hugmyhair

Date

March 19 2015

Written By

Bold Apps

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3 Ways to Retain Moisture During the Winter Months

Written By Bold Apps - March 19 2015

Posted by Dalilah,

When the temperature outside starts to decrease your hair can begin to react differently to your staple products. How to retain moisture during the winter months is a really important subject when striving to promote healthy strong hair all year round. Below are three things you can try to turn that crispy winter hair back into the soft fluffy defined or be int undefined curl that you're used to.

1. Establish a hair care routine When your hair care practices become a routine, you will know how your hair reacts and can begin to learn when it is best to add more moisture, protein or oil/sealant. If you're lucky enough to get by without a routine, then seasonal shifts can be a bit of a spanner in the works, because all of a sudden your hair stops liking your shampoo or stops doing that cool thing that it used to do and instead looks a bit 'shocked' or 'stressed out'. Decide when you're going to wash your hair, prefferably not 15 minutes before you have to step outside to go to work, do it on a day when you're indoors and give your hair the time to first adjust to change in moisture then change in temperature. This is even more imperative if you don't use a blow dryer. Your should also decide on when you're going to treat your hair, your hair loves a good deep condition in winter, pick a day maybe once every other week and soak your hair in beneficial hair oils.

 

2. Wear more protective styles Winter air and wind will steal moisture from your hair. Protect your hair by wearing protective styles or covering it completely. Protective styling involves tucking the vulnerable ends of your hair away to avoid breakage when hair inevitabley becomes dry more often. Wearing more buns, braids and twists as opposed to wash n' go's will do your hair a lot of good in the long run. If you are time poor get a scarf that is satin, instead of cotton and wear this to keep hair protected. Cotton will draw moisture out of your hair, which is not what you want if you want to keep it strong. Protection doesn't mean neglect, you still have to make sure your scalp has oil and your hair has moisture. Be sure to wrap your hair at night to keep your protective style neat for as long as possible.


 3. Learn your hair's protein/moisture balance Once you figure out how much protein and moisture your hair responds to, then you'll be able to prevent your hair from getting too dry. If your hair is weak add more protein, if your hair is dry and brittle, add more moisture. If your hair isn't retaining moisture increase your use of oils, try olive, coconut, jojoba or broccoli, and try an apple cider vinegar rinse every other week after shampoo to see if the condition of your hair improves. If you're escping the bittler cold for more tropical humid weather then increase your usage of products that have humectants. It's all just learning when to use what. But with low-porosity hair you need to work on opening up your cuticle more so than high porosity hair, and baggying is a great way to do this.

4. Bonus! Eat well and keep well The winter months are hardest for keeping a good diet. But you are what you eat, so ensuring that you are still drinking plenty of water and eating your green vegetables and proteins will ensure that you are encouraging healty hair from the inside and not just topically. If you neglect to eat well then your hair will suffer as a result so try adding steamed vegetables to your comfort meals and keeping water in your re-usable bottle in your bag when you are on the go. Have you got any winter hair care methods that are working for your? please share your experience below in our comments section. Happy Hair Hugging! x

Date

February 13 2014

Written By

Bold Apps

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Control that cuticle layer!

Written By Bold Apps - February 13 2014

Gaining control of your cuticle layer is akin to mastering the condition of your hair!

The two ways in which to manipulate your cuticle layers and get them to react are as follows:
  1. Mild heat – Good for closing hair cuticle scales - head-dryers (15-20 minutes), wrapping hair with drying towel after shampooing (45 minutes). Mild heat is NOT obtainable from sunlight, curling irons, plastic caps or sweat.
  2. PH of hair products – The PH measures how acid or alkaline a substance is and the scale ranges from 0 to 14 (0= a very strong acid & 14 = a very strong alkali). Highly acidic substances force cuticle scales shut and strong alkalines force them open
Cuticle scales can be lifted/become excessively porous from friction, poor diet, genetics, over-processing and environmental stress. When your hair is too porous, your hair ends up losing moisture just as quickly as it takes it in. Unless we learn how to keep our cuticles closed, excessive lifting will result in very dry, brittle and damaged hair. Oils and waxes are not moisturisers. Moisture is a property of water and water increases elasticity in hair. In order to effectively moisturise your hair water is necessary. But because water is absorbed so quickly by hair and evaporates just as fast, it isdifficult for hair to remain moisturised for long periods of time. This is where sealants & conditionersbecome essential. We all know that deep conditioning treatments are great for hair but few people know how or why. The reason we deep condition after washing is because we want to get moisture in our hair first to increase elasticity and minimize breakage but we also want to seal it in with emolients. The process itself is called ‘deep conditioning’ because it allows the beneficial ingredients to literally penetrate your hair shaft deposit lost lipids, nourish and seal in moisture. For the best deep conditioning results apply mild heat on washed hair that has had conditioner in it for at least 20 minutes (the longer the better). Good conditioners contain proteins vitamins and oils that work on multiple levels to add strength and shine. Hug My Hair uses ingredients such as extra virgin avocado oil, coconut oil, wheat germ oil and beeswax. All these provide an abundance of nutirents and a coating to retard water evaporation. The coat makes the hair look shiny and smooth because it fills the gaps that lifted cuticle scales reveal and gives the appearance of a flattened cuticl and therefore healthy looking hair. This is why hair needs a routine. A regular hair care regime allows you to balance styling with maintenance ensuring your hair cuticle stays protected and enabling you to retain length. If you do use moisturisers then the PH of them is important. You can measure the PH level of anything that is water soluble. The best PH level for products that you place on your hair should be within an acidic PH level of 4.5 – 5.5 which is similar to the body’s natural moisturiser sebum. If your hair products are the wrong PH then they cannot effectively close the cuticle scales meaning any deposited ‘good stuff’ isn’t locked in and can therefore be easily lost. A sign of this is experiencing dry hair shortly after applying a moisturiser. PH strips are cheap if you can bebothered to test your products. I bought mine from Ebay here Have you mastered your cuticle layer? Tell us your thoughts.

 

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