamb puts it, “Healthy hair is hair that is free of breakage and split ends and is achieving its maximum potential for your particular hair type.”
Here are some qualities you should consider when assessing the health of your hair:
Signs of Healthy Hair
- Elasticity: Healthy hair has good elasticity, meaning that a strand of hair can stretch and return to its original length without breaking. Moisture is key to elasticity. When the hair has enough moisture, it is resistant to breakage and splitting.
- Shine and luster: Healthy hair reflects light well due to the smoothness of the hair cuticle. This reflection is what makes hair appear shiny.
- Fullness: Healthy hair is dense and well distributed. It is not clustered in patches, and it does not fall out easily. It is firmly rooted in the scalp.
- Smooth texture: Healthy hair is not coarse or frizzy, but smooth to the touch.
Signs of Unhealthy Hair
- Brittleness: Unhealthy hair lacks the elasticity of healthy hair. This brittleness makes it prone to breaking, splitting, and shedding. Split ends are a telltale sign of dryness or brittleness.
- Dullness: Unlike healthy hair, unhealthy hair does not reflect light well. As a result, it appears dull and lifeless.
- Excessive shedding: Excessive shedding is often a sign of underlying health issues like alopecia areata.
- Unmanageable: Unlike healthy hair, which has a nice, smooth texture, unhealthy hair is often tangled and unruly.
Factors Affecting Hair Health
Scalp Health
As the foundation for hair follicles, a healthy scalp is essential to cultivating and maintaining healthy hair. A healthy scalp ensures adequate blood flow to the follicles, delivering nutrients that nourish the hair and promote its strength and vitality. The scalp also produces natural oils that moisturize and protect the hair shaft. Proper oil production keeps the hair and scalp hydrated, preventing dryness and brittleness.
Listed below are some scalp conditions that may signal that your scalp is in need of additional nourishment or care:
- Dandruff: A scalp condition in which skin flakes off in small pieces. Although it does not directly cause hair loss, dandruff can irritate the scalp and make you more prone to scratch your head. Vigorous or excessive scratching can damage hair follicles and lead to hair loss.
- Psoriasis: An inflammatory condition characterized by thick, scaly patches that flake off from the scalp and other parts of the body. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease that is typically treated with steroid creams and ointments.
- Folliculitis: Inflammation of the hair follicles due to bacterial infection. Folliculitis presents as small, pus-filled pimples, and is often accompanied by redness and swelling.
- Contact dermatitis: A rash caused by the direct interaction between the scalp and an irritating agent. An allergic reaction to unfavorable hair products, contact dermatitis typically presents as bumps, blisters, and patches.
Knowing the different conditions that affect the scalp is helpful because scalp health is the root of hair health. By familiarizing yourself with the different ways scalp irritation manifests, you can help your scalp help your hair.
Nutrition
A balanced diet rich in vitamins, minerals, and proteins is crucial for maintaining healthy hair growth as research has linked deficiencies in vitamin D, zinc, and iron to hair loss. As the main structural component of hair, proteins like keratin and biotin are especially important to include in your diet. Listed below are some of the foods that dermatologists and dieticians recommend as a way to naturally enhance your hair health:
- Fish
- Poultry
- Eggs
- Beans
- Spinach
- Berries
- Avocados
Though we should seek to get all of our nutrients from the foods we consume, sometimes, that is not feasible. This is where supplements come in. Oral supplements for hair health are becoming increasingly popular among consumers. Go to the market and you’ll find vitamins for thicker hair, vitamins for shinier hair, vitamins for any and every hair care concern that you may have.
Among this vast array of supplements, Bomme stands out for the way it gently but rigorously cultivates a healthy scalp environment. A plant-based supplement that gets the best out of its ingredients, Bomme primes the scalp for hair growth by reducing inflammation. Drawing on the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of green tea extract, persimmon leaf extract, and sephora fruit extract, Bomme supplements create the optimal environment for healthy hair growth.
Lifestyle Habits
The benefits of eating a balanced diet only go so far. Intentional stress management is necessary to cultivate healthy hair. Chronic stress can disrupt the hair growth cycle, leading to thinning, shedding, and even alopecia areata. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease that causes hair to fall out, leaving small bald patches on the scalp. When an individual is exposed to extreme or prolonged stress, the immune system starts to attack healthy tissue, including hair follicles. The result is alopecia areata.
Abstaining from or cutting down on smoking and drinking is also critical as research shows that these habits can negatively impact hair health. According to BensLab, smoking decreases blood flow to the scalp by creating blood clots. Decreased blood flow means the scalp does not receive the oxygen and nutrients it needs to sustain hair growth. The toxins found in cigarette smoke have also been found to cause hair shedding by damaging hair follicles and disrupting the hair growth cycle. The overconsumption of alcohol can also damage hair follicles and lead to thinning.
While diet, stress, and smoking are the lifestyle habits that have the most obvious impacts on hair health, there are other lifestyle habits that affect hair health as well. Poor hydration, for instance, can dry out the hair shaft, making it more likely to split and break. Aggressive heat-styling also increases brittleness by stripping moisture from the hair. Even seemingly small things, like going out into the sun without a hat or going swimming without a swim cap can affect hair health. By making specific behavioral changes, like drinking eight cups of water a day or putting on a cap before going on a hike, we can mitigate some of these adverse effects.
