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How To Grow Long Hair By Preventing Hair Damage

Jun 09, 2015 Breanna Rutter

Are you experiencing damaged hair? When hair products fail, what's next? Your hair growth seems to be so far away especially when you don't really know how to care for your hair. Before you take the hair cutting scissors or the barber buzzard clippers and end it all, wait! We can pin point the exact reason or reasons why your hair products or hair treatments aren't working.

You WILL be able to regrow hair back to how it needs to be with equipping yourself with a little bit of hair knowledge. Stop chasing product after product until you finally understand what ingredients in the products you really need to stop hairloss and hair damage. Revealed below are eight reasons why you are experiencing damaged hair.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #1 Relaxers, Hair Coloring, Improper Styling Tools, Rough Handling

All of the reasons listed above comes from a lack of knowledge. First, let's address relaxing African American hair because there are some important dos and donts.

Protein and Deep Condition Treatments after every chemical relaxer hair treatment (even for root touch-ups)
Keep hair moisturized when it feels dry and protein treatments when it feels slightly gummy or stretchy
Use natural ingredient products (shampoo, conditioner, protein treatments, deep conditioning treatments)

Don't

Over process! Do not apply chemical relaxer to already relaxed hair
Sleep without silk protection (a silk scarf, pillowcase, or bonnet)
No petroleum/petrolatum or regular use of sulfates

When coloring your hair always follow up with a protein and deep conditioning treatment as well.

When it comes to styling tools and hair handling, you want only minimum manipulation on your hair strands. Use wide tooth combs, snag-less accessories, and moisture when manipulating your hair. Also when you are handling your hair, no matter how long dangling takes, gentleness is required! You should never snap knots out of your hair with your comb and hands. Stop and dangle the proper way, form the ends to the roots.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #2 Mineral Buildup In Your Hard Water

Depending on where you may stay in the world, there may be a build of of mineral products in your water because you have hard water. Mineral deposits from hard water such as sulfur, calcium, and some metals, sit on our hair. This weighs your hair down and causes your hair to look dry, feel dry, be dry! My best suggestion is to use baby water (distilled water) to wash your hair or invest in a water filter. Maybe even one that can adjust to your shower head. But, if you cant afford to make these purchases, its time to starting incorporating a deep cleansing (clarifying or chelating) shampoo into your hair regiment.When I have mineral buildup in my hair I like to use Organic Olive Oil Creamy Aloe Shampoo. It gets the job done every single time.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #3 Using Sulfate Rich Shampoo Regularly

Please check your hair shampoo to make sure that it isn't full of sulfates or anything else that may end in "ate" or "ates". It is literally "eating" away at your precious hair as you robs you out of what your hair needs are with every wash. Using shampoos with sulfates in them are to harsh an unnecessary for African american hair since they strip away natural oils to the point of dryness and eventually hair damage. Use gentle shampoos like the hair shampoos recommended below.

I personally have two hair shampoo staples for my natural hair. Ever since I have been natural, I have always used Dr. Bronners Lavendar Shampoo for a regular shampoo and If I need a good wash because of mineral deposit or product build up on my hair, I use Organic Olive Oil Creamy Aloe Shampoo. These two shampoos below work best for my hair!

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #4 Imbalance of Moisture and Protein

Does your hair appear to be extremely elastic? What about if it feels very hard and brittle to the point where it breaks off? Making sure that your hair is balanced with protein and moisture is important. Figuring out how to achieve this does not require an in depth scientific experiment, you simply want to go by look and feel. You need more protein in your hair if your hair feels gummy, limp, or too stretchy. You need more moisture in your hair if it feels hard, brittle, and you happen to be experiencing breakage.To restore moisture into my hair, I like to coat my hair in either olive oil or coconut oil with an intense 20 minute session under the Heautiful Hair Steamer. I also don't have problems with protein so I do not use protein treatments to balance my hair, instead, I use Africa's Best Braid Sheen Spray With Conditioner that I spritz on my hair about every other day, give or take.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #5 Neglected Hair Under African American Hairstyles

How often do we get out hair in braids, twists and gelled, jammed styles and the forget about it? I used to do this as a means for caring for my hair! I would get my hair usually done in a full sew in or box braids and then leave it alone. As soon as I took down my hair, it would be so brittle and dry. Those are such bad hair practices! If you are guilty of this very thing and you need a solution, this is what I do to maintain braids. I use a little travel size spray bottle for moisture and protein. Every day I spritz my hair with moisture and protein every other day. When I take down my hair, its wonderful! Use these products too for your hair in protective styles if you like.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #6 Your Hair is In Contact With Moisture Absorbing Materials

One of the sneaky culprits that like to steal moisture from your hair are materials made of cotton or wool. This happens gradually so make sure to take preventive measures to prevent black hair damage. The best preserver of moisture would be materials made of silk. Sleep on silk pillowcases or with a silk bonnet or hair scarf to prevent your cotton pillowcases from taking moisture from your hair. Also, make sure that your hair doesn't brush against the shoulders of your clothes so much. This will cut back on the dryness and hair damage/breakage that you may be experiencing with your hair.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #7 An Unhealthy Diet

Do you eat healthy? Do you stay hydrated? We all fall short of this sometimes but your diet has a lot to do with the condition of your hair. As much as you want moisturized hair strands, your body prioritizes where water and nutrients will go. Extremities such as your hair, skin, and nails receive the end of whats left over after major organs have received what they need. Just imagine if we had control over this prioritization, women would drop dead everywhere with the most beautiful hair on the planet on top of their heads!

