HOW DO I GROW MY HAIR?

Hmmm...judging from the frustration I see in your face I'm guessing you're having hair issues? Ah I see. So, you want to grow your hair.


One of the most difficult steps in growing your hair is the first step, making a firm commitment. Difficult? I realize this sounds ridiculous but it's true. Too many of us have started taking care of our hair only to give up a month or two later.


There's always some excuse that seems fitting at the time: the hair products don't work, the hair pills are duds, the vitamins aren't working fast enough, etc. As much as we'd like to grow 6 inches of hair within a month's time it's just not realistic (though a beautiful fantasy indeed). If we don't see evidence of hair growth within a short period, we give up and lay the blame elsewhere.


Seriously - stop pulling your hair out and continue reading.


Here's the elephant in the room that everyone is blind to until they're told to look for it. Ready? Your hair is growing right now. It was growing yesterday. It was growing two months ago and it will be growing tomorrow. Ok. Can you see the elephant now? Sort of? Now look down to the next paragraph.


Ok there you are - hello again. Since your hair is growing (yes, right now) the trick is not necessarily HOW DO I MAKE MY HAIR GROW, the trick is HOW DO I KEEP THE HAIR I'M GROWING ATTACHED TO MY HEAD? Ok, can you see it now?

Aha! It's the elephant! Unh huh, right there. Yes, huge. Yes, I know. How could you NOT see it before - I knoooooow.


In order to answer the question HOW DO I GROW MY HAIR, you have to ask and answer the question How do I keep the hair I'm gowing ON MY HEAD? 


You need hair therapy but not in the way you're probably thinking right now. Remember my first post? Well, I go back to that anyway. Here's a snippet: The problem with your hair is simple; you. You are the problem. In order to make improvements you need to rehabilitate your mind, the way you think about hair and the way you care for your hair. How you handle your hair determines how your hair turns out. That’s hair therapy.


You are your hair's secret weapon or its worst enemy. You determine whether or not you (or anyone else for that matter) can see a definite progression in your hair growth. I'm so happy we're clear about this now.

Hair: Is it really "us" versus "them"

Have you ever looked through the hair isle or hair section of a store? Let’s use CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart, Walgreens and supermarkets, in general, as examples. What have you noticed about the isle or section devoted to hair care? Anything?

What I notice is the blaring separation of everything BLACK (as in Black people and their hair) and OTHER (everything hair-related not pertaining to Black people and their “special” hair).

Why create and maintain this separation? There's a wall up; an us versus them. So, who gets to be labeled "us" and who wears the Scarlet Letter we label as "them”?

Is the hair belonging to a Black or African person so very different from the hair belonging to an Indian, Asian or Caucasian person (and all the other groups I’ve failed to mention)?

The answer is no. Just because hair appears to be different doesn’t mean it is. Hair (in mammals) is composed primarily of keratin and we know from research that keratin is protein. Hair also contains carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, amino acids and a high amount of sulfur along with trace amounts of iron, arsenic, chromium, magnesium and other minerals. So, in other words, my hair is made up of the same things that any Asian, Indian or Caucasian person’s hair is made of. The same things that make an Asian person’s hair grow make an Indian person’s hair grow. Hair is hair.

The misconception that it’s all different prevents us from learning the proper ways to care for hair and I mean all hair. This is why many Black men and women don’t venture out of the Black hair section and why many Caucasian men and women don’t venture into the Black hair care section. Isn’t cheap shampoo cheap just shampoo? If a product sucks it usually means it will suck for everyone. I look at the product and not the color of the model on the bottle.

To separate hair care products according to skin color or "race" is just as preposterous as separating them into these two categories:

SKINNY HUMANS versus NON-SKINNY HUMANS.

A well-formulated bottle of conditioner works well on hair whether the hair belongs to an Eskimo, a child from Pakistan, a man from Sudan or a long-haired Native American woman. Why? Because all four of these people have hair composed of the same ingredients.

Whether or not someone else's hair appears to be different from yours, don’t assume it is. “Hair care” should be just that; care for hair in general. Not black hair care products. Not white hair care products. Not “us” on one side and “them” on the other side.

