Five Amazing Hair Care Tips for Winter

Rough and dry hair is a very common problem in winter. Here are some ways to keep your hair looking healthy and beautiful, even as the mercury drops.

The cool winter wind might calm your soul but it’s going to leave your hair dry, frizzy and unmanageable. As the season changes, you need to revamp your hair care regime too. So here is a guide to amazing, healthy and manageable hair.

Hair care tips for winter

Oil your hair: In winter, it is chilly outside and dry and warm inside the house; this changing temperature harms your hair.  Oil your hair regularly, use warm oil if you are comfortable. It will help to restore the moisture and give life to your lifeless tresses.

It is not necessary to keep the oil on for long hours; one to two hours is enough to do the trick.  Do not over use shampoo while you are washing the oil off because it will nullify the conditioning effect.

Wash them right: Even though it is cold do not use very hot water to wash your hair. The heat will steal your moisture. Use lukewarm water. Do not over use the shampoo and use mild shampoo if you wash your hair very frequently.

Never miss conditioning: Rich conditioning can be your shield against the harsh cold. Condition your hair everytime you wash them, it strengthens them and increases the elasticity. If you are opting for readymade conditioner make sure it suits your hair and is right for your hair type. You can also use coconut milk or curd for conditioning your hair. If you have curly hair it is best to use leave-in conditioner in the end.

Let them dry naturally: It is advisable not to use heat to dry your hair in winter. With blow drying you can end up having flyways and static effect. Let them air dry. Your lovely tresses will thank you for letting them be.

Take care if you cover: If you wear woollen cap or scarf to protect yourself against cold, you will experience hair breakage in certain areas on your head. This is because the caps and scarves rub against the delicate hair and pull them out. It is advisable to use satin scarves and to use caps which have cotton or satin lining.

Tame your flyaways

    Apply some hair serum and move your fingers instead of using a comb. You can also use a clean new toothbrush with soft bristles to tame the flyaways.

    Apply shampoo to your scalp and not your hair. You need to clean your scalp and flow of shampoo will automatically clean your hair.

    Flyaway hair is the dry hair so apply a little leave-in conditioner specifically to that layer of hair.

    It is great to stay away from alcohol. This means alcohol in your hair care products of course. Check the ingredients of the product you buy.

Mask for healthy hair in winter

Mix an egg yolk with two table spoons of olive oil and a glass of lukewarm water. Apply it all over your hair and wash off in an hour. Use lukewarm or cold water to wash it off.

*Do not use heena mask in winters as it dries your hair and can also cause cold.

Love of shampoo, warmth of oil and care of conditioning will give you beautiful hair this winter. So just treat your hair with love, warmth and care and shine on!

Find a Hairbrush that’s Right for You

Ask any hairdresser and they’ll tell you that one of the most important aspects of your hair care regimen is getting the right brush for your hair type and style. To help you choose the right hairbrush for you, we’ve put together some handy tips.

Choosing the Right Hairbrush

Oval hairbrush – This hairbrush is used primarily for smoothening the hair. If you have a fringe, use this hairbrush to style it.

Cushioned hairbrush – Oval and rectangular hairbrushes often come with cushioned bases. These are great for people with long hair as the cushioning helps prevent the hair from being stretched or broken.

Ceramic round hairbrush – Ever wondered how beauty salons manage to give your hair volume and bounce that’s nearly impossible to replicate at home? The secret is the ceramic round brush that can works wonderfully well for styling and volumising hair.

Wooden round hairbrush – This hairbrush is pretty multi-functional and can work on multiple hair textures. Avoid using it while your hair is dropping wet though, and allow it to be nearly dry before you style it with this brush. In general, round hairbrushes are the best for styling straight hair.

Nylon hairbrush – Nylon hairbrushes come in many types and their efficacy depends mostly on their bristles. Stiffer bristles that are closed placed together give you better control over your hair. Bristles that are set far apart are better for detangling and light brushing.

Wide-toothed comb – If you’ve got curly hair, one way to make the best of your curls and avoid frizz is to use a wide-toothed comb to untangle it while it’s wet and then just let it dry. Many curly haired women prefer to not even use the wide-tooth comb and only use their fingers to comb through their hair.

