How to Manage Hair Breakage
You may shake it off as just another hair concern, but hair breakage has the power to take over your life. From damaged, frizzy hair to a frazzled bird’s nest, hair breakage can put a damper even on the prettiest of lengths.
If you’ve been the one to pull apart your split ends too, it’s time to learn how to prevent hair breakage.
What causes hair breakage?
While it’s tough to imagine something as fluid as hair breaking, the concern is very real. According to Redken Artists, hair breakage occurs when the hair has been compromised and its proteins are weakened. Now this may be caused by chemical services such as color-treatments and highlights, or mechanical services like heat styling or blow drying.
Interestingly, a distressed strand does not look too different than that of a cotton candy. It can look frayed and similar to a flyaway, or sometimes you’ll really begin to notice the damage when split ends begin to appear.
What can I do to prevent hair breakage?
Learning how to prevent hair breakage is not that difficult after all. The truth is your common, everyday habits might be the real culprits behind all that breakage. To successfully stop hair breakage is actually unlearning these habits. Here’s how to prevent hair breakage with 5 small changes:
Gentle brushing
Combing, detangling, brushing - all of these come very naturally to us. Combing happens to be the first interaction we’ve had with our hair, however, this does not necessarily mean we’re doing it right. Careless brushing and combing often leads to hair breakage. Make sure you avoid over-brushing or brushing your hair too often. Make sure that you don’t comb your hair while it's still damp to prevent hair breakage. After a wash, use a microfiber towel or an old T-shirt to gently squeeze out excess water instead of rubbing your hair vigorously to stop hair breakage.
Proper hydration
Never skip on conditioners and masks if you want to learn how to prevent hair breakage. Make sure that your hair lengths and ends are getting ample nourishment with conditioners, leave-in treatments, and hair serums. You can also use hair masks once a week to provide extra moisture and stop hair breakage.
Skip heat styling
Heat styling on a daily basis may help you look polished but it does so at the cost of hair breakage. This is why using heat protectants before any styling tools is essential to preserve the integrity of your hair. The Redken Thermal Spray , for instance, helps protect hair from frizz and heat up to 230°C to give you shiny and natural looking styles. Whenever possible, try to use the lowest effective heat setting on your styling tools to try and stop hair breakage.
Avoid tight hairstyles
A slick back bun or a tight ponytail is a perfect updo for the office. It, however, may be too harsh on the hair on a daily basis. The tightly wound hairstyles, be it braids or buns, can cause tension in your lengths and lead to hair breakage. Despite a proper hair care regimen, if you still wonder how to prevent hair breakage, the looser hair updos are your answer. Try to switch up your hairstyle regularly to prevent constant stress on the same areas of your hair.
Repairing treatments
It’s important not to overload damaged hair with only conditioners or heavy products. One must strengthen and fortify the hair in order to fix it. So, what’s one to do when they’re suffering from hair breakage and damage? Redken’s Extreme hair care system for damaged hair can step in to save the day. When used as a complete regimen, with Redken Extreme shampoo and conditioner, Redken’s Extreme anti-snap leave-in treatment can reduce hair breakage significantly. Formulated with a strengthening protein complex, this product provides benefits to ensure hair that’s healthy-looking and resilient. Anti-Snap is used at home, once you get out of the shower, on towel dried hair. Apply it as a leave-in treatment and then style as usual.
With these simple practices infused into your hair care routine, you can significantly reduce hair breakage and promote healthier, stronger hair.
How can I work with my stylist to stop hair breakage?
You can learn how to prevent hair breakage with your stylists too. In addition to a strong product and hair care regimen, it’s important to remember that you can treat hair breakage at a salon too, depending on the type of damage you’re experiencing and what you need to strengthen your hair. Talk to your stylist about how to maintain the integrity of your hair while having the hair of your dreams. You might need a haircut to get rid of damage before you treat it and work to build it up.
Patience is the key to healing hair damage, but with the right products, it is possible to have healthy, beautiful hair!