Five Bad Hair Care Habits That Are Affecting Your Hair

Afro-American hair is very sensitive and fragile. African American hair care needs to be gentle and nourishing, allowing it to thrive as well as grow with health and vitality. It is important to know about bad hair care habits just like it is important to know what is good for your hair. The goodness can be easily nullified with bad hair care habits. They can even prevent you from having the kind of hair that you always wanted.

Five bad hair care habits

1. Not protecting your hair at night – Sleeping without a satin cover for your hair can expose your hair strands to friction due to contact with the cotton pillowcases. This can lead to roughening of the hair cuticles, resulting in frizz and most importantly it can suck out the moisture from the hair. Covering up your hair at night can also protect your hairstyle for longer.
2. Not moisturizing your hair – Afro-American hair is inherently dry and needs a lot of moisturizing for making it shiny as as well as healthy. Moisturizing on a regular basis makes sure that your hair strands are not parched, reducing the occurrence of frizz. Moisturizing also makes the hair strands less vulnerable to breakage and damage.
3. Tackling wet hair – Wet hair is very fragile and prone to breakage. Hair cuticles can easily get disrupted, making the hair look frizzy and puffy when combed while it is wet. The best thing to do is to comb your hair with a wide-toothed comb, if you absolutely must, and let it air dry completely after that.
4. Using heating tools to style your hair – Heat-based styling tools like blow dryers and hair irons directly apply heat on the hair strands to alter its structure for styling. Over use of heating tools on the hair can be very damaging. It makes the moisture in the hair evaporate, making your hair excessively dry, leaving it brittle and weak.
5. Applying moisturizer and conditioners all over – The objective of moisturizers and conditioners is to hydrate the hair strands by penetrating into the cuticles. The scalp produces natural oils automatically, but in case of Afro-American hair they do not travel to the entire length of the hair strands due to its curly nature. It is for this reason that moisturizers have to be applied to the strand ends, which are also the oldest part of your hair.

Using a hair brush, using sulphate shampoos, over washing your hair and excessive chemical use are some of the other bad hair habits that have to be stopped for making your tresses long and healthy.