If you have kinky hair then you surely know how much care it usually requires and how fragile, damage-prone it can be. What you might not know, however, is all of the many factors that contribute to the state of our coils and might harm them permanently.
They may vary from your mental and physical health to your daily habits, but most often they affect our hair simultaneously. Among the results of such harm is hair breakage – a separation of the scales in the inner cuticle of our hair often as a result of dryness. While the full breakdown of the reasons for hair breakage can be a very individual experience, here are the most common causes of this issue and tested tips on how to prevent it.
1. Dehydration
While any hair type can benefit from moisturization, porous, kinky locks are even more prone to drying out and breaking easily. That is why we need to actively incorporate moisturizing products into our haircare routine. With so many available on the market, it might be confusing to figure out which would work best with your hair. It is always better, however, to stick to hair treatment, which has benefited afro-hair for centuries.
Chebe powder – an ancient hair care remedy that has been used for generations by the women of Chad in Africa and has helped them maintain healthy, waist-length curls – is a brilliant ingredient for locking moisture within your hair to sustain your coils for longer. Chebe hair butter and hair paste in particular are the kinds of products your hair would benefit from the most since not only do they lock the moisture in – they also provide it in the first place, through additional ingredients like shea butter and tallow.
2. Poor Nutrition
While there are many ways to supply your hair with nutrients externally, it is equally important to take care of your diet so that your body has all of the sufficient vitamins on the ready. There is a great variety of elements that could help strengthen your hair but the following are particularly good for you: omega-3 acids, zinc, vitamin D, iron and protein. Protein in particular is something that is great to combine both in consumption and in hair products – fermented rice water works especially great as a natural protein treatment while being complementary to the benefits provided by chebe products.
3. Stress
Stress and anxiety can cause great harm to your organism in a multitude of ways and that includes damage to your hair. What can happen is that stress hormones prevent the flow of nutrients and oxygen to your hair and skin, resulting in them essentially being deprived of all of the necessary elements for healthy growth. In extreme cases, it can even lead to conditions such as telogen effluvium, a type of alopecia. That is why it is important to take care of your mental health – which will inevitably reflect on your physical health as well.
4. Heat Damage
This is a tough one for anyone who likes to quickly fix their hair or try out a diversity of hairstyles but the truth is – whether it be blow-drying your hair, using a flat or curling iron, all of these procedures, especially when used frequently for an extended period of time can cause your hair to break. While the best option would be to avoid any of these altogether, sometimes, you just want to have your hair dry as quickly as possible.
That’s why it’s important to strengthen your hair so that you minimize the extent of hair breakage. This can be achieved by using a hot oil treatment – Karkar oil in particular is a perfect way to strengthen and rid your scalp and hair of all the harmful bacteria so that it can withstand any additional heat treatment. But as mentioned – the less exposure to heat, the better.
5. Chemical Damage
There is a variety of procedures we let our hair go through – and some of them involve more exposure to chemicals than others. In particular, we are talking about treatments such as permanent hair straightening as well as bleaching and dyeing. While these are done once in a while, the kind of damage they cause per procedure can be significant enough to last for months – certainly until you grow your hair out again. Chebe-containing products are yet again a perfect solution for these issues and in particular, chebe hair oil is recommended. Specifically aimed at treating damaged, dry hair prone to breakage, while giving hair a soft, glossy finish, this will be the chebe hair product to go to.
6. Washing Hair Often
While this one also depends on the skin type of your scalp, it is generally not recommended to wash your hair more than twice a week if you have coily hair. This is because constant exposure to chemicals in shampoos and conditioners has a dehydrating effect. Furthermore, you do not want to enable the build-up of hair care products, which can clog your follicles, drying out your scalp and, eventually, your hair. Instead, try to wash your hair more thoroughly and moisturize it as recommended for it to last longer in its healthy prime.
7. Avoiding Protective Hairstyles
While it is understandable that you want to experiment with different hairstyles – not to mention that protective hairstyles are quite time-consuming – you should try and make protective hairstyles your constant go-to option. Not only are these hairstyles, as the name suggests, protective towards your hair – they are additionally encouraging its growth as well. Besides, there are more and more options to choose from without getting tired of sticking to a single hairstyle – so make sure to look more into that!
Infographic provided by Hair by Dr. Max, a trusted provider of hairline surgery