Hair Experts Debunk 15 Hair Myths

Let's address this statement:"Hair grows faster when you constantly cut it":This is a myth. Hair growth occurs from the hair follicles in the scalp. Cutting the ends of your hair doesn't affect the rate at which hair grows from the scalp. Hair growth rate is primarily determined by genetics, age, health, and hormonal factors.Hi i'm annabelle kingsley i'm consultant psychologist and brand president at philip kingsley and a trichologist is a scientist of the hair and scalp hi i'm dr howard i'm a new york-based board-certified dermatologist and the founder of girl and hair dermatology is the study of the skin scalp hair and mucous membranes and today we will be debunking myths about hair hair grows faster when you constantly cut it myth hair grows around half an inch a month and cutting it won't speed up that process on average we have around 120 000 hair follicles on our scalp and they're all going through different phases of the hair growth cycle right correct so there's anagen catagen telogen and oxygen and right now on your scalp generally up to 90 of hairs will be in the growth phase and then the rest are waiting to fall out and then some are shedding so hair is not going to grow faster if you cut it but it will look nice if you get your trims regularly you have dandruff because your scalp is dry dandruff isn't a dry scalp problem it's actually almost always oily dandruff is also known as seborrheic dermatitis an overgrowth of naturally occurring yeast on your scalp called the malassezia yeast and they are lipophilic which means they love oil yes they gobble it up and the more oils on your scalp the harder they are the happier they are the more flakes you tend to see yes you might find it's behind your ears on the side of your nose eyebrows so it can be right here even yeah wherever the yeast likes the sebum some things to treat dandruff are targeted shampoos scalp toners scalp masks and also look at what you're eating washing your hair every day is bad for you it's a myth but there is some fact in there you want to treat your scalp just as you treat your skin so you want to make sure it's properly cleansed you want to make sure you have good hydration on the scalp if you are a very active person maybe you want to cleanse some more fine hair like mine if i don't shampoo daily my roots get very greasy and flat and the reason for this is that when you have fine hair you have more hairs on your scalp and therefore you have more oil glands on your scalp because every hair is attached to an oil gland whereas coarser hair textures sometimes you know the sebum has a hard time leaving the scalp to the tip of the hair and it's counterintuitive because you think that maybe coily hair or textured hair you don't want to wash it a lot but actually the washing process is a part of the hydration process so the more you wash the more you hydrate shaving causes hair to grow back thicker and darker so hair naturally grows tapered so when you shave you just make the ends blunt and you're cutting the hair at a thicker point along the hair shaft so shaving may appear to make your hair grow thicker and darker but it actually doesn't if you were wax you're taking the hair out of the foam out of the follicle so it's still going to grow back tapered if shaving did make our hair grow back thicker i'd shave my hair air drying your hair is better than blow drying it depends on your method again so if you are air drying but your method of air drying is really scrunching or constantly tugging and you know yeah that's going to be more damaging well you know what i know some people who like air dry but they're like running out of the house and they'll swoop their hair in a ponytail but it's like wet in the middle but dry on the outside that could be a problem with that wet hair all the time in the middle or at the base of your scalp yeah so if you just brush your hair gently and let it dry without really touching it much without roughly towel drying it that's fine but equally blow drying doesn't have to be damaging if you do it properly in the right way and using a heat protectant great you should hold it at least six inches away like around this far away you can start on a medium heat setting and then reduce to low as you go you use the back of your hand as a reference if it feels too hot it's too hot for your hair especially with curly or coily or zigzag pattern hair a hooded dryer may be a good choice if you like to wear wigs weaves box braids and sometimes air drying it might not be the best option because you can get mold and mildew within the braids if it's not dry properly one isn't necessarily better than the other all method dependent shampooing causes extra hair loss myth this is something that i hear all the time what shampooing does is it simply dislodges hairs that were sitting loosely in their hair follicle and were ready to come out so you're not actually causing hair loss it's normal to lose up to 100 hairs a day but i really do encourage my clients who are experiencing excessive deadly hair shedding to shampoo regularly because it's really important in terms of keeping your scalp healthy and the healthier your scalp is the better able it is to support new 100 agree focus on your scalp when you shampoo and just the suds that run down through the lengths of your hair will be enough to cleanse them only shaving causes ingrown hairs myth waxing can cause ingrown hairs with any hair removal method if you break the hair instead of pulling it out right from the root you're more likely to get an ingrown hair because the end will be blunt as opposed to tapered it's all about like when you cut the hair the angle in which you're cutting it goes back into the skin so you have a curling but what happens when that curling occurs there is an inflammatory response that happens with that curling so that's where you get the red bump and sometimes that red bump can become a pus fill bump and you can have a real situation there perhaps shaving after shower i'm using a blade designated for sensitive skin could be helpful or a fresh sharp blade yes and also exfoliation so gentle exfoliation you know maybe once twice a week yes absolutely stress makes you have gray hair well there are elements of truth and myth to this so when you go gray is largely dependent on genes so if your mother or your father went gray early it does increase the chances that you will too but stress can certainly speed up the process your hair's color is determined by something called melanin which is pigment and the color of your hair ranging from blonde hair which will have less melanin