Tips for Damage-Free Hair

Those 100 brush strokes, that anti-dandruff medicated shampoo, countless
trips to the salon to get the ‘right’ colour —unknowingly many of us
damage our hair to the point that simply needs to be chopped off. Hair
damage is not always ‘visible’ to the eye — symptoms include hair that’s
dry and dull, limp locks that refuse to look bouncy, split ends, an
itchy scalp, weak hair that often breaks off, hair fall (from the roots)
and/or hair that feels rough and scaly to touch. Simple mistakes often
cause hair damage. The more obvious ones include too many chemical
treatments such as perms, rebonding and colouring and too much heat
styling (be it your trusty dryer or those wonder-curlers and
flat-irons). What aggravates the damage are unhealthy hair habits such
as excessive fiddling, brushing, tight hair accessories and even a
rough-and-hurried towel rub to get those locks dry. Using a battery of
poor quality hair care and excessive sun exposure also add to hair woes.


Preventive tips
Dr Rohini Wadhwani, medical director, Skin Essentials, shares a few tips to ensure your hair remains damage-free.
1.
Always use a hair care range suited for your hair type. If you colour
your hair on a regular basis, use a colour-protective range that not
only locks in the hair colour and keeps your hair glossy, but also
repairs hair strands inside out by filling in the gaps left by broken
hair protein.
2. Gentle combing to get the tangles out is fine as is blow-drying on the coolest possible setting on your hairdryer.
3. Always condition your hair thoroughly a week before the colour treatment to ensure as much damage prevention as you can.
4. While
shampooing the colour off, use lukewarm or tepid water. Hot water will
strip even more moisture from your hair, making it dry and lifeless.
5. Keep a gap of at least a month between colour applications and try to use semi permanent colours as opposed to permanent.

Go Fibre-Active
Hair
damage exists not only on the outer layer where the oils can be
stripped but also in the heart of the hair strand, where chemicals, sun
and ill-treatment can break the protein bonds of the hair, making it
weak and porous. Fibre actives fill in those gaps giving you noticeably
smoother, shinier and tangle-free hair after just a few washes. Fibre
actives basically repair the damaged hair protein in the heart of the
hair. This makes your hair smoother to touch, reduces flyaways and gives
you frizz-free and tangle-free hair.