HOW TO DEAL WITH HAIR LOSS

Hi friends!!

I hope everyone is doing well! Things have been crazy busy for me lately! We had Beauty Souk last week which was very busy but successful. We also launched our NEW satin bonnets and those have been selling like hot cakes so I’m happy with that.

So a couple of weeks ago, I posted on my story for people to send suggestions of the blog posts they wanted to see and this post was one of the requests (btw please feel free to send requests in so I’m actually writing about what you want to know!). I thought it was such a good one because it is definitely an issue a lot of people (women, men, young, old) struggle with and it can affect anyone! So thank you to the follower who suggested this! Hair loss is pretty stressful.

So when you notice hair loss, the first thing to ask yourself is: is this shedding or is this breakage? They are completely different things:

Shedding – this is when the hair actually falls out from the root (sometimes you can actually see a white bulb on one end of the strand showing where it fell out of the scalp). Shedding is normal – we shed about 50-150 hairs per day. It is simply part of the growth cycle of the hair. Where it becomes problematic is when the shedding is excessive. Excessive shedding can be caused by a number of things such as stress, nutritional deficiencies and even alopecia areata (sudden hair loss usually in the form of round patches). If it is excessive, you should definitely consult a doctor.

Breakage – this is where the hair actually breaks off at some point on the strand. This is typically the problematic one. This is usually as a result of dryness, weakness, nutritional deficiencies and several other potential issues.

There are several ways to treat shedding and breakage. The ones listed below are just the ones I’ve tried:

Remedies for shedding

• Tea rinses – I did a whole post on this a while back so please read it! I also did a post specifically talking about green tea. The tea (specifically black or green) when sprayed on the scalp can help to reduce shedding by blocking the hormone that causes hair loss.
• Scalp massages with oils – I’ve talked about scalp massages in sooo many of my posts because they are great! They really help to stimulate blood flow to the scalp and can reduce shedding. Moreover, a lot of people who suffer from traction alopecia (hair loss from tight ponytails, braids etc) have seen results when doing scalp massages with oils. I always use my Nature’s Locks Reparative Hair Growth & Sealing Oil for this. The ingredients in there help to minimise shedding.
• Proper nutrition – nutritional deficiencies can actually cause hair loss. This is typically seen in people with iron or zinc deficiencies (a post I did on how iron deficiencies can affect your hair). It is so important to eat a balanced healthy diet (here’s a post I did on it) – if you don’t, it will show in your skin, body and hair. After all, you are what you eat. You should also be taking a multivitamin daily to ensure you are getting that added boost of vitamins and minerals that you might be missing out on in your food.

This diagram shows the hair shedding cycle

Remedies for breakage

• Deep conditioning – one of the major culprits of breakage is a lack of moisture. Dry hair = breakage. By simply deep conditioning, you can add moisture to the deepest levels of your hair and fix the issue of breakage.
• Protein treatment and/or henna treatment – another culprit of breakage is weak hair. If the hair is weak, it is likely to be prone to breakage. By simply doing a protein (more on it here) or henna (post on it here) treatment, you can counteract this.
• Moisturising your hair – similar to the deep conditioning point, just moisturise your hair guys! It goes a long way to stopping some VERY preventable breakage. You should moisturise properly and then seal with an oil or butter. I usually use the Nature’s Locks Nourishing Hair & Body Oil to seal.

My hair with a henna treatment applied to it

These are just a few ways to counteract the effects of shedding and breakage. If you’ve tried these remedies and none seem to work, it may be worth seeing your doctor to make sure nothing is wrong at a deeper level.

I hope that helps guys! Share some of your remedies below!

Love,

Tara xXx