I used "black hair care" products for most of my life. I was told they were best for my hair but the truth is they weren't. Walking to the "black hair care section" became instinctual. It never even crossed my mind to look in the "white hair care section" (which was the rest of the hair care isle), not even for shampoo. I was brainwashed into believing they were the only products I could use in my hair because my hair was radically different from everyone else's hair. Funny,when I started choosing hair products based on their ingredients, I finally got what I wanted whereas the "black"products never felt like they were worth my hard-earned an hard-saved money.
It's a jungle out there and for some of us, it's hair war. Either way we're in it together, one shampoo and one conditioner at a time.

HAIR: What is it?

       

I know - gratuitous shots of hair but I love these pictures.

I googled it and copied the first thing that came up. What is hair? Hair is “any of the cylindrical, keratinized, often pigmented filaments characteristically growing from the epidermis of a mammal.” * 

Hunh?!

Every hair on your body grows from a FOLLICLE within the skin and each follicle contains living tissue that makes your hair grow. The portion of the follicle containing the living cells is known as the hair root and the portion of the follicle you see growing from the scalp is known as the hair shaft.  The living tissue in the hair root produce new hair cells and as the hair cells move up through the root, they mature and harden. The process is called keratinization. So each hair strand that protrudes from the scalp is a fiber of hardened protein. While the tissue inside each follicle is living, the hair that grows from it (the hair we see outside the skin) is not living.

I know. I thought I'd read it wrong until I saw the same thing in everything I read about hair that was science related. So the hair we can actually see is dead? Really? It definitely gave new meaning to all of those shampoo commercials that claimed their products "brought new life" to hair. Lies! We fall for the lies each and every time because we're suckers for the packaging a product comes in or because we dream of being like the hair model a company uses in their ads. The latter isn't so awful though. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming or hoping we could look like the model used in an ad but we shouldn’t base our worth as individuals on whether or not we look like the model. Even the models don’t look like the ad-version of themselves so use a model or another person you desire to look like purely as a form of inspiration.

The hair we see, the hair shaft, is made up of layers: the cuticle, the cortex and the medulla. The CUTICLE is the layer on the outside that protects the inside of the hair from damage. When viewed under a microscope the cuticle looks like thin tiles that overlap somewhat similar to tiles on a roof. The second layer, underneath the cuticle, is the CORTEX which is the bulkiest layer and is made up of hardened proteins. Hair’s structure, color and strength are determined in the cortex. The innermost layer of the hair shaft is the MEDULLA, a soft spongy mass of tissue. I used Paintshop to draw a basic picture of this for you (so don't laugh at my picture).

So hair is mostly a collection of hardened protein fibers we know as keratin (approximately 90% of hair is keratin).

*( http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/hair )
Photos 1- sabina karlsson 2- liya kebede 3- eniko mihalik 4-joan smalls 5-chrishell stubbs 6-zhang yuqi

What’s your hair problem?

A new product comes out on the market and we’re buying it without thinking about its purpose and whether or not we actually need it.

We complain about what our hair isn't without ever really looking at what our hair is. It’s not shiny enough nor is it curly or straight enough. It’s not thick enough or maybe the color is wrong. Whether real or perceived, there’s always a problem. And what do we do about it? We pile various products on the hair and hope for a miracle but these faulty solutions do one thing, cause more problems.

Before you can really do anything about your hair and the state it's in, you need to know what you’re dealing with. How? Well it’s as simple as asking yourself, “what’s my problem?” Yes, it’s that easy. You don’t have to be a genius to sit down and touch your hair and I mean really touch it. Sometimes this action alone will tell you what’s going on. Does it feel smooth, rough, oily, dry? Look at it? What do you see?

Personally, I’m a sucker for clean lines and my eyes literally glaze over when I come across hair packaging that looks like stainless steel. See the pic below? I salivate at the sight of these bottles.

Had I embraced my lust for pretty packaging I would never be where I am now. But as much as I would love to praise my restraint, much of it was due to my lack of funds. Who knew that being broke could actually have a benefit? My lack of money forced me to snap out of that zombie state of complaining I was trapped in. I had to stop looking up at the sky and assuming THE ANSWER (meaning a hair product) would just fall out of it. Being broke forced me to be resourceful. Oh yes, I had to use my brain. (Wonder powers activate!)

Solve a problem without identifying what the problem is and what the variables are? Nearly impossible. I knew what my next step was, research. Now this, I knew something about so I researched like a maniac. What is hair? Why is it there? Is there anything I can do to get more of it? How do I make it softer, shinier – beautiful?

I can’t maintain to have all of the answers when it comes to hair and I make sure to never believe anyone who claims they do. I’m still a work in progress but I can let you know what I know so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.