Healthy Hair 101: Fun facts

To ground readers who are new to learning about healthy hair care,  I've compiled a list of a few very interesting basic facts about hair that most people might not know. Enjoy!

GENERAL FACTS ABOUT HAIR...

1. We have about 90, 000- 150, 000 hairs on our head. The amount of hair depends on the hair colour.

2. Each hair consists of 3 layers; the cuticle (outside layer), the cortex (middle layer) and the medulla (axis of the hair).

3. The medulla is only found in people with thick hair.

4. Hair is made of keratin protein, the same substance that forms nails and the skin's barrier.

5.  Normally we shed 50-100 hairs a day.

6. Hair turns gray because the pigment cells known as melanin in your hair follicles are not working properly. Melanin usually degrades in production as you age or when you are stressed.

7. Hair is dead; it is not alive. The follicle (the root of the hair) is living and pushes hair cells up through the skin which are dead by the time they're pushed out, that's why it doesn't hurt when it grows or is cut and therefore...

8. ... Cutting hair does not influence its growth.

 ...ABOUT GROWTH

9. Hair grows on average approximately one-half inch per month.

10. Hair growth occurs fastest between the ages of 15 and 30, and grows faster on men than women, due to the higher levels of female hormones (Estrogens).

11. Each strand of hair grows without stopping for about six years. Then, it rests for a few months before falling out. About 10% of the hairs on your scalp are resting.

12. Hair grows faster in warm weather (by about 10 percent).

13. Also, hair grows more during daytime than at night.

14. Hair growth is mainly affected by genetics, but can be influenced negatively or positively by nutrition/diet, health, environment and hair maintenance.


...FACTS ABOUT TEXTURE

15. The texture and width of your hair depends on characteristics of your follicles. Oval follicles produce curly hair, round follicles produce straight hair, large follicles lead to thick hair,  and narrow follicles lead to thinner hair.

16. Hair texture changes throughout our lives. Approximately every 5-7 years.

17. Asian hair grows faster than any other ethnicity, and has the greatest elasticity and thickness.

18. Caucasians have the most varied colour of hair. The colour ranges from black to a pale blond that is almost white, including just about every possible shade in between.

19. Afro-textured hair is the most fragile because it has a thinner cuticle layer and is more prone to dryness...

20. ...but it is the most versatile, especially when it comes to styling. It can go from kinky/curly to straight (even without the use of chemicals) and everything in between.

Hope you learned something new!

Why you want long hair anyways?

NFL player Troy Polamalu

Correction...
I don't want long hair, I want to know that I have the option of having long hair.
Contrary to what most people might think my hair journey is not a vanity project. I'm not trying to get hair down my waist so I can swing it and show off to people just how beautiful I think I am. That's not the purpose of this journey (and documenting it) in the slightest.
If you're a woman (or even a man) of African descent then I gather that you're familiar with the kind of attributes usually assigned to the hair that we have supposedly been "cursed" with: 

Unruly

Hard 

Rough

Unmanageable

 Nappy

Ugly

also kinky and coarse but the negative connotations of the words. However, those words are usually used to describe the hair in its natural states. And for many black women the solution to taming that wild mane of hair was the relaxer, "relaxing" the natural tightly curled or coiled texture to a straight one. And like clockwork, every number of weeks or every time the unruly natural hairs began to show themselves again, we would relax those hairs again making them bone straight. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a relaxed hair bashing, which would be contradictory considering the fact that I'm relaxed, this is just to demonstrate the sort of negative stereotypical thinking that tends to surround Afro-textured hair. And even in it's relaxed state, the hair is bashed for the fact that being chemically treated it is devastatingly unhealthy. But commonality shared between relaxed and natural afro-textured hair is that this "unfortunate" type of hair that we have just won't grow. And consequently we black women are reduced to wearing weaves to hide the shame of our hair and achieve lengths that are thought to be impossible given our race.

So many misconceptions surround afro-textured hair, it's amazing and the purpose of my hair journey is to shatter each and every one of them, particularly the one about the misfortune about the nature of the hair and about growth. My goal is to discard those myths that have surrounded afro-textured hair and kept us from appreciating the hair in all its states whether natural, relaxed, texlaxed, whichever way you choose to wear it. Because of the misconceptions about Afro-textured hair, most of the methods employed in taking care of the hair, for the most part, are damaging which have in turn kept the hair from flourishing the way it naturally should. And I have every intention of rectifying that for myself.

