Hey guys and welcome back to the blog! I'm malia nicole if any of you are new here. I am a teenage ballerina and student in california, and my blog is mostly focused on ballet, lifestyle, fashion, and hair. One last thing is that due to the recent virus outbreak, my school has been cancelled (and ballet will likely follow) so i should be writing and posting a bunch more. I am going to be back on my monday wednesday friday posting schedule at 5pm PST. Anyways, lets get on with today's post!
One of my main hair "principles" is to take care of the hair that you have, no matter its current length. This is essential if you are looking to increase your length, aka grow your hair longer. Because your hair grows from your scalp, people often wonder how is damaging my hair or leaving split ends going to stop my hair from growing? When hair is severely damaged at the ends, the split ends can travel/tear up the hair shaft, and as time goes on the split parts of your hair will become greater and greater. Eventually this damage will become bad enough that the damaged hair will fall off, and you will end up having more damaged hair than healthy hair.
When it comes to repairing damage, there is not tons that can be done. Think of it similarly to skincare, there are lots of products that promote age rewind, and to reduce fine lines, but they rarely work, the truth is that the best thing that you can do is protect your skin/hair now for the future. The one thing that I have found to help my hair was using oil treatments. I still do them to this day, although I have changed up my oils some. I wash my hair every sunday morning, so on friday nights i will slather the length (the ends of your hair below your ears) of my hair in a natural oil, such a olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, and more. I will then braid my hair, and go to sleep with the oils. In the morning most of the oil has really had time to absorb into my skin, and I will wash it out. I have found oil masks to really improve hydration, shininess, and help to prevent and repair split ends. If you guys want a more dedicated post about oil masks and different types of oils
When it comes to repairing damage, there is not tons that can be done. Think of it similarly to skincare, there are lots of products that promote age rewind, and to reduce fine lines, but the truth is that the best thing that you can do is protect your skin/hair now for the future. The one thing that I found to help my hair was using oil treatments. I still do them to this day, although I have changed up my oils some. I wash my hair every sunday morning, so on friday nights i will slather the length (the ends of your hair below your ears) of my hair in a natural oil, such a olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, and more. I will then braid my hair, and go to sleep with the oils. In the morning most of the oil has really had time to absorb into my skin, and I will wash it out. I have found oil masks to really improve hydration, shininess, and help to prevent and repair split ends. If you guys want a more dedicated post about oil
masks and different types of oils comment below or email me.
Okay, now onto ways to prevent hair damage. there are obviously the usual things, like using minimal heat on hair, minimizing chemicals and trips to the salon, and brushing starting at the ends. However, I am just going to touch base on the biggest changes that I have found to really help strengthen and protect my hair.
1. (Obviously) Use less heat on your hair. I try to limit myself to blow drying my hair once a week (when I wash it) and one other heat style (ie curling or straightening my hair). This has challenged my to find other ways of styling my hair, like experimenting with new braids, and trying different overnight methods of heatless curls.
2. Go natural. I recently have tried to transition to only using more natural products on my hair. For example, instead of using hair masks packed full of junk and silicone, use one of the natural oil mentioned above.
3. Use protective hairstyles!! I CAN NOT emphasize the importance and change of this. Protective styles include braids, low buns, and loose styles that don't pull on the scalp and hairline. I have gotten super lazy lately with y hair, so most of the time I have been throwing it into a loose side braid, tying it off with an invisibobble hair tie, or scrunchie. When you put your hair in a protective style, you are keeping your hair from getting knotted and tangled without putting strain on the hair and causing breakage. These styles are particularly important when you sleep, so take the extra thirty seconds and just braid your hair before you hit the pillow
4. Try to not use traditional hair elastics. Traditional elastics can severely damage your hair, bending and breaking your hair, also leaving creases in ponytails. I love using velvet scrunchies, or these invisibobble hair ties because you can still do your occasional ponytail while protecting your hair at the same time. They also look super cute on your wrist, but i'll leave the rest to the VSCO girls from there.
5. My last tip is to just be gentle. Brush gently, style gently, and just handle your hair gently. There is no need to yank, twist, pull, or rip at your hair.
Okay, so looking back on it this could definitely been two separate posts, I just have so much to say about these topics! Anyways, thanks so much for reading, and keep a lookout for part three!
p.s. last thing I promise! I have been thinking about starting a hair instagram, let me know what you think!
xoxo,
malia nicole