Weak hair can take on many forms and is often noticeable to others. That said, weak hair can be a detriment to our fashion sense and self image. In some cases, it can even be an indicator of a medical concern. Not sure about your hair’s health and what to do about it? The pros at Matrix are here to give you a few tips on how to make weak hair stronger.Diagnosing Weak Hair

Weak hair can be defined as limp, droopy, thin or falling out. Split ends, extreme dryness or excessive oiliness can all be signs of weak hair. It is often genetic, handed down from a parent, or it can be caused by hormonal factors such as menopause or childbirth, birth control pills or other medications, disease or illness, poor diet, stress, a fungal infection of the scalp or cancer treatments. Environmental impact from sun exposure, chlorine or salt water, air conditioning or heating and pollution can weaken hair.

It is normal to lose 100 to 150 hairs each day, but since most people have about 100,000 hairs on the head, this loss is not significant. When a hair is lost, a new one grows back in its place. This process continues until middle age, when hair re-growth slows down or stops.

Hair that is lost from breakage is not the same as normal loss. Hair that falls out naturally comes from the scalp, typically with the bulb attached. Breakage from weakness is when the hair breaks off below the scalp. While some breakage is normal, excessive breakage indicates weakened hair. Weak hair often shows itself as split ends, which can travel up the hair shaft and break off.

1. Use the Right Products to Avoid Further Damage to Weak Hair

A good stylist can help you detect and diagnose weak hair, and make recommendations on appropriate product usage. Using the best products for weak hair is essential to restoring troubled tresses. For weak, delicate hair, use a shampoo, conditioner and styling products that will reinforce the hair by infusing protein, amino acids and other strengthening properties.

Don’t use a shampoo that will dry out hair, and when using a reinforcing conditioner, start at the roots and work the conditioner through to the ends. You can enhance conditioning by wrapping a hot towel or shower cap over your head to allow it to penetrate deeply into the hair follicles and shafts. A protein mask or deep conditioning treatment can also be beneficial to locks that have lost their strength.

Keep in mind, however, that the products we use on our hair can be overdone. You can have too much of a good thing, and excessive product usage over time causes damaged and weak hair. When hair is already damaged, compensating with more product can weigh it down, making weak hair look dull and rough. Avoid styling products that contain alcohol, for example, which can be drying to hair; and try to limit shampooing to every other day or even less frequently if your scalp doesn’t produce too much oil.

2. Take Care of Weak Hair by Limiting Chemical Use

Abusing and over-processing hair can lead to weak tresses. Ongoing use of strong chemicals through coloring, bleaching, straightening or permanents can damage hair fiber and make hair weak. When used too frequently or in too strong a dose, these chemicals can cause permanent damage, making weak hair dry and frizzy, with split ends and breakage the result. Counteract chemical warfare by using a shampoo and conditioner for damaged hair and intensive conditioning treatments. Look for styling products containing stearyl alcohol, a fatty alcohol that helps strengthen and soften weak hair.

For severely weakened hair, use a deep-conditioning protein treatment once a week or so. Apply the treatment all over hair that has been cleansed with a hydrating shampoo and leave it on overnight (wrap hair into a bun and sleep with a towel on your pillow). Rinse the treatment out in the morning.  When you do opt for haircolor, ask your stylist about conditioner-rich and ammonia-free professional formulas.

3. Weak Hair Hates Heat: Don’t Play With Fire

Excessive heat from blow-dryers, hot curlers, curling irons and flat irons can cause weak hair and breakage. Using a too-hot blow-dryer on wet hair heats the water remaining under the hair’s cuticle and causes it to expand inside the hair, leaving spaces--or blisters --inside fibers, which weakens hair. These parched strands soak up moisture from the air, causing frizz.

Rather than fighting your natural texture, work with what you’ve got. For straight hair, enhance its health and shine by using cleansing and conditioning products specifically designed to create shine. For curly hair, use products created for wavy texture and scrunch the hair with your fingers to reduce frizz.

To nurse fried strands back to optimum health, use a hydrating shampoo and conditioner, then fortify with a strengthening product prior to styling. Keep styling tools set on low temps, apply heat protection products before styling with dryers or irons to protect from thermal damage and follow with finishing products that are infused with protective oils.

4. Strengthen Weak Hair by Switching Up Your Style

Change how you wear your hair every day: Wearing your hair down day after day can result in tangles and split ends. But ponytails, tight braids and dreadlocks can also stress tresses and cause weakening. Switch styles every day to avoid strain on weak hair and give your look a pick-me-up. When wearing hair down, use a strengthening shampoo, conditioner and styling products to protect weak hair. When wearing it up, use fortifying gel or mousse and hair-protecting elastics with no metal on them.

The friction of over brushing and wearing tight-fitting hats can also cause hair to weaken. Don’t get too zealous when brushing, and never brush wet hair. It’s best to use padded brushes and those with animal hair bristles on delicate locks. A good detangling spray will help defend weak hair while brushing. Spritz it on before combing through wet hair to ease strand stress.

5. The Frizz Factor, and How To Prevent Frizz

When frizziness is apparent, keeping hair trimmed can help prevent further damage and stop the splits from traveling up the hair shaft.

