1- Cope With Hair Loss Whether it's stress, menopause, your thyroid or even genetics, hormonal imbalances can affect your hair growth dramatically. The good news is, there are medical solutions to tackle this imbalance: -Weight loss -Birth control pills (to regulate your hormones) -Talking to your doctor about a prescription called glucophage Your diet can also affect hair growth, especially if you don't eat a lot of meat. In order for hair to grow in properly, it must contain the essential nutrients that assist in a healthy growth cycle. Luckily, diet is something we can control: Take a biotin supplement paired with a multivitamin that contains zinc and iron. 2- Get Lustrous Locks Switch to using moisture-replenishing shampoos, conditioners and styling products. The newest formulas actually deliver hefty doses of hydration without making your hair feel greasy or gunky. If you’re scared that conditioner will weigh down your hair, then just apply it to your ends, which are usually the most brittle. Look for styling aids that contain shine-enhancing and hair-softening oils, like sunflower, soybean, argan and sweet almond oils. A weekly intensive moisture-boosting hair mask or scalp treatment will also help rejuvenate fragile, weak hair. 3- Going Gray? Whatever you do, do not pluck! Sure, when it’s just a stray strand or two, grabbing the tweezers can feel super tempting – but you may live to regret the shortcut. Plucking can damage the hair follicle and the strand may never grow back – and as you age and your hair naturally thins, you’ll need every strand of hair you can get. Gray hair is perfectly good hair – it just needs pigment. 4- Beat Brittle Hair First, cut down on heat styling. "Heat damage is a huge culprit. I’m seeing increasing numbers of women with damaged hair as a result of regular styling routines that include using a blow dryer, flat iron and/or a curling iron...extreme heat essentially cooks your hair," says Dr. Francesca Fusco. This terrifying condition is known as "bubble hair" – it makes strands feel rough to the touch and keeps them from sliding off each other in a uniform way, aka, no more bounce. Make sure your hot tools have temperature controls and stick within the low to medium settings. Also, be sure to use a heat-protecting styling aid to buffer the damage caused by hot tools. In fact, try skipping a day or two of heat styling entirely each week to give your haystack a much-needed rest. 5- Protect Your Hair Properly You might associate keratin with the semi-permanent hair treatment that includes this ingredient in the name. Since recent reports have advised against these types of straightening procedures because of unsafe additives in the mix, it’s simple to pin keratin as an ingredient we should run from. But this is actually far from the truth. Experts agree that keratin’s protective qualities can do wonders for your locks. “It’s a protein that forms a film on hair strands, creating a scaffolding-like structure that’s suitable for all hair types,” says cosmetic chemist Ni’Kita Wilson. 6- Grow Out Stubborn Hair Incorporate hyper-moisturizing conditioning products into your daily routine, and consider biotin pills, which may help fortify strands. And if all else fails? Get a killer cut, and no one will notice if your strands fall a little short. 7- Try an At-Home Mask We love fancy salon hair products as much as the next gal, but there’s something really satisfying about whipping up an at-home hair mask from ingredients found in our own kitchens, especially if the mask really works. Samira Asemanfar, founder of Santa Monica’s new deep conditioning hair bar The Broot, has been mixing her own masks since she was a little girl, using foods known for their high content of nutrients and hydrating properties (which is why most of them are just as good for your insides as they are your outsides). Source