Staying hydrated and maintaining a healthy lifestyle reflects in your hair.

Damaged Black Hair Hairloss Reason #8 You Need To Cut, Trim, or Dust Your Ends

Its probably about that time ladies! Holding on to those dry, crusty, flimsy ends gets you nowhere in your hair journey. If you want to regress with your hair growth hair care regiment, just simply never cut, trim, or dust the ends of your hair. Trimming the ends when necessary will reveal the true health of your hair in most cases. If you have tried everything above, you probably haven't tried this solution. Please don't run from this, just snip of the very itsy bitsy ends if that's all you have the courage to do. The more damaged hair you trim, the better your hair will look. Please take care of this when you only have a little bit of hair to cut off rather than waiting so long that it seems like now, you have to have a haircut. Make sure to use stainless steel hair cutting shears to cut your ends. The best trim happens when you only use stainless steel hair cutting shears for your hair. You will have clean cuts and better hair quality.

How Do You Prevent Hair Damage?

Leave your comments and questions below!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello everyone this is Breanna Rutter from howtoblackhair.com and in this video I want to share with you 11 hair tips that will help you with growing your hair the subject of this video is going to be about how to grow your hair long by preventing hair damage hair tip number one relaxers if you relax your hair or if you think about chemically relaxing your hair you want to make sure that you follow up a relaxer treatment by doing a protein treatment and a moisture treatment to the relaxer itself changes the protein molecules in your hair which is why makes your hair straighter so by breaking up the protein of your hair this by itself is damaged inflicting upon on strands to make sure to combat the issues you have with your hair after relaxer you want to make sure they follow up with a protein treatment and a deep conditioning treatment as well hair tip number two coloring your hair when you’re coloring your hair this process itself is already inflicting damage upon your strands so from the order of the most damaging coloring treatments to the least would be permanent hair coloring semi-permanent hair coloring and then a natural colorants from plants such as henna or indigo coloring treatment just know that even the lighter you go with your coloring sessions this is more stripping on your hair so after any coloring treatments you do to your hair you want to make sure to follow up with either a protein treatment for a moisture treatment to keep your hair healthy hair tip number three improper styling tool when you’re styling and combs your hair you want to make sure that you use the appropriate tools to do so make sure to aim for wide tooth seamless combs as you are using a tool to detangle your hair if you have any awkward plastic ridges or metal prongs that stick out of your materials this will snag on your hair throughout the day and then when you take them out you can even will even lose some of your hair or cause pain because they’re calling so make sure that with the tools you use the teeth are wide enough and the materials that you clip onto your hair for styling also friendly with your hair and snag tip number 4 the way you handle your hair the way that you handle your hair is extremely important because if you’re rough on your hair this always leads to breakage so when you are detangling your hair first of all it’s always best to do so on wet hair this is when the hair is most elastic and stretching you want your head has to give when you’re combing it so that you’re not putting too much resistance on your strands so when you’re combing your hair you have to use a wide tooth comb for best detangling you want to make sure that your detangling appropriately so that you don’t create snags on your hair by combing from the ends to the roots this helps you prevent tangles so when you are manipulating your hair is best to have best practices to prevent hair damage along the way hair tip number five mineral buildup in your water so if you happen to have mineral buildup in your water this is probably one of the main reasons why your hair is a growing as long as it should the mineral traces that are found in our water consist of sulfur calcium and even some in these metals and these minerals wont absorb into our hair so they simply stay on top of the hair shaft over time as minerals it weighs down your hair follicles and eventually lead to breakage that’s why it’s very important to make sure that you have a very good deep cleansing shampoo on hand to wash these minerals out of your hair also you can even make sure to use filtered water as you watch your hair to for your hair of these minerals as well hair top number six overuse of sulfate rich shampoo when you’re shampooing your hair you want to make sure to away from shampoos that are loaded with sulfates they are extremely strong cleansing agents they clean any surface it comes the content to any happens to be a little bit too stripping for African-American hair this strips away all the dirt oil moisture and nutrients whenever inside to make sure that it cleanse your hair really good we do not need to have so many sulfates or even any sulfates that are in our shampoos so to make sure to stay clear of those very stripping shampoos to spare away from any ingredients that may in a more because too much sulfate can be a bad thing on your hair tip #7 and imbalance of moisture or protein when you’re going through out your day or just drop your hair journey sometimes you may notice that no matter what you do styles just usually don’t hold up in the company simply because you don’t have enough moisture in your hair or your hair lacks protein the best way to test to see exactly what your hair you is to make sure to test it on wet products free hair so typically the best time to test this will be you shampooed your hair rinse your hair out and now ts clean and wet you just want to fill in your different strands in your text inside your head to feel the consistent use of your hair if your hair feels slightly gummy or sticky or just really does limp and lifeless it probably needs