One: Take Vitamins
When your mother told you to take your vitamins, she knew what she was talking about. Though genetics play a great part in your ability to grow and maintain a healthy head of hair, taking vitamins and eating a good, nutritionally balanced diet play an essential part in the hair growth process.
What types of vitamins should I take?
There are a multitude of vitamins that can contribute to healthy hair and longer hair. You should start your regimen with those most specifically linked to stronger, longer hair.
Biotin
The body needs Biotin to grow cells and maintain blood sugar levels. Along with growing hair, it also grows and strengthens your nails so, taking it has an added bonus for your overall appearance. You should take somewhere between 150 ��" 300 mcg daily to produce the results you want.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is one of the most essential vitamins to the hair growth process. Aside from this, it fights free radicals which damage cells. Vitamin A, however, should not be overused. Overuse can do more harm to hair than good so, keep it to a daily maximum of 5,000 IU.
Vitamin B12
The great thing about B12 is that you’re probably already getting your fill of this, no supplements needed. B12 is found in chicken, eggs, and meat. Yum, yum. Though you’re probably already getting a good amount of this in your favorite dishes, the recommended amount is 2 mg.
Vitamin C
Down a glass of Florida gold and make your hair shine. Citrus fruits are excellent for the hair as exemplified by the rash of hair products with citrus fruit ingredients. Taking 60 mg of Vitamin C daily can improve hair health and help you fight colds all at the same time!
Two: Stimulate Your Scalp
Despite old wives tales to the contrary, brushing the hair from root to tip is not a good idea and can actually be counterproductive to what you’re trying to accomplish. The scalp, on the other hand, needs a little extra TLC (tender lovin’ care for the acronym-challenged).
Separating your hair into sections and moving a brush across in a down ward motion across your scalp will be enough to bring your scalp back to life and removes debris collected in your hair follicles. This should be done every other night. Some experts suggest tapping the scalp with a brush type like a boar’s bristle to stimulate the scalp.
Third: Oil Your Scalp
For those with ethnic hair, oil is key to maintaining a healthy scalp.
Even if you don’t have an ethnic hair texture, the hair must have moisture to prevent damage and breakage, but for ethnic hair, which is prone to brittleness, this step is absolutely MANDATORY.
Fourth: Trim Your Ends
We have all seen them, the girls with uneven hair. Some is long, some is short and damaged. Or, the ones with long hair but it’s frizzy and unmanageable. Please don’t be one of these girls.
If you are or to keep from becoming one, get your split ends cut immediately. It is a good habit to get your ends trimmed monthly to prevent split ends and keeping existing split ends from doing major damage to the rest of your hair. When my hair was damaged, the first thing I did was cut my hair into a short bob to even it out and get rid of the damaged ends.
Fifth: Condition Your Hair
When hair gets dry it breaks. That is a fact. The more alcohol-based products you use and the more heat styling you do, the less moisture is retained in the hair. It becomes brittle and damaged and that leads to breakage. If you can’t do without those heat styling products and the only product that tames your hair has alcohol content, the best way to protect your hair with regular use of a conditioner.
