Every once in a while hair begins looking drab, and with all the sun exposure, heat damage, and hair curling, its understandable. Regular habits and occasional hair care treatments can give you luscious locks that are healthy and not prone to breakage, dryness, or chemical and mineral build up. Healthy hair is easily obtainable with the right hair care and a healthy diet. Follow these helpful tips on how to achieve and maintain healthy hair.

Deep Condition Once a Week

Our hair can get damaged and dried out from all of the heat, styling, products, hair dye, products, and the sun. A deep conditioner treatment is an effective way to restore moisture and body to hair. There are plenty of deep conditioning treatments on the market today and you should select one that specializes in your hairs characteristics and simply follow the instructions. If you want to save some money or skip out on the chemicals, there are a lot of alternatives for hair mask and treatments that you can make with ingredients from your kitchen.  Depending on the needs of your hair should determine what kind of mask you use. Some are quick and simple like conditioning with coconut oil while others like avocado and honey mask take a few more ingredients and a little more time but your hair is will definitely be thankful.

Use Clarifying Shampoo

When your hair starts feeling weighed down, greasy, and looking dull or lifeless, it’s probably time to clarify your hair. Products like hairspray, mousse, shampoo, hard water, chlorine, and etc. all create build up over time. There are some great clarifying shampoos on the market that are really easy to use. How often you clarify is determined by what your hair goes through on a daily basis, the more products you use, the more frequent you should clarify. On average people should clarify 1-2 times per month.

Limit Hair’s Exposure to Heat

From all the heat exposure our hair gets: straightening blow drying, sunshine, curling, hair dying, and crimping it can be really harmful to our hair. Of course people aren’t just give up blow-drying and straightening but it is important to keep the heat exposure to a minimum and use heat protectors when you blow dry or straighten your tresses. You can combat heat damage with deep conditioning treatments.

Eat Healthy and Strategically

If you want beautiful healthy hair then start with your next meal. Like every other part of your body, if you want it to be healthy – you have eat healthy. Whether you have thinning hair, dry and frizzy hair, or a lot of breakage it could be because something is missing from your diet. These nutrients will help keep you and your hair healthy:

• Vitamin C (lemons, orange, strawberries, papayas, grape fruit, kiwis, tomatoes) keeps your hair strong and rich in color and luster
• Potassium (avocado, spinach, white beans, salmon, beets, bananas) prevents hair loss and keeps scalp healthy.
• Iron (onions, pumpkins, avocadoes, oysters, apricots) keeps hair follicles healthy and scalp oils circulating:
• Zinc (peanuts, eggs, cereal, liver, lamb) is great for hair repair and hair growth
• Vitamin A (Carrots, sweet potatoes, red peppers, cheddar cheese, romaine lettuce) keeps the sebum in the scalp healthy.
• Biotin (cucumbers, carrots, Swiss chard, eggs, raspberries, cabbage, walnuts) keeps your hair strong and shiny.

Brush Wet Hair Carefully

When hair is wet the bonds within strands of hair lose 1/3 of their strength. When you brush your hair when it’s wet it is prone is snags, breakage, and split ends. If you have thin hair it is more important that you do not cause excess damage by brushing your hair when it is wet, fortunately thin hair dries faster. However, sometimes women just can’t wait to detangle their hair after they get out of the shower and thats understandable, just be sure to detangle carefully. First use a towel to pat dry your hair and remove as much moisture as possible and then use a wide-tooth comb to detangle your wet hair. The bristles on a brush are close together and thin which causes more snagging and breakage, while on a comb they are set far apart and brush through hair easily.

Read your Shampoos Ingredients

A lot of people don’t realize that there aren’t strict regulations for beauty products including, shampoos, conditioners, hairsprays, etc. However, one regulation is strictly enforced is a complete ingredients list, so make sure you read it. Most people aren’t chemist – and you shouldn’t have to be to understand your shampoos ingredients. Look for ingredients that you know and don’t be fooled by bogus labeling like “natural.” Ingredients that have been linked to skin irritation, hair damage, and even cancer and birth defects include:  sodium laurel sulfate, parabens, and benzyl benzoate, etc. If you want to be extra safe, you can skip commercial shampoos all together use products like baking soda and apple cider vinegar.