And I believe that if I'm successful, I believe it will be be somewhat beneficial to the race as a whole.Yes, the negative stereotypes about afro-textured hair have been used to put down the race quite often for example the misconception that if a black girl has long hair she HAS to have some other race mixed in there. Because the girl couldn't have such a heralded trait (yes for the most part long hair is prized throughout the world) "being black" alone. Or the aforementioned fact about weaves being a desperate substitute for the hair we can't have.

And it's not as serious as it sounds. I know that hair is just that--hair. I've been taking care of my hair (the wrong way) for as long I can remember, and so have most people out there (i.e. we all wash it and style either ourselves or we go to the salon). The only difference now is that I'm actually taking care of it in a way that is actually beneficial to the hair. And I believe the benefits would show and inspire others.

Like I said before, I don't want long hair, I want to know that I have the option of having long hair. So I'm going to keep along on my journey to give myself that option.

Aloe Vera Juice.

Lately, I have a new addition to my hair regimen. Aloe Vera Juice:

 "This is the brand I use; the whole foods brand"

As I said in a previous post, I have in Senegalese twists. Before I started my hair journey, I had a huge dandruff/itchy scalp issue, but when I began my hair journey and began washing my hair up to three times a week and keeping my scalp oiled almost daily, the dandruff/ itchy scalp disappeared overnight. But last year, December 2010 I put in Senegalese twists. Since I wanted them to last, I couldn’t wash my hair as much, and since I wanted to avoid buildup which would cause me a lot of problems when taking them out, I couldn’t oil my scalp as much. But I knew that my dandruff would come rushing back I was at a loss as to what to do…

…until I realized that I could spritz my scalp with something that it would absorb on the days that I wasn’t oiling my scalp and therefore not leave buildup around the braids. I decided to make up a spritz using water (well I was using rosewater till I ran out), a few drops of tea tree oil essential oil (for the dandruff), peppermint essential oil (for scalp stimulation) and finally some Aloe Vera juice that had been sitting in the fridge. Now I used Aloe Vera Juice (AVJ) because I remembered reading somewhere that it helped with shedding.

“Side note: On average we shed 50-100 hairs a day, and having in twists/braids means that those shed hairs will still be intertwined with your hair for however many days you have those braids/twists in which is why you seem to lose so much hair and have so many tangles when you take braids/twists out. It is those shed hairs that you comb out, and must be combed out/detangled with great care.”

For this reason I figured that if I used AVJ, it would help reduce my shedding which would reduce my tangles and hassle when taking out my braids. What I hadn’t factored in however, where the other benefits of Aloe Vera Juice on hair:

1. Aloe Vera Juice is an EXCELLENT moisturizer! It keeps my new growth so incredibly soft! And keeping my new growth soft and therefore much easier to comb through between relaxers is a priority for me.

2. According to this eHow article, amongst many others, Aloe Vera Juice or Gel, aids in fighting hair loss:

“The benefits of aloe vera are still being researched, but it contains two substances called "macrophages" and "superoxide dismutases"--both of which have been considered as possible hair growth stimulators. The anti-inflammatory properties of aloe are wonderful for inflamed follicles, and the plant is so soothing that there's no harm trying it out. Apply Aloe Vera Juice or gel directly to the scalp and massage it in. Leave it on for a few hours or overnight, and keep an eye out for new hair growth.”

Read more: Aloe Vera Juice & Hair Growth | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5215166_aloe-vera-juice-hair-growth.html#ixzz1EieeHvHC

Here are a few more articles:
Benefits of Aloe Vera Juice on Hair

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/benefits-of-aloe-vera-juice-on-hair.html

Because of all the wonderful benefits of Aloe Vera (it can also be ingested for overall health), I plan to incorporate it more in my regimen. I’m probably going to continue using this scalp spritz (which is cheaper) or find a scalp spritz with Aloe Vera in it (which is more expensive yet convenient). The only con with making the scalp spritz is that I’ll need to keep it in the fridge to preserve it which might a little tedious for me to do going back and forth to the fridge everyday and also the fridge at home is pretty full. We’ll see. I’m probably going to add Aloe Vera Juice to my deep conditioner mixes as well. And I’ll probably use a little bit of it in addition to my leave in conditioners.

HaIr BloG:: NoVEmBEr 2010

To summarize my journey so far (i.e. 11 months of healthy hair care) in two pics:

I know I rushed through the blogs without explaining what exactly I learned about my hair and what exactly I did to it to get it where it is now (for those of you who are curious), but I promise as I document my hair journey from now on out I will explain. I have in Senegalese twists right now (have had them in since December and will be taking them out in March in about 2 weeks) so right now there are no pics. I will be back soon to outline the whole healthy hair process, I promise, lol.

