5 Great Ways to Strengthen Hair for Voluminous and Shiny Locks
Beautiful hair, lustrous locks, healthy hair, thick tresses, voluminous hair, and shiny hair all have one thing in common – they don’t have split ends, nor do they suffer from frequent breakages.
It is almost as if the attractiveness of your hair boils down to its structural strength and is pegged on its ability to weather abrasion.
And this should be in any way surprising, considering that weak hair is linked to a number of problems, including hair fall, breakages, premature balding, and several other hair-related complications.
For this reason, it is extremely important to be in a position to identify signs of weak hair early enough before things worsen and get out of control.
We have compiled a list of reasons why hair weakens and a few calculated measures you can take to strengthen your tresses.
Table of Contents
Why Does Hair Become Brittle?
Truth be told, there are several causes of weak hair, some of which are totally avoidable, while others are almost inevitable. Here’s a quick primer on that.
Excessive Styling
Frequent braiding, ultra-tight hairstyles, and hair extensions can exert an unbelievable amount of stress on your tresses.
This, if unchecked, can result in your hair becoming gradually weaker, especially if you already have very fine hair, to begin with.
The same applies to perming, dyeing, and the application of excessive heat during blow drying, straightening, and curling, all of which tend to the cuticle (the outermost protective layer of your hair).
Improper Diet
Lack of access to essential vitamins and nutrients such as Vitamin D, A, E, zinc, niacin, iron, selenium, folic acid, and quality proteins can really predispose you to have weak hair.
This explains why the effects of chronic emotional stress or being on a crash diet will typically manifest on your crown of glory, first by making it dull before giving way to split ends.
Fortunately, this is easily resolvable by tweaking your dietary regimen to include more protein in your eating plan and supplementing with collagen capsules, especially if you are a vegan or vegetarian.
Underlying Diseases
People with serious underlying health issues such as pneumonia and autoimmune infections tend to suffer a higher probability of losing their follicles and having weak tresses compared to relatively healthier individuals.
Hormonal Imbalance
Hormonal problems stemming from hyperthyroidism (i.e., having an overactive thyroid) or hypothyroidism tend to result in significantly weaker hair. The same often applies to conditions such as PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), where some women may experience what resembles male-pattern baldness
What Affects Hair Health?
As illustrated above, quite a few factors could affect your hair’s health. The major ones include;
Genetics
Here is the thing – genetic factors are responsible for your hair’s color and overall density, growth rate, and texture.
Female and male pattern baldness, for example, heavily hinges on hereditary factors. The increased susceptibility to hall fall is caused by unusually high levels of DHT (dihydrotestosterone), which is known to trigger the progressive weakening of hair follicles.
Diet and Nutrition
At the end of the day, you are what you eat regularly. The same applies to your hair, which is actually majorly made up of keratin.
As such, a balanced diet rich in a variety of essential nutrients is needed to furnish the structural building blocks required to keep your mane strong, shiny, and lustrous-looking.
Supplementing with crucial nutritional elements such as collagen through well-formulated collagen capsules is necessary to oversee healthy hair growth.
It is thought that the input of critical hair growth nutrients optimizes your hair cycle by prolonging the anagen phase while simultaneously postponing the telogen phase, eventually improving your hair’s overall growth rate.
How to Strengthen Your Hair
Here’s how to strengthen hair and increase your chances of getting, keeping, and maintaining super strong locks.
1) Use a Supplement
It goes without saying that proper intake of critical minerals is required to maintain healthy and resilient tresses that can withstand everyday wear and tear.
And considering that a deficiency of nutrients such as vitamin D3, iron, collagen, and zinc typically leads to fragile and weaker hair, the immense impact of proper supplementation with collagen capsules and hair-friendly vitamins cannot be overstated, really.
2) Go for Hair-strengthening Shampoos
Truth be told, there is only so much that conventional conditioners and rinse-off shampoos can do to keep your hair in excellent shape.
That’s why hair experts recommend spending money on sulfate-free cleansing products that contain a healthy dose of copper peptides and biotin, which can play a key role in stimulating the scalp and strengthening weak tresses.
3) Bulk up on Protein-rich Food
You probably already know protein is the nutritional building block needed to fuel your body’s development, growth, and maintenance cycle.
The same applies to your tresses and follicles. It is, therefore, not surprising that a protein-rich diet is needed for a strong and healthy mane, considering that your follicles are primarily made of protein.
A lack of protein in your diet can seriously hamper your efforts to grow and maintain lustrous-looking locks. It is not even unusual for hair loss or stunted growth to accompany a serious shortfall of quality protein in your dietary regimen.
4) Make Use of a Hair Mask
Contrary to the common misconception, the insane benefits of a hair mask go beyond being an occasional self-care or luxurious indulgence.
In fact, quality hair masks can aid in protecting and restoring your hair’s keratin exterior armor by nourishing the hair shaft with a generous dose of essential nutrients and proteins.
Furthermore, a hair mask is formulated to penetrate deep into your hair strands, strengthening them starting from root to end, which averts breakages and repairs split ends.
5) Indulge in a Scalp Massage Every Once in a While
A relatively recent study conducted back in 2016 found that regular scalp massages can help gain and retain thicker/stronger hair, especially if done consistently.
Apparently, the immense benefits of a scalp massage center heavily on its influence on the development of hair follicles.
Regular massages increase hair thickness by stretching hair follicle cells while at the same time dilating the blood vessels that nourish them, which, in turn, encourages hair growth and stimulates the follicles to sprout thicker tresses.
In Conclusion
From massages to masks, supplements to calculated dietary changes, there is definitely a lot that you can do to strengthen hair and keep split ends or breakages at bay.
Most importantly, do as much as possible to steer clear of overzealous styling approaches such as abrasive hair-processing chemicals and heat styling, which ultimately do more harm than good under the pretense of looking good in the short term.
