Scientists’ truth about hair that will shock you.
Picture Element5 Digital from Pexels
Every girls dream is to make her hair grow long as fast as possible! Long, shining and healthy hair, that’s all we ask for. That’s why every product that claim to make our hair grow long as fast as possible gets sold out in no time. But is there a way at our hands that we can contribute efficiently to hair growth?
I’ve done every homemade hair mask you can possible be thinking of just to make my hair grow, with no bigger results, and the question remain: Can I make something that really works to make my hair grow?
Well, I’ve been doing some research about the subject and what I found about hair growth has shock me, not because we’re doing things extremely wrong but because of how ignorant I was about what really makes hair grow or shed from our head.
This article is all about the best tips to help your hair grow and some other useful and important information about hair you wouldn’t want to miss.
Hair Growth
Even if you’re not noticing it your hair is always growing, in fact it grows approximately ½ inch per month what gives us a total of 6 inches a year. So regardless of what you may think your hair is growing!
“I don’t think so!” You may say, but what it’s actually happening is that you’re losing some of your hair due to different factors, and you may be experiencing hair breakage and it makes you feel like your hair is not growing and you’re stuck at the same length.
How much does my hair grow in a month?
½ inch every month a total of 6 inches a year
How much time take hair to grow?
To understand how much take hair to grow we first need to understand the different hair growth stages.
Every hair on our head goes through those three phases, so if there are no medical conditions or extreme level of stress or others factor that can interrupt our naturally hair growth just considering 4 years for our hair to be in the anagen phase we should have a 24 inches of hair length! Isn’t that crazy? Of course it’s not that realistic because at some point over 4 years we’re going to experience some conditions or situations that will affect or growing process (breakage for example) or even just the fact that will have to trim it at some point over 4 years.
So, what can we do with that information? Is there a way we can use it to make our hair grow faster? Of course there is, in fact knowing how much our hair grow and the hair growing stages can help us realize that maybe all this time we’ve been focusing on something we have little control over instead of focusing on the reasons why we do not see any growth improvement.
What is Stopping my hair from growing?
Many different things may be happening and stopping your hair from growing or gaining the desired length, according to the certified trichologist “Afope Atoyebi” and a dermatology research study here are some of the reasons:
- If your hair is falling out of your head at the same speed it’s growing (or even faster)
- Medical conditions
- Medication
- Physiologic or emotional stress
- Divorce or separation
- Multiple marriages
- More children
- Higher stress severity
- Smoking
- Higher income
- Stressful incident, such as the death of a family member
- Hormones for birth control
Knowing this “How can you minimize the amount of hair you’re losing so you make sure you’re retaining as much as the length of your hair? The certified trichologist “Afope Atoyebi” gives us 10 tips to helps us do so + How to make sure your hair is growing for as many years as genetically can.
If you want go to her YouTube channel do it, she explains everything there with a lot more details and with a fun touch, you’ll enjoy it.
10 Tips to Maximize your Hair Growth Potential
- Maintain a clean and healthy scalp: Healthy hair start from a healthy scalp.
- Invest in products with slip: Conditioners, creams, leave-ins, and so on, this will help you prevent unnecessary damage.
- Detangle properly: use a brush.
- Hair care regime: it’s the key to have a healthy hair, it won’t happen by change you have to intentional about it.
- Understand your own hair: so you can takle your own hair needs, characteristics like your hair’s density, porosity, strength, thickness, etc.
- Keep your hair stretch in low manipulation styles.
- Avoid or minimize chemical use: relaxers, bleachers or colors, minimize their usage and if you can afford it avoid them all.
- Minimize direct heat use: try to stay clear of direct heat on your hair at least when you’re trying to make them past the shoulder length.
- Trim your hair as needed: Your rate of trimming should be proportional to your rate of damage.
- Take the right kind of supplements: No Biotin, IRON Supplements. There are a lot of trichologyst research that shows that the number one cause for hair loss, especially among women, is iron deficiency or low iron.
Go to Afope Atoyebi Youtube Channel so you can see how she explain why Iron supplements are a great option for hair growth, she also has a lot of videos about hair care.
Hair Growth oil
After all I was learning on my hair growth research I thought using Oil as a hair growth treatment wasn’t a good idea, but a study presented by International Journal of Trichology about “ Hair Cosmetics: said “coconut oil was the only oil found to reduce the protein loss for both undamaged and damaged hair when used as a prewash and postwash grooming product” they also conclude that “The mineral oil and the sunflower oil may have a film effect and adsorb to the surface of the cuticle enhancing shine and diminishing friction and for these, avoid hair damage”.
But one shocking discovery was what they said about Argan Oil “Marrocan argan oil has become very popular as a hair cosmetic main ingredient, referred as capable of keeping the hair moisturized and hydrophobic. Morocco’s argan oil is now the most expensive edible oil in the world” the article continued “Although there is scientific literature about the use of the moroccan oil for chronic conditions such as atherosclerosis and psoriasis for its cardioprotective properties, there is a lack of data about the benefits for hair care” what means that in most cases we have a very good oil at hand: coconut oil (which can be found wherever) but we rather find argan oil as complicated as it can be just because of its popularity to address something that hasn’t been proved, and that’s crazy!
So, to summarize the scientific proof functionals hair oils + other 2 by Afope Atoyebi recommendations, we’ve gott:
- Coconut
- Mineral
- Sunflower
- Tea Tree
- Peppemint
Hair growth treatment
There are some other suggestions specialist do to stimulate hair growth, dermatologists are very used to prescribe minoxidil and finasteride in order to stimulate the anagen hair phase.
Another option is the Low-Level Laser (Light) Therapy (LLLT) applied to the scalp as a treatment for hair loss. A laboratory study to prove its efficiency said “LLLT for hair growth in both men and women appears to be both safe and effective […] it may increase anagen hairs”.
Although the products and treatments like minoxidil, finasteride and LLLT are at your hand since you can get them in drugs stores or even buy a FDA approve device to get your LLLT treatment at home, the best way to go and the one that will give you the best results is to go to the doctor first, or at least do your research, see what other are saying about the products and try to find dermatologist or trichologist or whichever health specialist opinion, nowadays there a lot of people willing to give us the right information, so don’t rush and find more information before going for one of this treatments.
I hope all the information above had made you well aware of what you have to do to keep your hair long, healthy and how to make it grow even more.
Sources:
- HOW TO GROW HAIR PAST SHOULDERS & Maximise Your Hair Growth Potential by Afope Atoyebi
- Grow Long Hair | Your Scientific Hair Growth Guide by Sarah Ingle
- Low-Level Laser (Light) Therapy (LLLT) for Treatment of Hair Loss
- Hair Cosmetics: An Overview
- Study Promote Hair Growth and Decrease Shedding in Women with Self-Perceived Thinning Hair
- The Science of Beauty | Rolanda Wilkerson | TEDxLSU