Description:
Hair Care
Contents:
Hair Comes in Many Colors
What kind of hair do you have black and curly, blond and straight, or some other combination? Hair color comes from melanin (say: mel-uh-nun), the substance that gives hair and skin its pigment. The lighter someone's hair, the less melanin there is. A person with brown or black hair has much more melanin than someone with blond or red hair. Older people lose the melanin pigment in their hair as they age, making their hair look gray or white.
Often, a person's skin color goes with the color of his or her hair. For example, many blondes have light skin, whereas many people with darker skin have dark brown or black hair. And don't forget genes (genes are what you inherit from your parents): Usually, a kid's hair color is determined by one or both parents' hair color.
When it comes to type, your hair follicles make a difference. Some hair follicles are structured in a way that produces curly hair, whereas others send out straight hair. Follicles also determine if your hair will be thick and coarse or thin and fine.qfpu6a4g7d
Taking Care of Hair
With hair, the main thing is keeping it clean. Some people wash their hair every day, but others do it just once or twice a week. It depends on your hair and what kind of things you've been doing, like exercising or swimming.
When you wash your hair, use a gentle shampoo and warm water. Lather up using your fingertips, rather than your fingernails. You might use a conditioner or a shampoo containing a conditioner. This can take the tangles out or your hair and make it look smooth. But depending on your hair, it can also make it look flat and oily. Rinse your hair with plenty of clean water. Dry it gently with a towel and use a wide-tooth comb to untangle it.
Be kind to your hair wet or dry by being gentle when you comb or brush your hair. Don't yank on knots too hard and don't wear your ponytails and braids too tight. This can irritate your scalp. And if you use curling irons or blow-dryers, be careful and ask for adult help when needed. You don't want to burn yourself.
Here's an easy way to have great-looking hair: Eat a healthy diet. It's not as weird as it sounds. A nutritious diet helps your body from the inside out!
Hair Comes From Where?
Whether hair is growing out of your head, arm, or ankle, it all rises out of the skin in the same way. It starts at the hair root, a place beneath the skin where cells band together to form keratin (the protein that hair is made of). The root is inside a follicle, which is like a small tube in the skin.
As the hair begins to grow, it pushes up from the root and out of the follicle, through the skin where it can be seen. Tiny blood vessels at the base of every follicle feed the hair root to keep it growing. But once the hair is at the skin's surface, the cells within the strand of hair aren't alive anymore. The hair you see on every part of your body contains dead cells. That's why it doesn't cause pain when someone cuts your hair with scissors!
Nearly every hair follicle is attached to a sebaceous gland, which is sometimes called an oil gland. These sebaceous glands produce oil, which makes the hair shiny and a bit waterproof. Sometimes, like during puberty, these glands can pump out too much oil and a person's hair may look greasy. Time for a shampoo!
Your Hair
When you think of your hair, you probably think of the hair on your head. But there's hair on almost every part of your body.
(Some places that don't have hair include the lips, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet.)
Some of the hair on your body is easy to see, like your eyebrows and the hair on your head, arms, and legs. But other hair, like that on your cheek, is almost invisible.
Depending on where it is, hair has different jobs. The hair on your head keeps your head warm and provides a little cushioning for your skull. Eyelashes protect your eyes by decreasing the amount of light and dust that go into them, and eyebrows protect your eyes from sweat dripping down from your forehead.
Hair Loss is a Major Problem
Many people are scared to become bald, both male and female. Many of them worry when they see an amount of hair in their basin after shampooing. But as a matter of fact, our hair naturally loses about 50-100 hairs. The hairs removed often stays on our head. So when we take a shower we see a lot of hair in the basin, truth is this hair had been shed earlier.
It is really hard to tell if your hair is starting to get thin. Bald spots may be one of the signs but there is no assurance for it. There is a way to find out if your hair is starting to thin. The so-called Tug test, using your thumb and index finger, hold about 15-20 strands of hair. Pull it firmly and slowly. If more than 6 hairs were removed, you can say it is starting to get thin.
Hair loss can be caused by heredity and such major illness. Hair loss is generally a major problem for adults (elderly). But in some cases, teens start to loss their hair too. It is a great sign that there is something going wrong. Hair loss in adolescence stage is caused by illness or improper diet. Some caused by medical treatments, like chemotherapy. Wearing hairstyles that pulls hair also causes it, like braids, because there is tension on it.
Losing hair is really a great worry especially for teenagers that are concern with their appearance. The good news is, in adolescence stage it is really often happening.
Once the causes of it were corrected, hair usually grows back.
Here are common mistakes of people about hair loss. It is not true that when you brush your hair about 100 times it will be stimulated. It might only cause you hair injury.
Hairs really dont breath. They get their oxygen from our blood in our scalps. Our hair will be damaged only because of wig or caps if it is too tight. Frequent cleansing and shampooing of hair is really not one cause of hair falling. Most hairs that are being removed by shampoo are the hairs that are already fallen out. Protein-containing conditioners and shampoos help our hair grow and nourished? False. It only fills the surface of the hair shaft. Making it thicker and much smoother.
We must take care of our hair to prevent hair loss, avoid too much style that would put tension on it. Avoid unnecessary gadgets for our hair to maintain its natural beauty.
What causes hair loss?
There are generally two types of hair loss:
* Anagen effluvium - Permanent hair loss caused by the destruction of hair follicles
* Telogen effluvium - Temporary hair loss due to transitory damage to the follicles
Anagen effluvium is generally due to internally administered medications, such as chemotherapy agents, that poison the growing hair follicles. Telogen effluvium is due to an increased number of hair follicles entering the resting stage. The most common causes of telogen effluvium are:
* Physical stress - Surgery, illness, anemia, rapid weight change
* Emotional stress - Mental illness, death of a family member
* Thyroid abnormalities
* Medications - High doses of vitamin A (sometimes present in diet supplements), blood pressure medications, gout medications
* Hormonal changes - Pregnancy, birth control pills, menopause
Hair loss can occur as thinning, in which you may not notice hair falling out, or as shedding, in which clumps of hair fall out.
In the most common type of hair loss, inherited hair loss , men tend to lose hair on the front hairline and forehead and on top of the head.
Eventually, only hair around the ears, the sides, and back of the head remains.
Women with this condition typically have gradual thinning throughout the scalp.
Inherited hair loss (androgenetic alopecia, also known as male- or female-pattern hair loss) is the most common cause of hair loss.
It is inherited from either or both the mother and the father.
* In men, hair loss occurs on the front hairline and forehead and on the top of the head. Bald spots are noticeable.
* In women, hair loss occurs as thinning of hair throughout the entire scalp, including the top and sides.
Women do not generally have bald spots but rather have overall thinning hair.
Other causes of hair loss may also show distinct patterns.
For example, conditions such as trichotillomania (compulsively pulling at the hair) or alopecia areata (in which the immune system attacks hair follicles) result in obvious patches of hair loss, while stress and some medications result in clumps of hair falling out.
Because hair is an important part of appearance, hair loss can also result in loss of self-esteem and feeling unattractive, especially in women and teens.
Treatment Overview
Some people choose to treat hair loss with medications or surgery, such as hair transplantation. Others choose to wear hairpieces (wigs or toupees) or use different methods of hair styling (dyeing or combing). The approach you use depends on the cause of your hair loss. Some people feel they need treatment, while others are not as concerned about thinning hair or baldness.
If a disease, medication, or stress is the underlying cause, treating the disease, changing medications, or eliminating or learning to manage the stress may stop the hair loss.
Treatment for hair loss may boost self-esteem and overall well-being
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