Healthy hair is a sign of the health of your entire body. An ideal hair strand features scales that tightly overlap in order to reflect light and appear shiny and strong. However, damaged hair features separated scales that cause the hair to weaken and even break off. To prevent breakage or improve your hair's current health, it's important to take the following steps.
Step 1
Identify areas in your hairstyling routine that may be contributing to breakage. These include excessive use of heat styling, such as a flat iron or curling iron, or excessive exposure to chemicals, such as hair color or permanent lotion.
Step 2
Space out your chemical hair treatments, such as highlights. Ask your stylist if you can have a special deep-conditioning treatment following your chemical service in order to reduce the overall damage to your hair.
Step 3
Apply a heat-styling protectant to your hair prior to applying heat with a blow-dryer or using a curling iron or hot rollers. They can cause the hair shaft to expand and leak moisture, which can result in breakage.
Step 4
Use a daily conditioner every time you wash your hair. Many conditioners offer a special formulation for dry hair, which provides deeper conditioning to your hair.
Step 5
Use a deep conditioner once a week. It's typically best applied in or following a shower and requires that you leave the product on for five to 15 minutes at a time. A deep conditioner is able to further penetrate the hair shaft and leaves the hair feeling soft, reducing breakage.
Step 6
Refrain from using styling tools that can cause hair breakage. These include elastic or rubber bands, which should be replaced with cloth bands. Try to vary your hairstyles; refrain from pulling your hair into a ponytail every day, for example, as this can cause breakage.
Step 7
Avoid excessively brushing your hair, as this can cause the hair shaft to become damaged and cause breakage. You can brush your hair to style it. However, you should not brush 100 strokes per day or do any other excessive brushing.
Tips and Warnings
- One of the first signs of hair breakage is the occurrence of split ends. These give the hair strand a forked appearance at its end. Because this split end can then travel up the hair shaft, it's important to trim any split ends and then begin treatments to reduce hair breakage.
- Chronic hair breakage can be an indicator of another health problem, such as an eating disorder or an underactive thyroid. If your hair does not improve with treatment, you should seek medical help.
Things You'll Need
- Daily conditioner
- Weekly deep-conditioning treatment
- Heat-styling protectant
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