Losing Hair Over Your Kids? 10 Hair Saving Tips For You!
Published 08 September 2022 at 17:56
Tickikids Blog Singapore > Childhood reading > Losing Hair Over Your Kids? 10 Hair Saving Tips For You!
Being a parent isn’t easy. It can take a toll on your physical and mental health. Taking care of little humans day in and day out is a rigorous task. It is quite possible that this stress can lead to significant hair loss. Losing your hair can lead to emotional stress and doubting your personality.
You need to regain control of the situation and get that hair back! What if we told you that there are some simple ways in which you can take control and get your hair back? In this article, we look at the two phases of preventing hair loss – saving them when you still have hair, and trying to regain your hair should your hair loss be more severe.
Hair saving tips
It is always advisable to try to maintain and keep existing hair healthy to prevent drastic hair loss later. Here’s our advice for parents – we’ve kept it simple in the hope that busy parents will find it useful and easy to follow:
1. Eat Right
Treat the root cause. Being a parent means being too busy to even eat at times. You may start relying on unhealthy snacks and ready to cook meals that save you time but these seldom provide you with the nutrition you need to have healthy hair!
You need a good amount of protein and also zinc sources in your food to ensure new cell and hair growth. Make sure you eat a balanced diet that has one portion of protein at every meal.
This will help keep you full for longer so you don't binge on unhealthy foods and also ensure that your body has the right nutrients to grow healthy hair and nails!
2. Take Vitamins
Sometimes, eating well isn’t enough and you can’t fulfil all your nutritional needs through your food only. You may need to take extra vitamins on top to ensure healthy hair growth. Deficiency of certain vitamins including vitamins A,B,D,C,E and Zinc can lead to hair loss. Even low iron levels can be a root cause.
A series of tests performed by your healthcare provider can help determine your deficiencies and then chart the way forward for the prescription. Your doctor may also recommend intake of biotin to boost healthy hair growth.
3. Use a Softer Hair Brush
Brushing your hair is and should be a daily habit. You don’t want them to tangle up and then break when you’re combing or brushing them. Ideally, you should invest in a detangler and a hair brush made from natural fibre.
When you gently brush hair using a good brush, you are releasing the good oils and massaging the cuticles to stimulate growth. Aim at brushing your hair when you get up in the morning and right before you are about to sleep.
4. Use a Mild Shampoo
Hair care products play a vital role in maintaining good hair health. As a general rule, you should aim for applying mild and sulfate and detergent-free shampoo to your hair. This is especially true if you shampoo your hair on a daily basis.
If you have just given birth, hormonal changes may affect your hair. So even if you have not been using a mild shampoo in the past and it was alright for your hair, if you see signs of hair loss postpartum, you may want to consider switching to a milder shampoo.
5. Avoid Chemicals and Bleach
Keratin, naturally found in your hair, is a hair-splitting protein molecule that can get damaged by the repeated use of chemicals like bleach and hair dyes containing ammonia.
When you’re trying to regain the strength of your hair, you should avoid using these chemicals altogether. Concentrate on regaining hair strength before you can start dying them again.
6. Stay Away From Heat
This may sound pretty straightforward but you need to stop using all kinds of styling options that involve heat. This includes flat and curling irons and blow dryers of all kinds. Heat damages the root of the hair and leaves it weak and listless. It may be a more meticulous process but using heatless products can pay off in the long run.
You should use your hair dryer on low heat or no heat where possible. This helps maintain the natural moisture in your hair and avoids damaging parts of the hair that may be sensitive to heat. Heat may overdry brittle hair, causing them to become frizzy.
7. Hair gaining tips
Should all else fail and you are still losing hair, you might have to resort to more drastic options. The good news is that with modern technology, hair treatment and replacement options are plenty available, from laser therapy to herbal tonics, to suit your preferences and hair loss type.
8. Hair Growth or Hair Loss Prevention Shampoos
Most people looking to regain hair growth will start by using hair growth shampoos. These shampoos have been specially formulated with ingredients to help nourish hair, hair roots, and your scalp, in order to promote hair growth. Of course, with the variety out there, some trial and error may need to be done to find the right brand for you. Typically, should you use such a shampoo, you should be able to see results within the first week of washing. How do you tell if it’s working? Clear the drainage trap in your bath area of any hairs. For a week before you use a hair growth shampoo, wash your hair and see how much hair you collect in the drainage trap. This will be your “default” hair loss rate/quantity per week.
Now clear the drainage trap again and start using the hair growth or hair loss prevention shampoo. After a week, see how much hair collects in the trap. You should see a slight or drastic improvement in the amount of hair collected, then you know that brand works for you. We’ve used Cystiphane and Ecophane before and seen just such results after 3 days. Changing your shampoo is a quick and easy solution to prevent hair loss.
9. Hair Tonics
There are also hair tonics and medicated sprays to help you regain your crowning glory. Modern science has managed to isolate certain chemicals and compounds that have hair growth-promoting qualities. One such currently proven effective and backed by scientific data, is Minoxidil. Check that your hair tonic contains Minoxidil or ask your doctor about this.
Should you prefer a more organic option, there are herbal treatments too but these are not scientifically proven as yet. The cons to herbal treatments tend to be the lingering herbal smell on your hair. As herbs take a longer time to work on the scalp than lab-created chemicals, you may need to leave herbal tonics on your head for longer, and this may also be slightly more inconvenient. (a warning: some herbal tonics linger for days! So if you do not like herbal smells, best to check with the service provider or reviews from other customers to find out what their experience was like, before you embark on a hair tonic treatment package)
10. Laser or Scalp Treatments
Laser and other scalp treatments like Laser hair Growth Therapy, Red Light Therapy or Cold Light Therapy all refer to the same thing. It is a form of scalp treatment where laser rays (safe for use on human skin) are projected onto your scalp to reactivate dormant or “half-asleep” hair follicles in the hope that the laser heat will reactivate them to make them grow again. The heat from the lasers also increases blood flow to the scalp to prompt the growth of new hair.
From wearing a “laser helmet” to using a handheld laser device on your scalp, there are also many forms of scalp treatment to find which is the most comfortable for you. If you have a sensitive scalp, it is best to consult a dermatologist and have your scalp skin examined before going for these options.
11. Hair Transplants or Hair Replacements
If all else fails, you may want to consider a hair transplant or hair replacement as these are 100% effective and more or less instant in giving you your full head of hair back. A hair transplant is an invasive option that will require cosmetic surgery and procedures, while a hair replacement system will also give you your full head of hair with less pain and surgical risk.
Because of its quick and painless, risk-free and much cheaper benefits, hair replacement therapy is seeing an uptrend among busy professionals and parents. One such service provider for hair replacement that we came across is Rehair Lab. Rehair Lab uses long-established wig-making processes to create customized hairpieces for their clients, which they then use modern methods to affix to their clients’ scalps. This has enabled the company to create truly invisible hairpieces that look and feel natural, at an affordable cost, which we found quite interesting for parents to consider.
Hair is an essential part of anyone’s personality and hair loss can impact one’s confidence – it is no wonder that the hair management market is a large and robust one! The good news for parents is that the variety available is easily accessible and should you be a parent suffering from hair loss or are worried about the long-term health of your hair, we hope that these tips above will help you in some way.