to darker hair which will have a lot more melanin when your hair bulb stops producing these pigment cells is when you start to turn gray i think embracing the grays totally um it can look beautiful or you can color over them whatever works for you if you pluck a gray hair two more will grow in its place myth what i find happens is that when you notice one gray hair you go searching for others so maybe you're just looking more as you're saying yeah so you start like a private eye yeah and you find them everywhere there's a strand screw tonight you're saying it's all in your mind there is no data that shows that if you pluck a gray hair you have two yeah sprout up this myth is really common but i just think maybe it's it's a word of caution because you shouldn't pluck gray hairs out because over time if you continuously pull a hair out of its follicle you can damage the hair follicles you don't want to damage your no we love them so much and you think well one isn't going to make a difference but when one turns into 30 and you're constantly plucking 30 or more then you can get you know patches of hair loss on your skin that's never good no you can repair a split end myth once it's split that's it it's split yeah nice thanks split ends happen because of general day-to-day weathering so blow drying brushing towel drying it roughly wind exposure uv exposure holy hat that you bought that you think is so cool that you want to wear all winter so hair doesn't regenerate itself treat your hair like your favorite cashmere sweater yes but if you want to cure for a split and you have to cut it baldness is only passed down through your mother losing your hair has some genetic components but it's not only because mom lost her hair the boldness gene could be passed from your mother's side it could be passed from your father's side it could even be inherited from a grandparent or a great-grandparent there are many different types of hair loss so hereditary hair loss or boldness which i i don't really like it's called androgenic alopecia or reduced hair volume so androgenic alopecia is a genetic type of hair loss that can be inherited from either your mother or your father's side but it's also dependent on your hormone levels specifically your androgens so anything that impacts your hormone levels can then impact your hair so it can potentially make density changes worse so things like polycystic ovary syndrome menopause oral contraceptives puberty pregnancy so the best thing is to speak to a trichologist or a dermatologist so that they can speak to you about all the different options that are available the more you brush your hair the healthier it will be so brushing or over brushing can actually cause micro tears along the hair shaft and be potentially bad for your hair especially when it comes to textured coily or zigzag pattern hair and there's actually something where there's finger detangling in the coily or natural hair community where you use your fingers to detangle your hair so you should detangle your hair regularly just so that those tangles don't accumulate and mat together look for a brush with rounded plastic prongs so these aren't going to scratch your hair or your scalp and a vented cushion base do the back of hand test so gently run your brush over the back of your hand if it leaves red marks if if it feels harsh or scratchy it's going to be damaging your hair for curly or textured hair there are actually two brushes that i really love one is called the felicia leatherwood brush it has openings so when you brush coily hair the brush actually expands it's like a spring and then there's another one called the cosmology brush they have really big teeth you know so you can definitely get it through really coarse and thick hair oils will make hair grow faster and longer oh this is a good one no oh i cannot stand when i see magic growth oils jordan rip that one up oils do not make your hair grow faster and longer but eating enough oils in your diet important to scalp yes so rather than you know putting olive oil on your scalp put on your salad i have to tell you about what's going on in the curly community there's a whole big discussion about no oil so there's some stylists who said absolutely no oils on the hair i never really suggest applying pure oil to your hair but using a cream it contains things like olive oil or castor oil or coconut oil those can be really beneficial to the aesthetic appearance of your hair wigs weaves and braids always protect your hair myth not all the time i sometimes wear my hair out naturally sometimes i put it in a bun sometimes i wear box braids sometimes i wear a wig or weave it all depends on my mousse so it's a part of just changing hairstyles but in that with curly textured hair you can experience some hair loss with the frequent changing some people use protective styling as a way to minimize the manipulation on their hair but if it's too heavy if it's in too long if you neglect your scalp while you have your weave or if your wig braids are too tight you're putting too much traction on your hair follicle or your hair it can cause breakage exactly exactly i like to call it responsible protective styling you know not only relying on one style for too long so letting your hair breathe and just wearing your hair as is you should not neglect your scalp you should be cleansing you should be hydrating finding someone who really understands responsible protective styling so if you're going to a salon and making sure he or she understands that tight is never good tenderness is never good because it hurts if it hurts it's never good tenderheaded is just that myth and it's a phrase that we hear all the time right if you say ouch you know you might get a little pang of the comb to be still and you hear phrases like tenderheaded when you're super small so you grow up thinking it's just a part of life that you're just sensitive in certain areas because you've always been told that you're sensitive in those areas and while that may be true for some people as far as just like scalp sensitivity for many people actually the tenderheadedness could mean something else there could be inflammation there on a microscopic level that if we catch early especially scarring alopecia it can do good tenderness isn't necessarily normal and you don't want to dismiss it never suffer in silence and be really discerning when it comes to choosing your products if you're experiencing hair loss or a scalp concerned you can either see a trichologist or a dermatologist or even a really experienced stylist who's all about education hair education can take you a long way