Using a keratin shampoo and conditioner can help restore protein to weak, damaged hair and help bring it back to good health. But remember, this won’t happen overnight; you’ll need to use it regularly to notice a difference.

After shampooing, there are a variety of weak hair serums and leave-in conditioners available to help tame frizz. When using oil-based serums, avoid putting them directly on your scalp, as it can become greasy and make the roots look oily.

When styling, choose finishing products that enhance smoothness and shine.

6. How To Treat Split-Ends: A Hair Divided is Not Happy and Healthy

There is no total cure for split ends, but as mentioned above, you can keep them at bay with a trim every six to eight weeks. For more temporary remedies, use a gentle shampoo and conditioner, and apply a treatment oil to just the tips of tresses. When styling, reinforcing products are best, as they help bond the ends together.

7. How To Care For Your Scalp: Hair Health Starts at the Top

When working to heal weak hair, the first line of defense is to start with the scalp. If your scalp is healthy, your hair will follow suit. Scalps can be dry and flaky or oily, but there are products designed to work with each type.

For dry scalps that feel tight or itchy, a moisturizing oil can be massaged into the scalp for five minutes before showering. A hair mask or deep conditioning treatment will help provide moisture to dry scalps and weak hair.

If your head is itchy and you are regularly finding flakes on your shoulders, you may have dandruff. Nothing kills a good look quicker than a shoulder covered in scalp snow, so if dandruff is a problem, research the variety of dandruff shampoos, conditioners and treatments on the market, or get a recommendation from your stylist or medical provider.

8. A Healthy Diet Helps Restore Weak Hair

Weak and thinning hair can be caused by what you do to your hair, but it can also be brought on by what you do to your body. An unhealthy diet, or too-low of a caloric intake (crash diet), can lead to hair falling out, as can endocrine disorders.

What you eat has an effect on the health of your hair and scalp. The nutrients from healthy food provide the energy that fuels hair growth. A diet that includes iron-rich protein feeds your scalp and hair by building strong keratin, the protein that strengthens hair, improves texture and stimulates growth. Consume lean meat, fish, low-fat cheeses, egg whites, spinach and soy to keep your head happy in more ways than one.  In between meals, snack on fruits, vegetables and grains.

Vitamins are also key to hair health. Vitamin C, or collagen, keeps blood vessels in the scalp healthy by supporting hair follicles. Vitamin C also helps you absorb iron from plant proteins. Biotin, an essential B vitamin, strengthens weak hair and improves its texture. Biotin is found in salmon, carrots, egg yolks and sardines. Vitamin supplements can help weak hair as well. Silica, a nutrient found in oats, rice, cucumbers, asparagus, cabbage and sunflower seeds, supports growth of hair and nails, as does calcium, found in dairy products, fish and leafy greens.

Water is another essential for your body and your hair. Adequate hydration helps keep your body functioning like a well-oiled machine, and helps strengthen weak hair. It’s best to drink plenty of water throughout the day and evening.

If the hair care tips listed in this article don’t help make your weak hair stronger and thicker, pay a visit to your doctor or dermatologist to rule out a medical condition.

 
This article first appeared on Matrix.com

​A lot happened in 1970, the Beatles disbanded, the US invaded Cambodia, Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight to London, and men in the UK began buying toupées in droves.

February 1970 marked the winter of bald men’s discontent, the Observer Magazinereports. In an issue devoted to ‘The Hair In Our Lives’ and illustrated with a bald Rudolf Nureyev, who in reality had a full head of hair, Maureen Green gets to the root (sorry) of the exponential boom in the male hair industry. ‘Because a man’s hair is so openly admired as an increasingly important part of an attractive appearance,’ she writes, ‘the onset of baldness causes more masculine dismay than ever. Baldness is a disfigurement.’

With such attitudes flying about, it’s no wonder men were seeking drastic measures to restore their follically ravaged heads. In 1970 alone the NHS provided £1m of wigs. One dermatologist told Green: ‘I’ve suggested to long-haired patients who are young and balding that they should become skinheads, but they are horrified. It’s worse than switching from modern jazz to swing. You just don’t do it.’

And it’s not just the NHS that was under strain; hairless men were turning to crime to disguise their gleaming scalps. ‘Just as in 18th-century London, a robber might lift an expensive wig from a fashionable head, so again wig makers and hairdressers are the victims of persistent burglary.’

However, a pioneering technique was about to shake things up: enter ‘hair weaving’, the process of ‘attaching extra hairs to those that still remain’.

According to Iain Kelly of the Hair Extension Centre, the psychological benefits blow those of the humble toupée out the water. ‘A man never sees himself as bald again. With a toupée, he takes it off at night and reminds himself. With extensions, he can be lost in his new hair. The boost to the male ego is immense.’ Thank goodness for that!

This article appeared on The Guardian

Pinterest loves this haircut, and you will too.

Short haircuts for curly hair can be tricky thing. Chop too short and your curls won’t show off their full spiral. If strands are too long, curls could get weighed down and lose their bounce. Needless to say, we’ve been on an exhaustive hunt for the best haircuts for curly hair for quite some time. We searched high and low to find the ideal length, style, and cut; and we’re pretty sure we finally did.

