How to Get Long, Luscious Locks

Hair is an important part of looking and feeling good. Frizzy, fried hair or a balding scalp are both embarrassing and devastating towards your self image. In the last decade, the hair care craze has boomed because hair is vital to your appearance. It can make you appear young, fresh and full of life. Therefore, many people will do anything to get gorgeous, luscious hair. Luckily, it is fairly simple to grow healthy and long hair if you know what to do.

Your Hair is What You Eat

The old saying “you are what you eat” is never more true than when it comes to your hair. Hair is made up of keratin, a protein, and needs extra protein, vitamins, minerals and Omega-3 fatty acids to grow long and healthy. In order to get enough protein, one must not participate in drastic, fad diets. Master cleanses and some vegan diets can leave you deficient in protein. While these diets are low in calories and will enable you to lose weight, they will certainly leave you with dry, brittle and thin or thinning hair. Why not eat a diet that is low in calories, but high in protein? Such diets, like the Zone diet or a modified Atkins diet can be extremely beneficial to weight loss as well as ensuring that your hair stays vibrant. Make sure to get lots of protein every day. Protein is found in meats, nuts, beans, eggs and even milk and yogurt. You might want to consider getting some protein from powder shakes and other supplements.

Vitamins and minerals, most notably vitamin B12, are extraordinarily important to the healthy functioning of the scalp and the growth of beautiful hair. Vitamins and minerals travel directly through the root of the hair follicle and into the hair. Thus, the hair will be shiny and full of life if it has enough of the vitamins and minerals it craves. In order to get these important nutrients, one must eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. Leafy greens, broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, carrots, berries, bananas, oranges and apples are just some of the vegetables and fruits that you should make a part of your daily diet. Unfortunately, in order to get all of the necessary vitamins your hair needs, you would have to eat more than double the calories your body should consume. This means that if you want to stay at a healthy weight while maintaining gorgeous and voluminous hair, you should definitely take a vitamin supplement. This ensures that you are supporting your healthy hair without gaining excess weight.

Omega-3 fatty acids also help in the healthy functioning of your scalp. These fatty acids are found in fish, eggs, and some nuts. These should be consumed often and there are also many other supplements you can take that have these fatty acids in them. If you focus on eating a quality, nutrient rich diet and taking the proper vitamin supplements, you can count on having youthful and gorgeous hair for life.

Tools to Keep Hair Happy

Curling irons, straighteners and blow dryers are all helpful tools in getting your hair to look its best. Elaborate hair styles are often necessary for special events such as proms and weddings, but they can leave your hair ravaged, broken and necessitate a drastic hair cut. When it comes to heat styling, always remember that less is more. When hair is soaking wet, it will take a longer time to dry with a hair dryer, which can lead to excessive frying of your hair. Towel dry hair or allow to air dry for a while before using a blow dryer. Spray hair with a heat protectant spray and make sure to keep dryer at least 6 inches away from your head. Move the dryer rapidly, so as not to direct the heat at one spot for too long.

When using a straightening or curling iron, also use a heat protectant spray. Avoid holding either directly onto the hair for more than 30 seconds. If hair sizzles or smells like it is burning, stop use. Whenever possible allow hair to do what it does naturally. The less you fit your hair with styling tools, the happier it will be.

A Better Brush

Brushes and combs are also important to hair health. Use natural bristle brushes as opposed to plastic ones. Never rip at your hair with a brush or comb. Always gently run tool through hair and carefully focus on any knots.

Cut Your Way to Longer Locks

It sounds counterproductive, but cutting your hair is the best way to grow out healthy locks. By trimming off dead ends on a regular basis, about every 6 to 8 weeks, your hair will reach new lengths without and split ends. If hair is not trimmed regularly, the gnarled ends will get worse and worse so that your hair will eventually have to be cut to make it look halfway decent. Dead ends cut down on manageability and are detrimental to your long hair goals.