The Secret to Gaining Longer Hair and Retaining Length
The secret to gaining longer hair and retaining length is to preserve your hair strand with a focus on the hair ends. That’s it. It’s just that simple. No magic product, no magic information.
The information presented here supports growth on all “types” of afro textured hair. In general, most afro-textured hair strands are elliptical and flat. The length and thickness of that ellipse determines how your afro-textured hair looks: the shorter the length of the ellipse, the tighter the coil and the more cottony and tightly coiled your hair is. The longer the ellipse or more elongated the ellipse, the more likely you are to have curly or wavy afro-textured hair. It is still all afro-textured hair.
Examples of Afro Textured Hair:
Cottony, CoilyCurly, CoilyWavy, and Coily
Hair Strand with Lifted Cuticles, Hair has a slight Negative(-) Charge, Positive Molecules in Protein Product Gravitate to Negatively Charged Hair
-Try to use protein conditioners on clean hair that has been washed. This will allow the protein to have the greatest access to the spaces on the hair strand that need protein the most. Types of protein ingredients to look for in products are silk, collagen, and keratin. Non animal or plant or vegetable based types of protein are wheat, pea and soy based proteins.
EXAMPLES OF PROTEIN TYPES(not an exhaustive list)
ANIMAL PROTEIN
PLANT BASED PROTEIN
COLLAGEN
WHEAT
SILK
SOY
KERATIN
PEA
Regarding Protein Based and Moisturizing Based Products:
First Steps: Cleansing the Hair
Shampoo + Protein Product + Dry Heat The cuticles are lifted, (+) charged protein molecules lay on the surface of the hair. Dry heat helps the protein to bind to the hair.
Next Steps: Conditioning the Hair
Conditioner + Moisture Product + Wet Heat The cuticles are lowered, the hair has slip. Wet heat helps the moisture based ingredients penetrate the hair strand.
See how easy that is? The trick is to balance the two, moisture and protein for your particular head of hair!
Understand what makes your hair beautiful and unique. The shape of afro-textured hair plays a big part in how this hair captures and reflects light. The shape of the hair is also responsible for its unique beauty and its fragility. When you are aware and understand how the shape of your hair impacts its health, you can leverage this knowledge and use it to your advantage.
The hair strand is covered with cuticles. Cuticles function like gills on a fish in that they lift and raise and close and shut. Shampoos and cleansers tend to lift the cuticles and conditioners tend to lower and tighten them. At the end of your hair grooming process the goal is to have lowered and closed cuticles.
Processing, coloring, too much heat and poor quality styling implements can damage hair. Be conscious of what you do to your hair and what you use on it.
The secret to gaining length and retaining that length is to preserve and protect the hair strands on your head.
Remember to add moisture to your hair in the form of a water based product. Protein should be used to maintain the structure of the hair strand and to fill in missing or chipped cuticle layers. Remember to balance the use of protein with moisture based products.
Moisture, moisture, moisture should be followed by preserve, preserve, preserve! If you take these steps, you will be well on your way to gaining and retaining length on your afro-textured hair!
Chicoro is the author of, “Grow It! How to Grow Afro-Textured Hair to Maximum Lengths in the Shortest Time”, available today on Amazon.com.
www.BeautifyBitByBit.com
