Beauty Basics - Eight Tips For Naturally Beautiful Hair

Looking for a more natural approach to hair care? Here are some tips to help your hair look and feel its best.

1. Avoid shampoos that contain sodium laurel sulfate, or sodium laureth sulfate. These chemicals are synthetic detergents that are used in dishwashing liquid and other cleansers. They are valued because they lather well, but they are very harsh, and can dry out your hair. Instead, look for shampoos made with decyl glucose, or decyl glucoside, cleansers which are much gentler.

2. Give yourself a hot oil treatment to deep condition your hair. Warm oil penetrates the hair shaft making the hair more flexible and giving it shine. This can also help to prevent split ends which result from dry hair. You can make a simple hot oil treatment by warming up a natural vegetable oil such as jojoba oil. Jojoba oil is actually a liquid wax that comes from a desert plant. It has a chemical makeup similar to the sebum produced by human skin. This quality makes it an excellent choice for natural hair care.

3. Eat right and consider taking vitamin and mineral supplements to encourage healthy hair. Several vitamins and minerals such as biotin, vitamin E, vitamin B, vitamin C and MSM, have been shown to help the hair grow.

4. If you are an African American, or if you have extra curly hair, avoid brushing your hair. Use a ...(Continues Below)

wide toothed comb, or your fingers, to work with your hair. Brushes can destroy African American or extra curly hair by shearing it out of the scalp.

5. Look for essential oils, herbs, and vegetable oils in your hair care products. Essential oils such as rosemary, ylang-ylang and west indian bay help to stimulate hair growth. Lavender and tea tree and naturally antiseptic and help to fight dandruff. Vegetable oils such as soybean oil, safflower oil and corn oil are moisturizing and conditioning to the hair shaft.

6. Avoid sleeping in hair accessories such as barrettes, scrunchies, head bands, etc. Wearing these kinds of accessories when sleeping puts unnecessary stress on the hair and can lead to hair damage.

7. Massage your scalp to help stimulate hair growth. Massaging helps stimulate hair growth by increasing the blood flow to the scalp. This nourishes the hair roots and helps to stimulate the hair growth process.

8. If your hair ends are damaged, give yourself a trim every so often to remove damage.

About the author:

Copyright 2005, Ololade Franklin. Ololade Franklin publishes Making Good Scents(TM),the newsletter of handcrafted cosmetics, soaps and perfumes. For information about Making Good Scents(TM) visit http://www.MakingGoodScent s.com

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