thousands of hair care products currently available on the market today. These products fall into four basic categories: cleaning, conditioning, coloring and styling.
Understanding how to care for your hair properly is important especially when you are suffering from hair loss, for both medical and cosmetic reasons. Not only does your
hair and scalp become coated with dirt and dust, but naturally occurring oily sebum and dandruff, as well as cosmetics such as hair sprays, combine to hold all this debris
together. To remove this mixture some type of soap or detergent is necessary.
All shampoos work in much the same way. Both soaps and detergents are alkaline. They both cause the hair shaft to absorb water. The cortex swells, the cuticle scales open,
the hair becomes very flexible, so that oil and dirt can be washed away. Their are many different hair types so frequency of shampooing will be different for each person.
Some people wash their hair every day. Others shampoo only once a week. Frequent shampooing with a gentle shampoo will not damage hair, nor will it cause it to fall out.
The second step after shampooing is conditioning. Conditioners have two main purposes, neutralizing static electricity and restoring the hair's protective oily coating.
Conditioners help to protect the hair from the removal of too much of hair's natural oil by exposure to sun, wind, water or other shampoos.
Colorings for the hair may be either temporary rinses or they may be semi-permanent dyes. Rinses deposit pigments to the cuticle of the hair that last until the pigment is
washed away during cleansing. Dyes penetrate the hair shaft, and generally remain as part of the hair until the dyed strands are replaced with new growth. Hair coloring may
be damaging to the hair, especially when bleach or peroxides are used in the coloring process.
Hair styling is usually achieved in one of three ways. Styling may be accomplished by temporary methods such as arranging wet hair with a comb or brush, perhaps spraying
the style with hair spray and drying the hair with heated air. Rolling the hair on curlers to achieve body and curl, then drying it is also temporary. Permanent waiving is
a more long lasting method. It involves a rearrangement of permanent chemical bonds in hair fibers, but it also involves the use of harsh chemicals, which may damage the
hair shaft.
Even with the overabundance of hair care products available, the best advice is still to leave hair alone as much as possible. Hair should be kept clean, of course, but the
shampoo should be gentle. Blow drying should be accomplished using the least amount of possible heat. Hair coloring or styling products providing temporary results and will
be much kinder to your hair than the more permanent varieties. Careful combing and brushing will also prevent damage to the hair. Understanding how to care for your hair
properly is the first step to hair loss prevention.
Healthy hair is easy to attain and to maintain if care is given to the body's general nutrition, and caution is used in choosing both methods and products to care for the
hair.
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