Hey everyone! It’s such a beautiful day up north in the UK today. What’s it like where you are? Me and the pups had a sweltering walk in the fields this morning and I’m looking forward to the second walk for more beautiful sunshine. I absolutely love days like this!
Today I wanted to share some useful tips for haircare, most importantly natural haircare which can help produce better quality locks. These tips are what I have found incredibly handy applied to my own hair over the last couple of years and now I can truly see the benefits of doing these simple yet effective steps.
They are simple steps but some of them take time to truly see and feel the benefits so you must allow patience and consistency with applying the steps. Please don’t expect miracles within a week, patience is a virtue my lovelies. Plus, the most obvious factor is growing hair takes time, so to get long thicker hair these 5 tips must be followed regularly. Also, this can help both men and women.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
I know many women (and men) who want to grow their hair but struggle to do so. There are many complaints about their hair being too fine, brittle and/or dull. Once you step away from the commercial products and fashionable trends for haircare it is quite a simple procedure for healthy hair. How many products are sold that claim to help hair become thick, luscious and healthy? How expensive are these products? How effective are these products? Are you fed up of relying on these gimmicks? Let me tell you, I have used typical conventional products for my hair in previous years and my hair would get greasy within two days, and now I do not use any of these products and my hair can last a whole week without being washed and even then it doesn’t look or feel the same type of ‘greasiness’ that I used to experience years ago. It doesn’t require expensive products all it requires is consistency and patience.
Here are my top 5 tips for healthy long luscious hair.
1. Stop Dyeing
I used to dye my hair a lot. From being a teenager I used to get it highlighted all the way through to my early 20’s. Then I started to get it fully coloured and it was incredibly bright blonde for a phase, then I went to dark brown to try it out. Since going dark brown I decided to stop dyeing my hair altogether and let the colours grow out. And this has stopped my hair from dying. Don’t kill your hair with all these products. Colouring hair can truly damage hair, it can dry it out causing brittle dull hair.
When I stopped colouring my hair I thought I would really miss my bright blonde hair, and at first I did a little. But now I absolutely love my natural hair colour. It’s not bright blonde and it’s not dark brown, but it’s my hair colour and I love it. It’s shiny and healthy! Plus, it reduces costs significantly. How much money do you spend on getting your hair coloured? I used to spend A LOT. There is no way I could ever justify spending such money on colouring my hair now, it seems insane. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your natural hair colour. It’s yours and it’s beautiful.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
2. Don’t Fry
This one tip is an absolute saviour. Stop or at least try to minimise how often you use hairdryers, curlers and straighteners. The heat from these tools is so intense that it is no surprise that it can kill hair. I stopped using a hairdryer a couple of years ago and now let my hair simply air dry. As my hair was transitioning with all of the other tips I noticed my hair went from naturally drying to frizzy and big, to drying to wavy and slight curly hair with minimal or no frizz. Hairdryers really can damage hair so immensely that I highly recommend to avoid using them.
I used to dry my hair with a hairdryer then straighten it to death with straighteners, occasionally I would curl it. As mentioned, these days I let my hair dry on its own and only curl my hair on rare special occasions (which really is rare and I could probably count on one hand how many times in a year that occurs). I haven’t straightened my hair in a couple of years, it seems I actually love having wavy and curly hair now. Funnily enough I got rid of my hairdryer recently by giving it to charity as it has just been sat in the cupboard looking sad and lonely.
3. Simple Hair Wash
I highly recommend the ‘no-poo’ method for haircare. No, this doesn’t mean you should stop going to the toilet, this is all about getting rid of the conventional shampoo and conditioner. This is such a fantastic tip as it reduces costs dramatically and is so simple to do whilst easily cleaning hair. Read more about the no-poo method here.
Some days I only use the bicarbonate of soda, and sometimes I use it with apple cider vinegar. I am playing around with only washing it with water and will let you know in time how this experiment goes.
Once you start to see the benefits of this method you will find that you don’t need to wash your hair as regularly. I used to wash my hair every other day as it would start to look and feel greasy when using conventional products. When I had transitioned to this method I still did the every other day wash but then realised over time that was no longer necessary. I would leave it another extra day and it was fine. These days I wash my hair only once or twice a week. And no it’s not that I don’t care about my hair and have gotten lazy. It is in fact the opposite as I truly care about my hair. (Ok the laziness might be true, but you will realise there is no need to wash so rigorously).
