Hair and scalp require regular cleaning carried out at least 2-3 times a week. At the same time, depriving scalp of its products shouldn’t be done too often because frequent cleaning encourages sebaceous glands to work harder, which leads to greasy hair. In light of this, how to take care of scalp in the right way? Before finding the answer on how to deal with hair loss, it’s worth realising why hair falls out in the first place.
What causes hair loss?
An average person has 100 000 hair on their head. What’s interesting, this number depends on hair colour. To demonstrate, ginger-haired people’s scalp grows approximately 85 000 hairs, brunet – around 100 000, whereas blond hair owners have more or less 140 000 of them. Every day, as a consequence of natural physiological processes, we lose around 100 hais, which is a relatively small number. These are hairs that go through telogen phase, which means that their growth process has just ended. This period when hair remains in its resting phase lasts up to 2 months. Then, the new hair production process starts. Approximately 10-15% of hair growing on our heads is in that very phase. Once it ends, the life cycle of hair stops. In other words, old hair falls out to be replaced with a new hair.
However, if there are more than 100 hairs falling out from the head, then this is the first troubling sign that you shouldn’t ignore – after all, the very quantity exceeds the natural physiological processes. Additionally, if you notice that your hair has got considerably tinned, probably you are facing defluvium, commonly known as baldness.
Baldness might be the aftermath of infections and inflammations as well as physical injuries. One of the physical injuries are hairdos that are arranged too tightly, e.g. ponytail.
Ways of combating excessive hair loss
To prevent irreversible processes of hair loss and baldness, you must strengthen hair bulbs, and what is strictly connected with that – supply it with the efficient quantity of nourishing substances. What can we choose? For example, shampoos dedicated to weakened and thinning hair as well as preparations that intensively reinforces hair. The former are properly balanced in terms of composition: they contain both nourishing substances that make hair bulbs stronger and delicate cleaning agents that remove the excess of sebum without disturbing the natural protective barrier of scalp. Actually, preparations that intensively reinforce hair are also effective but only when you keep using them on a daily basis. For that reason, this type of hair care products must be applied continuously.
How often should hair be washed?
Hair should be washed as often as it needs to be. If hair gets greasy fast, you can wash it every day, however, it there are no signs of excessive sebum production, hair can be washed every few days. For daily hair cleansing, only gentle shampoos should be used, which are the ones which lack SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) and SLES (Sodium Laureth Sulfate). The intensively cleansing agents and lathering agents are substances called sulphates and have irritating effect. Also, they might trigger allergic reactions. Also, if used on a daily basis, they may lead to scalp dehydration and cause psoriasis, dandruff and rosacea. Dehydrated by sulphates skin starts secreting more sebum so as to prevent irritations.
If you want to stay away from such skin care problems, it’s better to choose gentle shampoos that don’t contain aggressively cleansing agents, and these are kids’ products and cosmetics designed for allergy sufferers. For example, substances that are more delicate in their action than SLS and SLES, yet have similar effect, are ALS (Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate) and SCS (Sodium Cocoyl Sarcosinate).