more protein so a protein treatment would be best the situation also you happen to feel your hair and stretch her hair and it just feels very hard and course it just really spent it’s best that you implement more moisture into your hair so the best time to test. To see if you need more moisture or protein is simply after a shampoo session to do so hair tip number eight caring for your hair underneath hair styles it’s very important to make sure that you keep your hair moisturized under hairstyles you’re going to work for an extended period of time whether you’re wearing a sewin style or even an individual braid style like box braids you want to make sure that you adding moisture to your hair throughout the week or weeks depending on how long you’re going to where your style so what I’m wearing my style what I do is I take a travel size spray bottle and I feel it halfway the water and inability halfway with any type of hair conditioner that I like to use so once I shake that bottle I just simply go underneath my hair and spray my braids or if I just have free-flowing brace for my scalp I sprayed mainly at the ends and the roots of the style this will help keep my hair moisturized and give ut nutrients that it needs throughout my style so that when I take my hair down it isn’t dry or on the brink of damage hair tip number nine hair in constant contact with moisture absorbing is a very bad thing to constantly have moisture stripping materials on your hair so just think throughout the day what your hair goes through when you’re going to bed when you’re wearing a hat on your head or a scarf you want to make sure that you use materials that aren’t so absorbent to moisture the more moisture that is taken away from your hair the more drier your hair will become which ultimately leads to breakage so we want to make sure they were retaining our length and growing our hair long as they can by keeping moisture absorbing materials away from such as cotton or wool so if your favorite hat happens to be wool you have to make sure to put some type of bonnet on your head to your head and also cotton as well if you happen to sleep on a cotton pillow it’s best that you wear a silk pillow or just simply to wear a silk scarf on your head to protect your hair from these materials hair tip number 10 and a healthy diet so I really want to mention this tip at first when I begin this video I want to turn everybody off and then everyone wants to click off all at once because i am just going to rave about eating your fruits and vegetables but the truth of the matter is is that a healthy diet is really important with your body and your hair the great thing about our body is that it manages and categorize of importance where the nutrients will go first so all your vital organs will get what it needs before your hair skin in your nails so maybe the reason why your hair just isn’t the way supposed to be is probably because maybe you don’t take in as much protein as you as you need to so if you are only giving your body just protein it needs is probably only giving very little off the left for your hair skin and nails so maybe that’s the reason why your hair always feels like its lacking protein also if you drink much water everything will be dry your skin will be dry your nails be dry and especially your hair will be dry if you’re not drinking the recommended amount of water is supposed to every day how can you expect your hair to stay moisturized the best moisture is always from the inside before it is from the outside so is very important to make sure that you have a healthy diet to have healthy hair last but not least hair tip number 11 cutting dusting and trimming your ends so very important that you ask yourself when was the last time I cut my hair if you happen to trim your is maybe a couple of weeks ago a couple of months ago that’s a good thing but years have gone by or even way too many months have gone by in the year that you cutting your hair and this is probably the reason why your hair is not getting long it’s very hard to grow long hair when he is of your hair is the same because the damage split ends will continue to split to continue to break all the way up your hair shaft this makes it look as if your hair isn’t growing because as quick as its growing it’s breaking off just the same so I want to tell you a little bit of story about my hair and what I went through when I didn’t want to cut my at all so when I first natural I already assumed that I wanted me to trim because I was no longer inflicting damage upon my hair and I was taking care of my hair the best way that I could as time went on I noticed that my hair just didn’t feel the same the matter if I put protein in my hair were more moisture in my hair was simply do everything possible to make sure that I protect my hair it wouldn’t grow right no matter what so the way that your hair should feel it should feel consistent from the roots of your hair to the ends of your hair by nature the ends are going to be more dry so may fill a little bit different but my hair would be extremely smooth at the roots and then it would just feel like cracks cackles and lumps and bumps all the way down my hair and it would feel very dry I was running away from a trim for over two years never go longer than now or even longer than a year at all and trimming your hair my best to just follow along with the trimming or testing or cutting your ends is to do so about every six to do so last night if you seem to have more damage hair on your hair or you may be paying go longer maybe once a year is good for you but you want to make sure that you when you will see in the morning right away from damaged is more your hair will continue to break so no matter how long you way it’s not going to break off perfectly and then you’re going to prolong hair have to stop the issue at the root which means when you feel your hands are damaged you have to snipped your ends to make sure that you can grow long healthy so that is 11 of my best hair tips that I have for you to make sure that you retain the imperfect damage as you are growing your thank you so much for watching my blog on how to grow LONG HEALTHY hair by preventing hair damage make sure to go to the website howtoblackhair.com to check out more articles and how to as well.