I have an insane obsession with my hair, I confess. While I was younger, (centuries ago, sniff), I changed my hairstyle and color more than thousand times. I had short, boyish style, very easy to maintain and cute with the right make up. I washed it everyday in the shower and applied a little gel, and I was ready to go. However,(oh, insecurity, damaging fruit of the puberty!), after a little while, I started to dream about long and sweet curls, a romantic vision of a beautiful maid brushing her hair while her refection on the peaceful water of the lake shakes her long and thick hair…Right. It is no way a short hair become long hair overnight, no sir. Hair grows six inches per year, one and a half inch per month. Grow your hair is a painful and long process, and takes you through stages of agony while you are unable to style it, and each part of hair has it’s own mind and grows at the direction that pleases it. A disaster.
Nevertheless, you can be patience, and become an artist of the styling products, a genius of the wax, the gel or mousse. You can go regularly to the salon to trim it. And you can seriously take a hard and responsible position on the question, and avoid caffeine, stop smoking, and stop drinking sodas. Like always, the hardest way is the most effective. If you want a healthy hair that grows fast, you must change your diet, eat plenty of fruits and veggies, drink plenty of water and very important, take your vitamins. A blend of vitamins C B and A, minerals, and folic acid will make have nice hair and energy enough to run alone the American electric system. Hey, here goes a trick: drink a blend of bananas, honey, yogurt and milk, some people say that works pretty well.
When my hair was on the right way to become a long nice hair, after go trough all the painful process, I decided impulsively to cut it short again. Yes, I was so stupid. However, always was some reason: a nice short haircut I saw on a magazine, the tiredness to be taking care of it all the time, or “Pretty in Pink. I do not know, but soon, there I was, ready to start again the road to long hair.
Not only I changed sickly often my hairstyle; I never really knew what color could fit me better. I started to lighten with chamomile and peroxide water. Yes, you can believe it. Luckily, I was a young healthy woman, and my poor hair resisted without a lot of damage. But let me tell you, sometimes strange things were happening, like strands turning to a suspicious green shade, or bunches of hair were found hopeless dead around the house. So please, go to the salon to do your color, do not play mad scientist with it. If you want some natural shine and highlights, use some chamomile as rinse water, and use color specific shampoos. If you have to do it yourself, use no permanent color, will be less damaging. Do not get suicidal and dye your hair in deep black, as I did, in a gothic style attack. Was a strong but short attack, and I figured out too late that black is not easy to remove. Therefore, I cut it again, and waited until grew.
I think the worst nightmare with hair, the curse almost nobody can escape from, is the horror of discover split ends. Oh, terror, what I can do! Cut it. It is the only way to eliminate them. There are tricks to prevent the split ends, though. First, do not wash your hair compulsively, night and day, like all the dirt of the world is stuck in your head. No, simply wash it every other day, with one shampoo round is enough, and always, always apply conditioner. Do not rub it with the towel, smashing it as if you want to kill it. Be gentle, and if is possible, let it air dry. I love to use weekly masks, I vary them depending of my needs: eggs to strength it, Vaseline or baby oil to hydrate it, or avocado. Use a can of flat beer to add volume, vinegar for makes it shine. A mixture of lemon and vinegar improves the shine, but remember extra condition it, because can dry your hair. Do not abuse of styling products, and use now and then clarifying shampoos to clean all the strange objects that inexplicably get adhered to your hair, so it can breathe, free at last.
Do you suffer from greasy hair? Use a little mint water for rinse it after shampoo. Freeze hair? Put some almond oil in your fingers and comb your hair with them. Do you want to enhance your highlights? Wash your hair with a little amount of Dawn dishwasher. Do you have dry sad hair? Cheer it up with weekly treatments of hot oil. Do not rub your hair with a towel after wash it, try to air dry it, or secure it with elastic at the top of your head and dry blow your scalp. Use specific anti freeze, hydrant or oil control shampoos and conditioners, and don forget the weekly deep conditioning. Even better, to avoid humidity that causes frizzy hair, move to the desert. However, there you will have to treat it for dryness. Hair care is a constant work, and we cannot skip it one single day! Sigh.