HaIr bLoG: AuGuSt 2010

      I got my hair relaxed today after a 12 week stretch (was supposed to be 13 weeks but I was experiencing some breakage that worried me so I did a strong protein treatment on Tuesday and relaxed today). As usual I went to the salon because I don't self-relax. Unfortunately the salon I usually go to had been closed down so I went to a new place today. Before the stylist relaxed, I told her that I hadn't relaxed for 3 months and she told me that I shouldn't have waited that long and that for hair like mine I should wait two months tops, but I just smiled to myself its amazing how few people outside of this site know healthy hair care practices. Anyhow, she used Affirm for sensitive scalp (because almost every time I did my relaxer before my HHJ, I'd burn like paper, especially because previous stylists used to use things like coarse and super on me =p). Then she washed it out, put in a post relaxer treatment, neutralized, then put me under the dryer with a DC (Affirm 5 in 1 I think, I recognized the smell). Wrapped my hair, set me under the dryer for a bit, blow dried, trimmed (about 1/2-3/4 of an inch off) and then flat ironed (Lots of heat but I haven't used heat in my hair since my last relaxer in May and a month after that in June). And so...here are the results:

Relaxed after 12 weeks

       I'm loving my heath and loving the little length I got. Just a teensy wit disappointed that my hair seems farther along from my goal of SL/Full SL by Nov/Dec 2010 than I'd anticipated. But I will persevere. This was my longest and I would say my most successful stretch. This is because by the time I was ready for this stretch I had a set regimen and I had products that were working for my hair, unlike the first 4 months of my journey where it was pretty much trial and error with so many products. But for the last few months I've been able to narrow down to the products that make my hair sing, and so I'm looking forward to what I might get out of my next stretch. It's been 7.5 months since starting my journey and my hair has flourished in that time!

In the Beginning...December 2009

 I've decided to document my Hair journey as a part of my blog. This will most definitely ensure that it's kept active since I actively engaging with my hair on a regular basis. I've been on my hair journey for more than a year now so I can't quite restart from the beginning, I'll just repost some old blogs from last year, starting with this one from January 2010:

Ever since the "incident"--where I left my hair in braids for 3 months without touching it with anything--that led me to the knotted mess, followed by a crazy detangling process and finally a cut to ear length from shoulder length hair, I've become interested in black/afro-textured hair care. Coming from the capital of Ghana where the hair salon was walking distance and getting a nice wash and set cost about $7 (due to the difference in currency), I had always taken hair care for granted. But in 2006, I came to college in the United States and no longer had the luxury of affordable weekly salon visits and so my hair, which was relatively healthy, began to fall apart, and the idea to braid it in order to release stressing over it, ended up back firing.

I had always been relying on professionals to make my hair look "good" but once I was no longer in the salon (or my hair connoisseur friend's chair) and my hair was left in my hands, things always sort of fell apart. In August last year, I moved into Senior housing and noticed that one of the girls I lived with was always doing something to her hair; washing it every week and walking around a lot in her bathrobe and a plastic cap. Ignorant at the time I guess, I just thought she made too much of a fuss about her hair until I realized one day when she let her hair down, as she usually wore it up in a bun, that her hair was thicker and longer than I'd seen it in May when we'd had a class together. At first I thought that it was because she was of Afro-Cuban and Trinidadian descent, whilst I was African (a lot of my friends believe that our hair is too "hard" and the only reason why our hair will "never be as nice" as African American/ Caribbean people is because they have "white" blood in them).

One day she was showing me a picture of Oprah's natural hair, without the weave, on the internet on Long Hair Care Forum (LHCF) and telling me about how the site gave tips on how to grow long hair. But I didn't check it out until about three weeks ago, and then started doing research about other sites and came across Black Hair Media Forum ( BHM Talk Cafe ), Grow Afro Hair Long (I used their advice on braids maintenance) and then to a couple of youtube videos and finally to Hairlista then KISS (There are a lot more, but these are the ones I have used regularly since the start of my journey). And I must admit I am so glad I did.

Finding out information about black hair inspired me to do two things. Firstly stop relying on others to "fix" my hair and take care of it myself, and love it like I would love anything else that's mine. And secondly repel the myth that Africans have "hard," "bad" or any ugly and negative word associated with our hair (and therefore ourselves) in part of the many steps that we need to take to finally love ourselves.