Although you can’t reverse natural balding, you can protect hair from damage that may eventually lead to thinning.
Many people put tremendous stress on their hair. Hair dryers, hot curlers, hair dyes, permanents, tight braids, and hair straightening products, and chemical-laden cosmetics may cause dry, brittle, and thinning hair.
To prevent hair damage that may cause hair loss, follow these tips:
Go natural: Leave your hair its natural color and texture. If that is not an option for you, give hair time to recover between blowouts and chemical treatments. Don’t style your hair with tight braids.
Choose products wisely: Use a basic shampoo designed for your hair type. When curling your hair, choose less-damaging sponge rollers. Also, brush using a moderately stiff, natural-bristle brush, which is less likely to tear your hair.
Brush properly: Proper hair brushing can do as much for the condition of your hair as any over-the-counter product. Using a proper brush, apply full strokes from the scalp to the tips of your hair to distribute the hair’s natural oil. Be gentle, and avoid brushing your hair when wet, when it is especially fragile. It is best to use a wide-toothed comb on wet hair.
People lose hair for various reasons. Illness and medication (like chemotherapy to treat cancer) can cause hair loss. Hair loss can also be inherited from a parent. Often, hair thins because it is fine-textured — or because too many harsh chemicals have been used on it — so it breaks easily. Learn more about the various myths surrounding hair loss.
These are hair care tips to help protect hair, prevent further hair loss, and add volume to your existing hair.
1. Try Coloring for Hair Loss
If you inherited a tendency for hair loss, you likely have very healthy hair overall. Therefore, your hair can benefit from permanent or semipermanent color to give body and volume to hair.
Medications can weaken hair, causing it to break or fall out. Semipermanent color is good in this case, too, because it does not contain ammonia or peroxide. It will not damage hair, but will give it body and volume.
If your hair is fine-textured, semipermanent or permanent color is fine, as long as it is professionally applied. Colored hair can easily get overprocessed, which damages it, causing further hair loss.
2. Use Volumizing Products
Many volume-building hair products contain paraffin, which is beeswax. That’s not good for hair, because it builds up and can make hair break.
However, volumizing products sold in salons do help. They won’t weigh hair down, and they won’t damage it. Mousse, for example, can be applied at the root area for support. Then, begin blow drying the root area, applying gentle tension with a brush to build volume. Use a light finishing spray to hold it.
3. Shampoo and Condition Your Hair When Dirty
To protect hair, the best practice is to shampoo only when hair is dirty. Because fine hair gets dirty faster, people with fine-textured hair need to shampoo more frequently — even though fine hair breaks more easily.
For that reason, fine-textured hair benefits from a good shampoo and volume-building conditioner.
4. Find a Style That Suits Fine Hair
Blow dryers should not be a problem, even if you have fine hair. However, be very careful about putting high heat directly onto hair. Flat irons and curling irons can cause damage and breakage.
Because they contain very strong chemicals, curl-relaxing products are a no-no for fine hair.