Hairbrushes with metal bristles – These are best avoided as they are too inflexible to use on human hair.

13 Food Types for Healthy Hair

A wholesome diet, rich in silica, calcium and iron, will help reduce or prevent hair loss. Following a simple diet schedule of these 13 food type one can hold back hairloss without having to run around expensive salons.

When your hair starts falling off like dry straws, what can you do? 

Well, panicking and running around to expensive salons for hair treatment might seem a brilliant idea, but the truth is that you can manage to get a hold of the situation back at your home alone.

First, it would help to locate the various reasons for hair loss. Studies have revealed that men lose hair for some common reasons, like:

• Improper diet,
• Lack of proper vitamins,
• Genetic factors,
• Excessive stress, anxiety and worries,
• Prolonged illnesses like typhoid, anemia, dysentery, jaundice etc,
• Poor blood circulation, and
• Unclean scalps.

Once you have located the source of your problem, it can become much easier to fight back. In desperate times like these, it would help to go completely natural. Do not trust chemical products since they might cause more harm than good. To put your panicking soul to rest, here are 15 different ways to reduce hair loss:

• Take a glass of water with flaxseed (alsi) in an empty stomach. This will provide you with the omega 3 acid that you need for hair growth.
• Begin every day with one amla. Women generally use hair oil made of amla to get those lustrous curls, didn’t you know?
• Soak 5 almonds every night in water and eat them with their skin on.
• Your scalp needs nutrition. So get plenty of fluids like buttermilk, lime juice and coconut water. Drink at least 8-10 glasses of water every day!
• One bowl of sprouted pulses for would be great.
• Proteins. Eat chicken and egg each day.
• Reduce you daily intake of tea and coffee.
• When you are washing hair, use a teaspoon of lime juice for the last rinse. That make your hair lustrous while protecting it from dandruff.
• You are never too old for milk. Drink two glasses of skimmed milk for maximum benefits.
• Apply a paste of methi seeds on your scalp for half an hour once every week, and drink methi water on empty stomachs.
• Remember how the age old sadhus survived on fruits? No wonder that they had such long hair! Eat at least 2 or 3 fruits every day like strawberries, bananas, apples, mangoes, chikoos, and grapes.
• Go green- eat a lot of vegetables, munch away on that iron laden spinach.
• It is better to have more faith in white meat. Fish, chicken and egg can do wonders for your hair!  Try to stay away from red meat.

Hair loss is more common in case of men than women. And you always did wonder whether gender difference worked out better for women, right? Follow these principles to the boots, and you would see satisfactory results soon enough!

7 Home Remedies to Control Hair Loss

Owe it to our flawed genetics or hectic lifestyles and the falling standards of nutrition in our diets hair loss seems to have turned into a healthcare plague.

Use the following home remedies for controlling hair loss:

1. Regular Massaging with Basic Oils

Regular massaging of the scalp with lukewarm oil helps to stimulate the hair follicles. This is also an easy way to cure hair growth deterrents like dandruff and fungal infections. Regular massaging increases the blood circulation in the scalp. It is also useful for lowering anxiety or stress that is often the underlying reason for thinning of hair. Recommended oils for 3 to 4 times-a-week massaging schedule includes coconut oil. You can alternate this with mustard oil. Keep the oil on for at least six hours before washing it off with a mild shampoo. Other oils that can be mixed with coconut oil in trace amounts for faster results include almond oil.

2. Natural Concoctions for Preventing Hair Loss

Coconut milk is among the richest sources of tissue-nourishing, plant derivatives. It is an excellent home remedy for keeping the hair soft without depending upon chemical formulations and regenerating dead hair follicles. You can also use a concoction of coconut oil mixed with half the amount of Amla oil. Just add a dash of lemon juice to this mixture and you have an effective, dandruff-fighting and scalp-healing concoction that arrests receding hairline.

3. Nature’s Effective Hair-stimulating Juices

Wheatgrass juice is one of the most effective remedies against hair fall. It is known to decrease the shedding tendency of hair within a few weeks of regular intake. Aloe vera juice has a similar effect. However, aloe gel can be applied to the scalp too. This is helpful for preventing hair loss due to irritated, dry or infected scalp. After massaging the head with aloe gel, wash the hair with lukewarm water. This can be done twice, every week.

