Hair Care blog

You may think that models and celebrities are born with a full luscious head of long hair. The truth may be a little difficult to accept, but many use hair extensions to pull off that illusion of beauty. Hair extensions are a viable way to increase the length of your hair, but you have to be a little knowledgeable before you go out and do it. Choosing a poor hair extension product or procedure can cause loss of hair (your own and the extension), loss of money, and loss of time.

To increase the possibility of having a good experience with hair extensions, choose to use natural hair instead of synthetic hair. Natural hair has a better feel and look than synthetic hair, but it is pricier. If you’re going to spend an inordinate amount of time in the beauty shop getting hair extensions braided into your own hair, it might as well be something of good quality that will last long.

You will not want to have hair extensions done too many times.  Give your hair a chance to rest after you’ve done one set of hair extensions. The hair extension is braided into your own existing hair, which will stress it and can cause breakage. If you feel pain or if you see your own hair being pulled out during the procedure, than this is not a professional job. Seek a different hair extension specialist. Also, don’t repeat the procedure over and over so that the braids don’t cause your own hair to fall out. After you’ve gotten your first extensions removed, leave some time in between to let your hair grow naturally without the braids that are used with a hair extension.

Seek to maintain your hair extensions the same way you would with your own head of hair. Shampoo and condition them and try to make sure that you wash in between the braids to be hygienic and use a paddle brush to loosen knots.

If you are losing your hair, you may be wondering whether to use Propecia or not. Propecia is a drug used to treat hair loss, but it can have some serious side effects, particularly for pregnant women. Propecia will cause birth defects in unborn fetuses and women are told not even to handle the tables so that it does not become absorbed through the skin when they are pregnant. There also appears to be some evidence that it is not effective on post-menopausal women. However, for men it is still a tool in the arsenal against hair loss. The product has been shown to work approximately for half of the men, who use it, but use must be continued long-term or the hair loss comes back.

For Women

So, if you are a woman does it mean you can no longer use drugs for your hair loss? Propecia is not recommended for women, but there are other alternatives that can be used by women, like Minoxidil, which comes in a 2 or 5% solution. It is used to treat the hereditary form of hair loss called alopecia. Only 1 in 4 women will potentially have alopecia and the hair loss is usually throughout the entire scalp and not located in any specific area. This makes it easier to disguise with scarves or headbands.

There are other reasons besides heredity that can cause hair loss in women. A woman experiencing hair loss needs to get a full blood hormonal checkup. If she also experiences hirsutism in other parts of her body, she may have a condition called Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which needs to be treated.

For Men

Men can also be treated with Minoxidil and Propecia. They are both shown to be very effective treatments for stopping and re-growing hair. Propecia appears to work much better in men than Minoxidil, which is probably why it is still prescribed. Although hair loss is devastating for both sexes, it is more socially acceptable and prevalent in men than in women. For most men it is not an indication of poor health or disease. It’s estimated about 50% of men experience some hereditary hair loss by the time they are 50.

Hair Loss Due To Other Causes

If you are taking other medication and experience hair loss, it might be due to that medication. You should talk to your doctor if the hair loss appears suddenly. Some shampoos can also be harder on the hair than others. Seek to find natural shampoos without sodium laurel sulfate as an ingredient. These shampoos are suspected of causing hair loss in some cases. Make sure that your diet is adequate to support good hair growth with plenty of vitamin B and biotin. Finally, hair loss can be caused by excessive stress. If your hair starts to fall out after a major stress, you can expect it to grow back in after about three month’s time. If the stress does not continue, the hair loss should abate too.

If you have naturally curly hair, odds are you want to get rid of it. It doesn’t matter that you’re probably the envy of all other full-blooded females; you may find it difficult to style and manage. There are things you can do to learn to love and appreciate the hair that you were born with. You can straighten it or you can find out why curly hair is the choice of hairstyle for many women around the world.

Straightening Your Curly Hair

There are so many different hair-straightening methods that despite your skepticism, you actually can straighten curly hair. There are chemical relaxants, curling irons, flattening irons, and Japanese hair straightening methods. All of these come at a price of potentially damaging the hair. It’s not a given, but straightening the hair can weaken the hair shaft making it dryer and brittle. Many of these methods require persistence and some are quite expensive. But, if you are really adamant about straightening your curly hair, be assured that where there is a will, there is a way.

Caring For Curly Hair

Probably what you don’t like most about your curly hair is the potential for frizzy hair. This is much easier to handle than straightening the hair completely. Find some great hair care products that can help you keep your hair moist and supple. You can go for high-end Kerastase products or all natural conditioners with natural oils and herbs.

