Could someone please advise me on a hair care routine?

[xxaimsxx]

Hey there people :)

Okay so people know their stuff on here thats why i've asked. I'm looking for a new routine for my hair because recently the mainstream (apparently bad) hair products i've been using have made my scalp itch and my hair break off when before it was fine. :( I dont use any hot irons or hair dryers.

I'm looking for a natural shampoo and conditioner. One that will soothe the itching and burning of my scalp and not strip the oils on my hair. And i want to know what vitamins are good and foods i should be eating for good hair. And also things like brushes. The one i have now makes my hair snap all the time its so annoying! Its plastic.

I'm going to start again with trying to grow my hair. Thankyou :)
aimee.

[ChloeDharma]

Wow, alot of information wnted there! Lol. Ok, well if i were you i'd give up brushing and use your fingers initially to detangle, then try a smooth wooden comb (i use the one from the body shop, just feel the edges to make sure it's smooth).
I'm also a big fan of oiling, heavy oilings the night before a wash and daily light oilings after washing and on non wash days. Coconut oil is a good one to start with (you can get a big tub from Holland and Barrets). You could try switching to conditioner only washing and ditching the shampoo. A popular moisture treatment here is an SMT, basically 2 parts conditioner mixed with one part each of aloe vera gel and honey. Aloe vera mixed with a little oil as a leave in i find works very well. Keeping your hair up in a protective updo is a must if your hair breaks easily, getting some satin pillow cases is usefull too.
Oh, and misting your hair (you can get cheap spray bottles from poundland) each day or even a few times a day is great for raising moisture levels especially if you add a drop of glycerine to the bottle (glycerine can be brought in boots where the stuff for sore throats are kept and its cheap), a squirt of aloe vera, glycerine and rosewater i find makes a lovely mister recipe.
Aubrey organics and JASON are the only brands i can think of off the top of my head in the UK that are mostly natural but it would probably be cheaper to browse through the henna and natural hair care section of the forum to get many more ideas.
Oh, and my favourite treatment when my hair was dry, damaged and breaking was natural yogurt......it works wonders!
I'm sure you will get lots more ideas, these are just a few of my old faithfulls i have used when i was growing out damage
Good luck :)

ETA I forgot supplements, a good multivitamin aimed at hair growth is probably your best bet.....maybe Holland and Barrets skin hair and nails formula, it's often on sale too. Essential fatty acids in the diet are vital, so things like unsalted nuts, seeds, avocados, oily fish of flax seed, maybe evening primrose oil as long as you are not epileptic (in which case just check with your doctor). Popular hair growth supplements are MSM (on sale half price in H&B at the moment), biotin, silica, kelp and protein shakes. There may be more but it's late and my memory is struggling lol.

[martinxt]

thank you for the informative information chloe...its very helpful for a newbie like myself.

[baobhan sith]

If you're worried about damage, try to work out where it's coming from. Your brush obviously is a good start, and combs are just as bad. I didn't believe it for ages about the plastic injection moulded combs, but they really do damage your hair. The combs and brushes I use are usually either Mason Pearson, or Kent. (I've got Kent atm. I have this habit of losing them.)

You're also probably a lot rougher with your hair than you realise, when I first started reading on here I was horrible to my hair, ripping brushes through it, and I thought I was nice to it because I never used heat! I also rarely put my hair in a protective style to sleep (I now braid it EVERY night. Mostly) and used cotton pillowcases. I've quite reccently got myself some silk ones, which a lot of people on here reccomend, but I'm not sure exactly how much difference they make. They are all soft though! So I bought another pair :)

You might want to be conscious of HOW you wash your hair, as well as what you wash it with, a lot of people scrunch it all up on top of their head, drag a comb through it, rub it hard with a towel, blow dry it using a hot setting, straighten it, and then get split ends. If it's windy where you are, maybe keep it up in a style to prevent tangles.

Can anyone tell that I'm obsessed with damage? And my hair still doesn't love me back. *sob*

ETA: and on your actual question, there are lots of different methods of washing your hair, other than just finding nicer shampoo and conditioners. If you've used something in the past that you were fine on, you might want to go back to that. If you have several products which all have the same bad effects, you could see if there's a common culprit on the ingredients list. It's quite possibly SLS, and there are some mainstream products which don't contain that, but check your facewash, if it's fine on your face, most likely it's fine on your head as well.

[xxaimsxx]

Wow, alot of information wnted there! Lol. Ok, well if i were you i'd give up brushing and use your fingers initially to detangle, then try a smooth wooden comb (i use the one from the body shop, just feel the edges to make sure it's smooth).
I'm also a big fan of oiling, heavy oilings the night before a wash and daily light oilings after washing and on non wash days. Coconut oil is a good one to start with (you can get a big tub from Holland and Barrets). You could try switching to conditioner only washing and ditching the shampoo. A popular moisture treatment here is an SMT, basically 2 parts conditioner mixed with one part each of aloe vera gel and honey. Aloe vera mixed with a little oil as a leave in i find works very well. Keeping your hair up in a protective updo is a must if your hair breaks easily, getting some satin pillow cases is usefull too.
Oh, and misting your hair (you can get cheap spray bottles from poundland) each day or even a few times a day is great for raising moisture levels especially if you add a drop of glycerine to the bottle (glycerine can be brought in boots where the stuff for sore throats are kept and its cheap), a squirt of aloe vera, glycerine and rosewater i find makes a lovely mister recipe.
Aubrey organics and JASON are the only brands i can think of off the top of my head in the UK that are mostly natural but it would probably be cheaper to browse through the henna and natural hair care section of the forum to get many more ideas.
Oh, and my favourite treatment when my hair was dry, damaged and breaking was natural yogurt......it works wonders!
I'm sure you will get lots more ideas, these are just a few of my old faithfulls i have used when i was growing out damage
Good luck :)

ETA I forgot supplements, a good multivitamin aimed at hair growth is probably your best bet.....maybe Holland and Barrets skin hair and nails formula, it's often on sale too. Essential fatty acids in the diet are vital, so things like unsalted nuts, seeds, avocados, oily fish of flax seed, maybe evening primrose oil as long as you are not epileptic (in which case just check with your doctor). Popular hair growth supplements are MSM (on sale half price in H&B at the moment), biotin, silica, kelp and protein shakes. There may be more but it's late and my memory is struggling lol.

Wow sounds really good :)