We’re calling the style pictured here the curly shag and it’s going to make you want to book an appointment with your stylist, ASAP. The cut falls just above the shoulders and is characterized by lots of layers and a heavy part. We absolutely love how it frames the face without overwhelming—or giving us the feeling we would constantly be tucking it behind our ears or pinning it back.

When it comes to shoulder-length cuts for curly hair, it’s easy to fall prey to the triangle look—you know, the one that juts out from the top of the head in a triangle shape coming just above the shoulders. A mere mention of the triangle is enough to send any curly-haired woman into a full panic before chopping her locks. Avoiding the not-so-flattering look is completely doable, though. The key is plenty of layers. The stylist expertly crafted layer after layer to give curls the most spiral potential. We love how each curl lays gently on the other without stacking outward, instead, gently curving around the face. 

We even love the heavy part, which is again made possibly with the use of plenty of layers. The dramatic look gives the curls an almost tousled, woke-up-like-this effect that we absolutely love—and that will garner plenty of compliments when you take it for a spin.
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What do Dwayne Johnson, Patrick Stewart, Vin Diesel, and LL Cool J have in common? They all have been listed as some of the world’s sexiest leading men, and they all sport a bald head. Although any of them could successfully represent a “Bald is Beautiful” campaign, most people facing hair loss are desperately seeking ways to salvage what strands are still connected to their head.

According to The Washington Post, American hair loss sufferers spend more than 3.5 billion dollars a year in an attempt to treat their hair loss. Unfortunately, 99 percent of all products being marketed in the hair loss treatment industry are completely ineffective for the majority of those who use them.

Most of us normally shed 50 to 100 hairs a day. This loss of hair generally does not cause thinning of hair because at the same time new hair is growing on your scalp. But sudden hair loss is something to take seriously. This loss of hair occurs when the cycle of hair growth and shedding is disrupted or when the hair follicle is destroyed and replaced with scar tissue.

But what about the gradual loss of hair? The moments when you can’t help but notice the pile of hair in the shower drain or your hair brush. Are these people doomed to a life of lacking luscious locks?

Watch for Early Signs
Gerald G. Krueger, MD, an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of psoriasis and hair loss with University of Utah Health, doesn’t think so. The key is to look for early signs. “For women, they may notice that their ponytail requires more wraps with a hair elastic, or it dries quicker,” Krueger says. He adds that is important to note when your hair feels finer or doesn’t hold a curl like it once did. These are both early signs of hair loss.

In men, signs of hair loss can occur as early as middle school. “Hair loss occurs 5 to 10 years sooner in men than in women,” Krueger says. It’s important to catch signs early because once the hair follicle stops producing hair, it cannot recover.

Understand the Hair Growth Cycle
People have receptors in the hair-making cells, and these specialized receptors are distributed all over the scalp. Every three to five years, this hair-growth cycle gets shorter, and the hair follicle itself gets thinner.

Blame Genes
In 2005, German researchers uncovered a hair-loss gene that is carried by an X chromosome from our mothers. Then in 2008, a second gene involved in hair loss was discovered that indicated baldness could come from either parent. “Thirty percent of the population of men and women have heritable causes of hair loss,” Krueger says. “It’s called, Androgenetic Alopecia. And, as far as we know, the mechanisms beyond androgens are likely the same in men and women.” The good news is that the threat of hair loss subsides as we age. “If you don’t have balding onset before age 35, you’ll likely never have balding on top.”

Look to Proven Solutions
For the past twenty years, Krueger has been treating men and women who are living with hair loss. Despite the flood of hair treatment products, only a handful of treatments have been proven effective to help hair grow back. “Rogaine, either taken in pill form or used topically is effective,” Krueger says. “As are hair transplants.”

Originally developed to treat men suffering from an enlarged prostate gland, finasteride was found to encourage hair growth. It is distributed under the brand names of Proscar and Propecia. Along with Finasteride, Minoxidil is the only other FDA-approved treatment for hair loss.
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Millions may be living with thinning hair, but that doesn’t mean they have thinning hopes that a solution to effective hair loss treatment is right around the corner. Further research is exploring the results of physiopathological pathways, genetic and cell behaviors that may provide a permanent cure for hair loss.

This article first appeared on HealthFeed University of Utah

The Facts

About 85% of men will have major hair thinning by the time they’re 50. Some guys start to lose theirs before they turn 21. But what makes us lose our hair at a faster rate?
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• There’s a clear link between lighting up a cigarette and how fast male-pattern baldness gets worse. So, if you’re looking for one more good reason to quit, add early hair loss to the list.
• Almost all hair loss in guys results from male-pattern baldness, a genetic trait that comes from your parents.
• With male-pattern baldness, a hormone called DHT causes hair follicles to shrink. Eventually, they get so small that no hair can grow in them.
• Too much vitamin A or not enough protein in your diet.
• Illness or stress can lead to sudden, heavy shedding called telogen effluvium.

This information is from MR Jamie Stevens