Busting those haircare hacks
We’ve all heard a so called ‘hair hack’, whether it’s our grandmother’s advice on regular brushing, a school friend passing on a rumour, or wisdom overheard in the gym changing room. Advice often seems contradictory and it’s difficult to know which pearl of wisdom should be trusted. At Noughty, we’re all about separating fact from fiction with a hefty dose of common sense and science. So, we’ve sifted through the old wives’ tales of haircare, to bring you facts you can trust.
So, let’s play a game of fact or fiction.
1. Hair grows faster if you cut it regularly.
Hair grows from follicles in your scalp. Nothing you do to the ends is going to speed up growth. Having said that, regular trims get rid of split ends and breakage, which can make your hair look thin and past its prime. Having it trimmed every 8 weeks or so will keep on top of any splits or breaks, leaving it looking healthier, thicker and therefore longer.
2. 100 brushstrokes = healthy hair
Well, mostly. The theory behind this old chestnut is that brushing distributes the scalp’s protective natural oil further down the hair shaft and stimulates the hair to produce more. The reality is that over-brushing like this is a recipe for broken or damaged strands of hair. Instead, stimulate the scalp with a gentle fingertip massage and only brush your hair as needed, using a wide-toothed comb or soft bristle brush.
3. Oily hair? Skip conditioning.
Oily hair is caused by the amount of sebum your scalp produces. As a rule of thumb, the finer your hair is, the more sebaceous glands you have, so the more oil you produce. It has nothing to do with whether your hair needs conditioning or not. You can, however, make your hair oilier by using a conditioner not suited to your hair type, or applying it incorrectly. If you have an oily scalp, only apply conditioner and treatments to the ends of your hair.
4. Change is essential: shampoos stop working
A shampoo will cleanse the same way the 100th time as the first time you used it. What does change is your hair and the challenges you put it through. Water hardness, colouring, seasons, heat styling, skipping trips to the hairdresser, moving to a city with more air pollution…all involve environmental factors that impact on your hair and the suitability of a shampoo (and a conditioner, too). It’s why we recommend adding a clarifying shampoo like Detox Dynamo to your regime, swapping To The Rescue when the heat comes on in the winter and you need more moisture, or Colour Bomb when you add some va-va-voom with a new shade.
5. Want your hair to grow faster? Sleep with it loose.
Your hair grows at the rate it grows – on average that’s half an inch or 1.25cm a month. The fact in this myth is that tying the hair back tightly for an extended period puts it under tension. Tension = increased risk of weakness, snaps, splits and breakage. All of which adds up to thinner looking and feeling hair. If you’ve got to sleep with your hair tied back, do it loosely. Reach for a gentle, fabric tie like a scrunchie.
6. Double shampooing is the route to clean hair.
Mostly. If you’re washing your hair daily or more, there’s little point in a double cleanse. However, if you wash your hair less frequently than every other day, you’ve used lots of styling product or a heavy treatment on it or exposed it to lots of factors that lead to build-up, the double is for you. The first wash should be about removing the worst of the build-up, the second about deeply cleansing the hair and scalp.