My hair is clean and healthy with this method. It is not dirty, greasy, dull or fine. My hair is glowing, healthy and easily growing. And my purse is not as empty from the weekly purchases of haircare products and I’m not tied to regular washing for fear of looking a scruff bag with greasy hair.
4. Fruits & Veggies
Nutrition is key! We all know fruits and veggies are good for us so why not add more of them to your daily eating to boost the health of your body AND hair. I have eaten fruits and vegetables ever since a wee little child, however the quantities have varied throughout my growing years. Pre-personal trainer era I ate a good variety of all of them, however once I became a PT I drastically reduced fruits whilst still eating vegetables but hardly any starchy vegetables. This was all due to the nonsense I was taught on courses from so-called experts in the health and fitness industry. “Don’t eat too many fruits and as they will you fat, diabetic and cause major harm!” – Apparently. What a load of rubbish. Well I have spoken a bit about this on my recent YouTube video. My channel is Barefoot Coconut and the video is Why I Don’t Eat Meat | My {Vegan] Story. I touch upon the topic of fruits and vegetables and how I am in fact feeling absolutely amazing since eating a HUGE amount of them daily.
Over the last couple of years I have increased the amount of fruits and vegetables into my daily eating and have seen so many benefits in doing so. On top of this I honestly believe it has helped with the quality of my hair. My hair is shinier and it is growing so much easier. I don’t get regular haircuts anymore so of course this will help with hair growing, however it still took a long time to grow my hair during haircuts, especially when I experimented with getting a very short bob cut. That took so long to grow to my shoulders! Over the last year my hair has grown tremendously long and I do pin point it to the major increase in fruits and vegetables.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
It kind of makes sense that these foods would help hair growth. Fruits and vegetables are abundant in nutrients that help the body feel healthy. To name a few of these benefits: cell growth, repair and maintenance of tissue, energy, vitality, healthy blood, strong bones and nails. So it makes perfect sense that they would support hair growth and health all-round.
Eat those delicious fruity gems and green goodies!
5. Acceptance
Most of all, learn to accept your own hair. Rather than focusing on what others have, or in fact pretend to have, realise that you are beautiful the way you are in mind, body and aesthetics. Yes you can make natural changes to how you look and feel without the use of chemicals, pills, supplements, expensive products and quick fix gimmicks. This can all be achieved with simple steps whilst making you feel fit, healthy and happy.
Whilst applying the other four tips you will notice your hair changes, and then naturally your perception on how you look and feel will change. I honestly never thought I would like my curly hair but it turns out I absolutely friggin’ love it. For years I have fought against it trying to make it “perfect” with having super straight hair, the idea of leaving my hair to naturally dry would have made me hurl. I hated the idea of my natural hair. I dyed it, I washed it regularly, I dried it with a hairdryer and I made it perfectly straight. But for what reason? Was it because I didn’t think I was pretty enough without bright blonde straight hair? Did I think it was the thing to do in order to get the guys and look great day to day? Erm, yes.
How ridiculous! This society is an absolute mess. I know so many girls who have done what I did and still do what I did, all because we want to look pretty, be seen as attractive to the men and look trendy. Well I have a new method of looking pretty, getting the guys and looking trendy, it’s called be yourself! Really it works.
I love my natural hair. I love the colour. I love the curls. I love the wavy hair. It is me. It is who I am. I have fully embraced it and I highly recommend you learn to embrace your own hair too.
Let me tell you it is such a breath of fresh hair to not be regimental to hair appointments, washing it religiously, spending an insane amount of time every day or every other day to style it, and saving money. But for those special occasions when you really fancy straightening or curling it then go for it as those rare moments will not cause hardly anywhere near as much damage and it will make it more special for yourself rather than trying to please others daily, when really others don’t care that much about what hair colour you have or how perfectly straight it is, and if they do tell them to bugger off.
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Be you, love yourself and embrace your beautiful hair.