All of us long for healthy and lustrous hair as your hair is considered your crowning glory. How your hair looks on a particular day makes a lot of difference to your appearance . But alas, I remember in my younger days when I had a crown not of glory but of thrones. My hair was unmanageable with lots of split ends. To tame my curls, I would comb my hair every single day hoping for better hair day but all in vain. My hair was so damaged and unmanageable that I would always keep my hair tied down. I never knew how one could use different products to define the curls. And this is the problem with most of people with curly and wavy hair. The foremost cause of this persistent problem is people are just not aware of how to take care of their hair and how to use products to define their curls. Even salon professionals are not able to help you in taking care of your hair and to get the defined curls and waves.
If you are a regular reader of my blog, by now you already must have known different ways to get the defined curls. But the other important thing is to keep your curls healthy. To achieve that goal, we should first know what damages our hair.
Appearance of our hair depends mostly on the quality of hair cuticles. Cuticles are flat, overlapping scales like shingles on the roof which provides a resistant barrier protecting the hair from outside environment and play a very important part to keep the hair healthy. Cuticles are hydrophobic (water resistant) in nature and keep the hair away from excessive moisture and humidity (know how excessive moisture and humidity affects hair). The more damaged the cuticles are, the more unmanageable are our hair and we can see this cuticle damage by noticing below things.
- Fly aways and static charge on hair – Our hair carries negative charge. More the hair is damaged, more negative charge it carries.
- Frizzy, out of control hair – Due to damaged cuticles, hair absorbs more moisture from air and swells to cause frizzyness.
- Dry and rough to touch hair – Hair loses its moisture due to damaged outer cuticle layer.
- Tangled hair – Hair gets more knots due to damaged cuticles.
- Dull hair that lacks shine
- Breakage
- Split ends
So, lets see what are the causes of cuticle damage.
Mechanical Damage
Everyday grooming routine such as shampooing, combing or brushing and tie your hair with clips and rubberbands can result in hair damage. These actions result in friction between hair fibers and also friction between hair fiber and the grooming tool like comb, brush, bands etc. Due to this friction, the hair cuticles get lifted and results in separation from the underlying cuticles called de-cementation of cuticles. Also, when you brush or comb through tangled hair, it stretches and elongate the hair causing strain on hair fiber which results in breakage and split ends.
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