4. Slightly Demanding But Very Effective Natural Therapies

You can make your own hair fall-preventing medicine at home by frying some fenugreek (methi) seeds in coconut oil. Strain this mixture and apply it in minimal amounts, rubbed gently into the hair roots. Alternatively, you can boil some henna leaves in mustard oil. After cooling and straining this preparation, add drops of it in your coconut oil container that you are using for regular massaging.

5. Homemade Pastes

You can wash the hair with a paste made from Neem leaves. This is particularly effective for hair loss caused due excessive build up of scalp oil or invasive skin infections. For restoring the alkaline balance of the scalp and preventing hair fall, you can follow this with washing the hair with apple cider vinegar. Other homemade pastes that can be very useful include a mixture prepared from adding honey and olive oil to some cinnamon (dalchini) powder.

6. Arrest Hair Fall With Elementary Household Items

Before washing your hair, apply the juice extracted from crushed coriander (dhania) leaves. You can also use a mixture of curd and gram flour (chana atta) that should be kept-on for at least an hour before bathing.

7. Hair Fall Dietary Recommendations

For a comprehensive, hair fall prevention regimen, you need to be equipped with a diet plan that includes foods that can arrest hair fall and stimulate better scalp health. Recommendations here include eating more seeds and nuts (almonds and peanuts) along with green leafy vegetables like spinach and sprouts of a variety of dals (legumes). Basically, foods rich in calcium, protein and iron are vital for ensuring overall health of the scalp. Combine this with some basic dietary supplementation, i.e. using over-the-counter products that help to ensure wholesome nutrition for your hair. Regular intake of Amla juice ensures adequate amounts of Vitamin C but you can boost this with eating more guavas. Ensure you take a multivitamin that combines beta-carotenes, Vitamin B complex, Vitamin E and trace amounts of zinc and iron.

5 Major Hair Care Myths

Hair Care myths include fixing split ends, plucking grey hair, braids and hair fall, hair washing causing dryness and quality of hair products

There's a lot of faulty science passed down generations when it comes to grooming.

Here, we take the mumbo-jumbo that a lot of you might believe.

Fixing Split EndsIt can't be done. Nope - it can't. The myth of 'fixing' split ends might have started with a company selling a split end sealing product, but split ends are terminal - they can't be fixed. You have to cut them off.

Of course, there are temporary fixes, with products that lay down the split ends so they don't show. But that's where the fixing ends.

Plucking a Grey Hair Causes Two to Grow BackAgain, not true. Plucking grey hair will damage your roots, even infect the empty root and hurt like hell, but it won't cause more grey hairs to sprout out. If it did, you'd have the world's cheapest (and most natural) way of avoiding baldness.

Braids Will Grow Your Hair FasterFor both women and men who braid their hair, braiding will cause too tight or too long can cause hair loss and baldness. One of the reasons behind this is Traction alopecia, a slow hair loss caused by pulling hair too tight by applying too much tension.

Regular Hair Washing Causes Hair Drying (and Hair Loss Too!)Unless you're using a shampoo that leaves residue in your hair, a good shampoo and conditioner -selected for your hair texture and condition - the added add moisture and body will lead to nicer, healthier hair.

Hair Products used by Professional Stylists are the Same as Store-Bought ProductsNot all shampoo is the same. (If it were, wouldn't SRK be saving money using Head and Shoulders) While the concept of 'professional hairstylist' is ambiguous in India, the expensive, 500 bucks a haircut guys (not barbers!)

Professional products have more quality, expensive ingredients blended for an optimum formula - something you won't find in your local Rs.1 sachet shampoo. If you pay a buck, you'll get a bucks worth of hair care.

10 Things No One Ever Tells You About Cutting Your Hair

The big chop seems all the rage during the warmer months, but whether you’re thibking about a pixie or you’re just trying to take a few inches off your locks, there’s a thing or 1o you should know about cutting your hair. Below are 10 little known facts about cutting your hair, and some tips to help you get the best out of your cut.

