Simple tips to keep hair healthy and beautiful
It seems that some of the Chinese magazines are loaded full of beauty tips. No wonder they are so popular! Anyway, I was reading one from Hong Kong while at a hair salon recently and was quite pleased to find many useful and interesting hair care tips. Good thing I can read Chinese characters quite well and so I am able to understand most of the tips. Here, I’ll share five simple tips that I’ve found to be very relevant.
1. Comb oily hair before shampooing
It is not advisable to shampoo twice a day even if you have very oily hair. It is best to shampoo once thoroughly. To cleanse oily hair effectively, it is recommended to brush your hair prior to shampooing. Apparently, doing this will bring the oil residue to the surface of the hair and make it easier to wash. I believe this will also help to make for tangle free hair that is easier to shampoo. It is also advisable to spend a bit more time massaging the shampoo into areas where your hair is the oilest and that’s usually the crown and back area. You might like to rinse and repeat if you feel that the first wash wasn’t as clean.
2. Avoid over lathering during shampooing
Many of us probably equate more lather with cleaner hair but too much lathering will also damage the cuticles as the tendency is to rub the hair to create more lather. So we should be applying shampoo on our scalp, and not on our hair. By gently massaging the scalp throughout our entire head, the suds will be distributed throughout the hair. In addition, no matter what the instructions on the shampoo bottle says, the rinse and repeat instructions are only necessary if you have really oily hair.
3. Blot hair with a dry towel after shampooing
Many of us use our bath towels to wipe our hair after shampoo and I am one of them. So instead of wiping your body first, make sure you wipe your hair first as a dry towel can absorb more water and shorten the hair blowing time, which will translate to protection against heat for your hair. If you have long hair, you might want to consider using a separate towel just for your hair. Also, we should be using the towel to blot excess moisture out and not rub our hair with the towel to avoid friction between strands of hair that will also cause cuticle damage.
4. Comb wet hair with a wide tooth comb
A narrow toothed comb or brush can damage your hair cuticles especially when you use it on your wet hair. Hence, a wide tooth comb is an essential hair care item as it allows you to comb through your hair easily without tugging and pulling, thereby minimizing any damage to the hair cuticle and prevent the hair fibres from splitting. A hair brush with rubber tips will also be a good tool when it comes to brushing your dry hair.
5. Avoid pulling white hair to damage hair follicle
Do not pull out white hair as excessive force applied to pull out any hair will cause damage to the hair follicle and possibly, even adjacent follicles. I for one never pull out my white hair. Instead, I will trim them if they are too obvious and I have no time to dye them.
Actually after reading the article, I realized that I’ve not really been caring for my hair the right way due to bad old habits. So I really need to be more conscientious with my shampooing and drying techniques going forward.
Related posts
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Thanks for the tips on hair care! Colour or dye the hair to cover the grey hair may damage our hair if done too frequent. A friend of mine recommends me to do herbal hair treatment which claims to slow down the grey hair growth. What I like about this treatment is that the herbs used help to cover the grey hair, making it look a bit reddish. Looks like hair highlight. Thus it is not advisable to do herbal treatment if one has lots of grey hair.
I’ve also read something similar a few days ago in keeping our hair and body health at the same time: comb hair with your hands >>> massage your scalp with the tips of your fingers (not nails) with at least 300 strokes each day. This will help blood circulation on your scalp as well as letting the ‘chi’ flow better at all acupunctural points that regulate the health of our body. This will also help prevent hair loss and annoying dandruffs! Interesting aye?!
Tip #1 is extra useful for me because I usually comb my hair just once a day and that’s after bathing!
Only once? I comb my hair several times a day! I should cut down cos overcombing is bad too.
Sounds interesting! But 300 strokes sounds too much…I think my fingers will ache. Haha…
Yup, hair color is best to be done at least 2 months apart…I try to do it every 3 months at most. What’s this herbal treatment or where do you do it? Sounds interesting.
I have been using separate towels for hair, face & body for as long as I can remember! ?
Some people said that combing the hair often will help to stimulate the scalp & help with hair growth..hmmm..maybe that’s the reason my hair is super thin coz I only do it in the morning!
I just saw camellia oil being sold in Watsons today. It claims that women from a certain region in Japan use it to keep their hair healthy. I’m thinking about trying it because my hair feels so much worse now that I’m changing from silicone-based conditioners to ones with more natural ingredients.
I have seen that one…but forgotten if it’s 100% pure camelia oil. Oh your hair has gotten worse with the change to natural based shampoos? Don’t the conditioner help. Which one are you using? I remember you mentioned Aveda…that one might be too drying for some hair type due to the clay so best to alternate. I only realized it much later.
Maybe…but over combing can stimulate too much oil for my type of hair so not great too.
One thing I want to add for point number five is that Chinese also believe that pulling away your hair will get you more white hair, which is not a result that you want to see ?
Haha…yes, yes. They say that if you pull one white hair, you’ll get 3 whites in return! ?
I’m using Desert Essence shampoo + conditioner. The conditioner helps, but the texture that comes out is so much rougher than when I was using silicone-based conditioners.
I actually decided to buy a bottle of the oil (it is 100% camellia oil, but the oil and water mixture they also produce is full of other things) and just tried it tonight, and it really makes my hair feel a lot smoother. I’m really surprised, considering it’s only one use and I only used 3-4 drops for all my hair.
I guess it should help long term. Well, finish the bottle and you know. ?
white hairs are really annoying, anyone get a good solution?
nice tips..will keep in mind!!ty for the post
pavani reddy last post is: Yanmark festival of ukraine
Really i read that combing hair many times a day will damage the hair and some said massage with Castor oil before bath also help to grow hair faster.
It might be the way the hair is comb. If you’re not pulling it hard, it should be fine.