Other Factors
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Genetics and hormones
- While some aspects of hair health are within our control, there are others that are outside our sphere of influence. Texture, for example, is largely determined by genetics.
- Genetics can also predispose some individuals to premature balding and other forms of hair loss. Androgenetic alopecia is a hereditary condition that causes premature hair loss in both men and women.
- Hormonal fluctuations, such as those that accompany thyroid disorders, pregnancy, and menopause, can affect hair growth patterns and hair texture.
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Medications
- Some medications, like chemotherapy drugs and blood thinners, can cause thinning and shedding. Talk with your healthcare provider if you have any concerns about hair loss caused by medications. Your provider may be able to recommend alternative treatments to reduce or reverse your hair loss.
Getting Back on Track: Keys to Restoring Hair Health
Proper Products
The first step to achieving healthy hair is investing in the right products. Someone with oily hair will have a hard time finding results with a product or regimen intended for dry hair. This goes the other way as well, so look for products specifically formulated for your hair type. Given the number of products available on the market, this might seem like an impossible task. How are you supposed to find what you are looking for when there are a million and one options? Get familiar with your hair and your scalp.
- If you have dry hair or a sensitive scalp, try a gentle shampoo that contains aloe vera, argan oil, or another hydrating agent. Avoid shampoos with abrasive ingredients like sulfates. Sulfates are cleansing chemicals that create lather in shampoos. Though they are helpful in removing dirt and oil from the scalp, sulfates can be too strong for those with sensitive skin and hair. If your skin is prone to irritation or inflammation, try using a sulfate-free shampoo.
- If you have oily hair, you are likely washing your hair every day or every other day. Consider revamping your routine by using a clarifying shampoo once a week. Clarifying shampoos are hardier than your everyday shampoo so they should not be used frequently, but they can provide the occasional deep clean by breaking down dirt and grease.
- If you have color-treated hair, invest in a sulfate-free color-safe shampoo. A gentle, moisturizing shampoo will help soothe chemically-damaged hair.
If you know your hair type, you will be able to find products that are compatible with your hair type and scalp condition.
Consistent Routine and Mindful Techniques
Developing a hair care regimen that works for your hair is critical to maintaining a healthy head of hair. If you have oily hair, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) recommends washing your hair as often as once a day. If you have dry hair, shampooing once or twice a week may suffice. Overworking your hair by shampooing daily can strip your scalp of natural oils that maintain moisture.
On the days when you wash your hair, be mindful of the way that you handle your hair. When shampooing, focus on distributing the shampoo evenly throughout your scalp. Keep in mind that vigorous scrubbing can damage hair follicles and cause shedding. When conditioning, try to avoid the scalp and focus on the lengths and ends, particularly if you have oily hair. Although it may be tempting to skip conditioning, if you want your hair to retain that shine and luster, take the time to condition your hair.
Safe and Spread-Out Styling
The beauty of hair is that it can be styled to suit our needs at any given moment. Styling gives us the options that genetics limits. However, overly aggressive hair care practices, such as everyday use of curlers and flat irons, frequent bleach and dye jobs, and overly-tight hairstyles, can lead to breakage and thinning. Try to spread out your styling practices over the week so your hair can have a break. Use bleach and hair dye sparingly, reduce the temperature when blow-drying your hair, and be wary of over-brushing your hair.
Supplementation
Consider targeting specific issues with the aid of supplements. More and more, people have been turning to oral supplements to strengthen their hair and combat hair loss. Supplements come in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes. For instance, Bomme’s supercharged antioxidant and anti-inflammatory supplements promote hair growth by reducing scalp inflammation. Bomme supplements have been shown to increase hair thickness and density in as little as eight weeks.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I tell if my hair is unhealthy?
To assess the health of your hair, consider the appearance of your hair as well as its ability to stay rooted in your scalp. Excessive shedding, splitting, patchiness, dryness, and dullness are all signs that your hair may not be healthy. Checking your scalp for excessive flakiness or oiliness can also give you an idea of where your hair is at. When the scalp is not getting the nutrients and care that it needs, it will show in your hair.
Can hair health be restored?
Yes. Hair health can be improved greatly by being intentional with the products you use, protecting your hair from physical and chemical damage, and taking care of your body through hydration and good nutrition.
What can I do to improve my hair health?
Limiting exposure to damaging agents like hair dyes and relaxers, and avoiding over-manipulation of hair through aggressive shampooing and heat-styling can help preserve the integrity of your hair. Additionally, trimming split ends regularly can help prevent further damage and keep up the overall health and appearance of the hair. Cosmetologists also recommend using satin or silk pillowcases to ensure that your hair does not dry out.
How can I keep my hair healthy naturally?
Eating a balanced diet full of vitamins and protein, drinking plenty of fluids, and getting enough sleep are all natural ways to maintain healthy hair. Making a conscious effort to manage stress through exercise, meditation, and other therapies can also make a difference. For an additional boost, consider taking a hair supplement like Bomme.
The Bottom Line
Maintaining hair health requires a multifaceted approach that addresses both internal and external factors, including proper nutrition, stress management, gentle hair care practices, and minimizing exposure to damaging environmental factors.
