How To Grow Long Healthy Hair

This post is long overdue and I apologize for you ladies who have been waiting for it- but at last it is here! This is a continuation to my post on how to make your hair grown an inch a month, you can click here if you haven't read it yet.

When you're growing out your hair it's important to keep it healthy if you want it looking long and nice instead of long and damaged. Who wants that? In addition, if you don't keep it healthy an get too much breakage you'll be forced to cut it more often which if you remember from my last post is a cardinal sin when trying to grow out your hair! No bueno!

 So here are the steps you should take to make sure your hair grows out as healthy as possible! And remember, even when your hair is at your desired length you should still make sure to follow these steps to keep your hair looking good!

1. Use A Deep Conditioner- Our hair needs to be deeply nourished to stay as soft, silky, and hydrated as possible. You should be using a deep conditioner 1-2 times per week. It will add shine, moisture and strength to your hair to help with breakage  This step is especially necessary if you have bleached or color treated hair as it has been damaged more so than untreated hair has. 

My all time favorite deep conditioner is Macadamia Oil Deep Repair Masque. This stuff works wonders on your hair and it smells divine! 

Another good one is It's a 10 Miracle Deep Conditioner. 

A more cost effective option is Extra Virgin Coconut Oil  %100 Organic (any brand is fine as long as it's extra virgin and organic)

If you want to get even better results you can apply the deep conditioner, wrap a plastic bag around your head then blast it with your blow dryer for 15 minutes. Proceed to take a shower and let it sit wrapped up while you shave your legs, exfoliate, etc, then wash it off and feel your smooth silky hair!

Use A Sulfate-Free Shampoo- I've mentioned before in my Holy Grail Beauty Products post that my all time favorite shampoo is L'Oreal Ever Sleek Sulfate-Free Shampoo (and conditioner). If I talked about all the reason why you should use a sulfate-free shampoo this post will be much longer than it already is- so I'll spare you. I'll only quickly mention some of the negative side effects of using sulfate on your hair which are:
- Itchy and inflamed scalp (which probably means you're allergic)
- Reduce the quality of hair strands
- More breakage
- Increase in hair fall
- Lost volume (who wants thin, flat hair?)
- Remove hair dye (if you have color-treated hair)
These are just some of the side effects, if you'd like to no more just Google it.

Limit The Heat!- I think we all know how much damage heat causes to our hair yet we cannot put the hot tools down! I was one who thought I could never ever ever go a day without using heat on my hair, until I started on my hair growth journey and forced myself to! I only allowed heat on my hair once a week which is I would advice for you ladies to do. I got creative and learned how to make my curly or straight hair last for four days without using heat on it (maybe I'll do a post on that too?). Or I found other ways to make it look cute without heat. It helped me get out of the daily habbit of putting heat on my hair and damaging it by burning it! Now I don't feel the need to always use hot tools. 

When you do put heat on your hair, please please please do not forget your heat protector before doing so! It's already damaging enough to style it with heat but it's even worse if you don't protect it! That's another cardinal sin! 

Two of my favorites are 

Tresemme Thermal Creations Heat Tamer Protective Spray

and

Fantasia IC Hair Polisher Heat Protector Straightening Serum

Do Not Wash Your Hair Everyday- This is another cardinal rule that can make a huge difference in the health of our hair but not every women follows it. Each time you wash your hair you're stripping it of it's natural oils (this is why we have to use loads of conditioner afterwards). I've heard women say that they simply can't skip a day or two of washing their hair because it's too oily.. I'm here to tell you that you can!

(This is the- "I should listen to Amy so that my hair stops looking gross and oily" face)

The reason why your hair may produce too much oil is because it feels the need to being that it feels it doesn't have enough since you're always washing it. The more you wash your hair the more oil your hair will produce to try and compensate for the natural oils you're washing off.. get it? Wash your hair less = less oily hair- It's counter intuitive I know, but it's true.

You'll have to essentially "train" your hair to be able to skip washes. Start off with skipping one day more than you already do for a week or two, then increase it by one more day if you'd like. Your hair will be oily at first because it's not use to it, but after 2 weeks or so your oil glands will learn to stop producing excessive oil since there's no need.

And if you need to hide some oiliness meanwhile, you can use a dry shampoo or some baby powder to soak up the oil- it works wonders!

Caution: Special Care When Wet- Our hair becomes very prone to splitting and breakage when it's wet which is why you have to watch how your treat it. Make sure you're not rubbing your hair in between the towel, or twisting it to wring out the water in it- that is no bueno! Also, brushing your hair while it's wet is a no-go, too! I promise you you're breaking your precious strands if you're doing any one of these. Instead, squeeze (don't twist) the water out starting from top to bottom. Then, if you'd like you can wrap your hair in an over sized shirt which is more gentle on your hair rather than a towel. If you want to untangle your hair either do so before jumping in the shower or wait until it's dry.

Night Time Care- Even when we're soundly asleep we still have to make sure our locks are being protected. Using a silk pillowcase helps from the snagging and pulling that a typical cotton pillow case does to our hair. You can also loosely braid your hair to help keep it from breaking while you're tossing and turning and snoring and kicking and... is that just me?.. Just kidding, I sleep like a peaceful angel :)

Keep Your Hair Away From Harsh Ponies- Putting our hair up is fine, except when you have it up all the time, in a super tight hairstyle. Hair is also susceptible to breakage from hair ties or "too harsh" hairstyles like super tight braids or buns. Again, it's ok once in a while but make sure you're taking caution of how often your pulling your hair taught.

That's about every piece of detailed advice I can give to you ladies! If you want good looking hair, you gotta look after it! Hope it was helpful, let me know if you have any questions!