Make sure you are using the right shampoo and conditioner for your hair. Get one specifically for dry hair and include a hair treatment to combat frizzy hair in your hair routine. Stay away from blow dryers, hot irons, and any other form of heat treatment that can suck the moisture out of your hair.

The Wonderful Benefits of Curly Hair

Curly hair is actually easier to style and keep looking beautiful. Unlike straight hair, curly hair has the perfect texture for hair combs and hair accessories. This makes it easy to wear up in a stylish chignon or down in beautiful curly tresses.

When you bathe, after you shampoo and condition your hair, just wring out the hair and don’t towel it dry. Wait for it to air dry and let the ringlets come through. Don’t brush them out with a bristle brush, as that makes them frizzy. Instead, opt for a wide-toothed comb or your fingers to separate them and shape them the way you want. If you are going to put in some sort of frizzy treatment, now is the time to do it. You can even just use a couple of drops of hair oil to add a little moisture to your locks. Just take the drops in the palm of your hands, rub them together, and start scrunching at the bottom of the hair ends up to the roots. Voila! You are done and ready for an evening on the town. It really can’t get any simpler to get a good head of hair than when you have a nice head of naturally curly hair to begin with.

It may be a well-kept secret but as women age sometimes they get a few stray hairs, not always on their hairline. Whether the hair is on your chin, your bikini area, or just a mustache that appears to have grown thicker, you can get it removed permanently using laser hair removal. Laser hair removal is the state-of-the-art way to remove hair and it is somewhat painless. The procedure takes multiple sessions and can be more expensive than depilatories and shaving, but it is supposed to make the hair sparser each time, until it is finally gone. There is no guarantee that it is a permanent hair removal procedure, and the FDA only approves it as a hair reduction procedure.

Who Can Get Laser Hair Removal?

Laser hair removal isn’t for everyone. It does work better on darker colored hairs than lighter, blonde hairs. This is because the laser is targeting the melanin in the hair to remove it. Blonde hair has little melanin and the laser doesn’t work well with it. Black people may not be able to get much benefit either. The laser needs a good contrast between white skin and dark hair color to work effectively.

You can do larger areas, but the treatment is not 100% effective. People have to have multiple sessions to thin out the hair and typically use electrolysis to catch the stray hairs that remain. Even afterwards, there are touchup sessions required every six months.

The pain involved with laser therapy is different for everyone. Most people feel a light stinging sensation as the laser pulses and not much else. This can vary from person to person. If it is ever uncomfortable, you need to alert the laser technician so they can adjust the treatment.

How Many Sessions Are Required?

At least six to eight different sessions are required to see results. The reason is that not all hair grows at the same time. Your hair grows in cycles and while one set is dormant another is growing. In order for the laser to remove it, it has to be available to target. Some areas are particularly stubborn like women’s faces and men’s backs. This can get very expensive after time and there are no guarantees that the treatments will be successful.

Price Comparison

In comparison to other treatments, laser therapy is very expensive. You can expect to pay approximately $230 a session. The price does vary with the area being treated, however, it is per session and not for a guarantee of results.

In comparison, electrolysis costs between $45 to $100/hour to do. However, the results are permanent. The cost may be small for areas like the face and increase for larger areas like the back. At the point where you are treating a very large area, then laser therapy becomes more economical in comparison. When you are considering laser hair removal, think about how large the area is your want to treat to determine if the choice is financially good in comparison to other treatments available.

You may have heard that a boar bristle brush is the best brush to get and use on your hair. This doesn’t really take into account the type of hair you have. The hairbrush you select should match the type of hair you have, whether it’s curly or straight.

Straight hair does work very well with a boar bristle brush. A boar bristle brush is natural and can help distribute the hair’s natural oils to increase shine. It can also be used for curly hair IF you want to blow dry it straight too, but not if you want to retain the curl.

Curly hair shouldn’t be fussed with too much. It is better to use pick or your fingers to separate curls without increasing frizz than it is to brush through them. If you are brushing wet hair than a flat paddle brush will help to remove knots without increasing frizz. Then let it dry, scrunch, and separate curls with a pick or your fingers.

When you are selecting a hairbrush, make sure it fits well in your hand and that you can maneuver it easily. You want to be able to give your head firm downward strokes from the roots to the tips of the hair without losing your grip. There are brushes with soft finishes that can be gentler on hands that may have lost their flexibility or ease of movement. Be sure to pick one that is light too, instead of one that is too heavy and unwieldy.

Above everything, avoid nylon bristle brushes. They do not distribute the oils in your hair and can even tangle it more while you are brushing. Instead, opt for animal bristles, like a boar bristle brush. These have nice rounded tips that won’t damage the hair while brushing, causing split ends like nylon brushes might do.