What No One Told Me About Hair Loss

Hair Loss …

Unfortunately, some of us go through periods of hair loss at least at one point during our life. It can be caused by different hairstyles we love to ear, techniques we use in our daily hair regimen, by different hair products/tool causing harm to our hair, stress, or internal imbalances. Hair loss also plays major role in our self esteem, especially if it’s not as voluminous or bountiful as we’re used to it being. Hair loss also affects HOW we wear our hair, because hair loss sometimes require us to wear wigs, or hairstyles to cover the balding areas.

Here are three ways that we lose hair:

Tight Hairstyles

Our favorite tight hairstyles are contributing to our hair loss. The tight hairstyles are pulling on your hair at the root to ensure that it is secured for the hairstyle. This usually pulls on the hair follicles which can cause the hair to pull out of the area. You don’t want this as it will result in your hair not growing back. The follicle can be damaged because of the excessive manipulation that is caused.

Examples of tight hairstyles that you should avoid wearing continuously are: ponytails, braids, twists, and buns.

And if you must wear these styles, we sure to request your stylist to style your hair loosely. For example, if your hairstylist is doing your braids, request they not style them too tight. This will give the scalp and hair follicles a break from the pressure of the grip. Your scalp will thank you.

Alcohol-Based Hair Products/gels

Alcohol-based gels are not good for your hair. Our hair is naturally dry as the sebum produced by our scalp is not able to travel from the root to the tips. So, we manually moisturize it using our different moisturizers and moisturization techniques.

Applying alcohol-based gels consistently for our slick buns and ponytails to your hair will cause the moisture to be removed from the hair. Once your hair doesn’t have any moisture it is prone to breakage and hair loss from our hair tools (brushes – point #4) and our different hairstyles (tight hairstyles – point #1).

The type of gels that you should be using is made with 100% natural ingredients. These gels contain minerals that will nourish your scalp and hair will giving you a slick style.

Hot Tools

Hot Tools also contribute to hair loss because of the high heat coming from the tools. Paper burns at 450 degrees Fahrenheit and some of our hot tools go as high as that. The heat will break down the protective layer of your hair strand which is made up of protein. Once that is gone, our hair becomes susceptible to breakage and hair loss. Also, when we are using the tools near the scalp the heat can burn the scalp.

Once the scalp is burnt, naturally it will not function as it should which is to produce sebum and promote healthy hair growth.

My recommendation would be to use flat irons on a setting no higher than 400 (best to be 350), and of course always used a heat protectant. In my opinion, if your have naturally curly hair (i.e. 4C), and you want to preserve your natural coily curl pattern, I recommend not using a flat iron more than once per year. That’s because continuous use of heat will damage your hair, and will take years to get your natural curl pattern back.

Examples of Hot Tools: Hot Comb, Flat Iron, and Blow-dryer.