Surprising Things That Hurt Your Hair

Does your hair seem a little less vibrant these days? You can be using the best hair products around, but the below seven things may make it harder to keep your locks healthy and strong.

Your Meds

According to medical experts, medications like statins, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety agents, and hormones can cause hair loss by disrupting the normal hair growth cycle. If you think this is happening to you, talk to your doctor about changing up your prescription, if possible.

Your Shampoo (Or Rather, The Lack Of It)

Women often don’t wash their hair as often as they should, in an attempt to maintain moister locks. Or, they use a practice called co-washing, where they “wash” their hair with conditioner. According to dermatologist, these habits do not help your hair. In fact, a buildup of bacteria, oil, dandruff and other pollutants that accumulate when the hair isn’t shampooed regularly clogs hair follicles, hurts the scalp, and makes hair growth more difficult.

Experts say that you should wash your hair with the right shampoo at least once a week.

Your Wet Hair Habits

Your hair is at its most delicate state when it’s wet. Brushing and combing wet hair, as well as aggressive towel use, can make your strands snap.

The easy fix: minimize brushing and combing wet hair, or if you must, be extremely gentle. Also, try to only blot your wet hair with a towel.

Those tight braids or other styles put excessive tension on your hair follicles, which damages them and causes scarring that can permanently destroy those follicles. According to doctors, this process can lead to traction alopecia, a condition that permanently weakens the follicle and makes it impossible for hair to grow.

So for the sake of continued hair growth, loosen your hair up!

Your Tools

Speaking of hair styling, those hot irons you use (probably too much) damage your hair’s vital proteins. This results in moisture-loss, and an increase in breakage.

Help protect your hair by limiting hot tool usage as much as possible. Also, use a thermal hair product to help protect against heat damage.

Your Food

A poor diet can manifest itself in weak, dull locks that refuse to grown. So eat a healthy diet with plenty of lean protein like fish, chicken, lentils and beans. Just think: your hair is pretty much made up of protein, so getting in around 45 grams of it a day is vital for a healthy body…and a healthy head of hair.

Your BCPs

Some women’s hormonal changes make them more sensitive to shedding hair. The wrong birth control pill can make matters worse. If you’re seeing a hormonal changes in your body, including your hair, talk to your doctor about switching to a low-androgen index birth control pills like norgestimate (in Ortho-Cyclen, Ortho Tri-Cyclen), norethindrone (in Ovcon 35), desogestrel (in Mircette), or ethynodiol diacetate (in Demulen, Zovia).