Before you start

I think the key to growing your hair is understanding your hair, so I did some research online and I think the following are key to understanding your hair. Before you start building your regimen understand why certain products maybe more important than others; it might also save you some money by not turning you into a product junkie! :D

1. Your hair structure:

A key thing to remember is that the shape of our hair makes it more prone to breakage.

The Cuticle is the outside layer of you hair, it's job is to protect the hair shaft; it has a coating of Sebum, which is where the hair gets it's shine.

The Cortex is where the hairs strength, texture and elasticity comes from.

The Hair Follicle is the part of the skin that actually grows the hair.

The Sebaceous Glands is where the Sebum that was coating the cuticle is made.

The Melanin is what gives the hair it's color.

If you are like me, when you where trying to figure out exactly what your hair type was you came across some terminology you didn't quite understand or you did understand you just didn't know what that meant for your hair. Well, here are some clarifications I found helpful on my journey to understanding my hair.

Moisture: basically the amount of water held in your hairs Cortex. If you live somewhere humid the more moisture you'll have in your cortex, and of course in drier areas the less.

Porosity: this is the hairs ability to actually absorb the water and all the chemicals (products) you put in it. If you have normal porosity your hair maintains the right balance of moisture. If you porosity is high your hair can't hold it's moisture and thus dries easy. Low porosity means that your hair sucks in moisture but the problem is it cant hold it in. Relaxed hair usually falls in the high porosity category.

Elasticity: is your hairs ability to stretch and shrink back to normal. when your hair is wet it should be able to stretch double it's length without breaking. if your hair has low elasticity it breaks off when you try to stretch it. Relaxes hair usually has low elasticity.

Common hair Problems and their causes:

 Breakage  occurs when the Cortex has been damaged, common harmful practices that cause this damage are:

heat styling: such as flat ironing and blow drying your hair, what this is doing is basically burning the moisture out of your Cortex.

Overly Processing: processing your hair (e.g relaxing) already damages your hair just because you are altering the chemical structure of your hair, but overly processing your hair leads to high porosity and low elasticity which is a recipe for breakage.

Harsh products: using harsh shampoos and conditioners can cause your hair to be stripped of vital nutrients which leads to breakage especially if your hair is relaxed.

Dryness occurs Sebum is stripped from the Cuticle. Our hair is prone to dryness that why it is very important to buy water based products (where water is 1st to 3rd on the list of ingredients), and stay away from products with alcohol in them. Water and Coconut oil are the best for restoring moisture to the hair, oils such as mineral oils just sit on top and pretend to be working when they are actually just clogging you pores.

I think that probably covers the basics I will add more as I see fit or if anyone has a request; hope this is helpful!!

Deuces and happy hair growing

T