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What Damaged Hair Is, and How to Check Whether Your Hair Is Healthy

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We all want to have beautiful and healthy hair. But how can we find out whether our hair is okay or not? Remember that this article is for informational purposes only. You have to see a trichologist to check the health of your hair.

5-Minute Crafts always tries to find something useful. We hope that this article will help you figure out how healthy your hair is.

What a hair consists of

A hair consists of:

  • A hair shaft
  • Dermal papilla
  • A hair bulb, or follicle

The follicle, or the living part of the hair, is located deep under the skin. If the follicle is the problem, shampoos won’t help. “Shampoo has a very short period of contact with the scalp and the hair follicle. Therefore, it just doesn’t have enough time to stimulate hair growth or prevent hair loss,” Dr. Antonella Tosti, a world-renowned expert in hair disorders, explains.

The test that can help you define how damaged your hair is

You can check how damaged your hair is with a glass of water.

  1. Pour water into a glass.
  2. Take a few of your hairs from different parts of the head (nape, temple, and crown).
  3. Dip them in a glass of water.

Porous or damaged hair will sink to the bottom. Not quite healthy hair that has already partially lost moisture and become porous (meaning it can soon break) will float in the middle, and then it will slowly sink. Healthy hairs will remain on the surface.

Hair care myths

  • Hair needs to be regularly combed. In fact, frequent combing damages the hair and its structure.
  • Cold water gives shine to hair. This is not true. Use warm water to wash your hair.
  • Masks and conditioners should be applied to wet hair. No — dry hair a little with a towel after rinsing off the shampoo, and only then use other hair products.
  • If you lose hair while washing, you will soon become bald. In reality, there isn’t much to worry about. Hair goes through several stages of growth and it can stay in the last of them — telogen — for 100 days. This means that those hairs that have fallen out on their own are already going to fall out. Losing 25 to 100 hairs a day is normal.
  • You can’t wash your hair every day. Actually, you can, just pick the right shampoo. The maximum interval between washes is 3 days.
  • SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) contributes to hair loss. It hasn’t been proven that this substance is harmful and can damage your hair. On the contrary, modern research insists that sulfates don’t contribute to hair loss.

The reasons for hair loss

  • Health problems, such as endocrine disruption, anemia, stress, and scalp diseases, can cause fallout.
  • Certain medications, such as blood pressure medications, or antidepressants can cause this. As a rule, after the end of the therapy, the hairline is restored.
  • Strict diets that lead to dramatic weight loss in a short time can lead to hair falling out.
  • Improper hair care, frequent use of curlers, irons, and hair dryers, or anything that can make hair too dry and damage it can cause hair to fall out.

How to take care of damaged hair

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