1. Cutting your hair more often doesn’t make it grow faster: Getting rid of the ends of your hair doesn’t directly effect hair growth. The ends of your hair don’t effect the follicles in your scalp, which determine how fast and how much your hair grows. Trimming simply keeps hair more healthy as it grows.

2. Skip the trim: Give yourself some time in between each trim instead of going with the typical 6-8 weeks. Hair begins to split around the 3-4 month mark, which is when you’ll actually need a trim.

3. Layer accordingly: When cutting your hair, you should layer it according to your hair texture. Tighter curls work best with layers that aren’t perfectly even, while straighter hair works best with more even layers.

4. Skip the shampoo: Before cutting hair, skip the shampoo. You’ll be having your hair washed anyway, so there’s no need to dry out the cuticle twice.

5. It’s best to trim natural hair when dry: For girls with natural hair, it’s important to know that hair should be cut when dry. Head to a salon that specializes in natural tresses so you know you’re getting the best cut possible.

6. Search salon apprentice websites first: Looking to get your hair cut for less money? Try SalonApprentice.com, where you can volunteer to be a hair model for already licensed stylists who need to clock a certain amount of hours cutting hair. You’ll be in good hands for half (or less!) the cost.

7. All bangs aren’t cut equally: If you’re thinking about getting bangs, know what works best for your face and for your hair texture. Long, wispy bangs usually work best for a square face, while softer, shorter bangs work best to frame a round face.

8. Short hair takes work: Cutting off your hair doesn’t make hair care any easier. To keep them maintained, shorter cuts usually require more frequent trips to the salon to keep the shape and style fresh, which ends up costing more money (and time).

9. If you don’t trim, split ends will travel: Split ends will continue to split up the length of the hair if you don’t trim them, making your hair brittle and weak. When you start seeing split ends more often than non-split ends, it’s time to get a cut.

10. Bring options: Sure, we’ve all got our Pinterest boards full of haircut inspiration, but make sure you bring multiple options. When you get to the salon, your stylist may explain that a certain cut won’t work with your texture, or that it will actually require much more maintenance than you originally thought. Bringing options will leave you multiple routes for a happy cut.

5 Ways to Fight Frizzy Hair

Keep tresses smooth in even the steamiest weather.

1. Wash in sleekness

Start in the shower with a moisturizing shampoo and conditioner. "They contain ingredients, like dimethicone, that smooth each strand's outer layer — the secret to shiny, frizz-free hair," says Hannah Williams, a stylist with Blow Salons. If your hair is fine, apply conditioner only from the mid-shafts to the ends, to prevent flat locks. Steer clear of volumizing formulas, which make hair swell and can exacerbate frizz.

2. Style with serum

The styling ingredient silicone can tame even the unruliest tresses. "Thick or coarse hair needs a lot; you'll find it in a serum," explains Heather Warnke, director of global haircare innovation for John Frieda. If you have thin locks, opt for a cream or lotion, which has less of the frizz fighter. Apply your choice to soaking-wet hair: "If it's dry or even damp, the product can leave a greasy feeling," says Warnke.

3. Forget air-drying

"When you let hair air-dry, it absorbs humidity, which is the culprit behind frizz," says Williams. "The faster your hair goes from wet to dry, the quicker you lay down the cuticle and the less likely it is to frizz out." If you can't dry right after showering, rewet hair when you're ready to blow-dry it. Then make sure hair is 100% dry: Any residual moisture will cause frizzies later. (A final shot of cool air will help further seal the cuticle.)

4. Check your brush

Parched or fried hair is especially frizz-prone. But your scalp's own oils can keep strands supple, with the help of a boar-bristle brush (good for everyday brushing and blow-drying). "These natural oils attach to the bristles, and the brush distributes them down the length of your locks, coating and protecting them," says Eva Scrivo, author of Eva Scrivo on Beauty.

5. Try an updo

If you'll be outdoors en route to your destination, shield your tresses from humidity by putting them up till you arrive. "Only the top layer will be exposed, while all the hair underneath will stay sleek," says Williams. And skip elastics, which can create creases. Take your hair down upon arrival, and run your palms over any stray frizzies; the natural oils on your skin will help smooth them.