Hair Growing tips by Sarah Ingle | All about hair

Sarah Ingle shared a science-based guide to growing long hair. According to Sarah Ingle, if you are struggling to find good information out there, it's because of a lot of trashy information without a relevant source. Sources that Sarah used to think were credible turns out to have skewed, misleading, or flat out wrong advice.

Most of this guide comes from 800-page hair physics and chemistry books which is the only science-based long hair guide. So, lets' burst some myth and find out what it really takes to get your hair long!

How does hair grow?

As Sarah Ingle says, first we need to understand how hair grows? The four phases of hair growth are Anagen (the growing phase), Catagen (the transition or shrinking of the follicle phase), Telogen (the resting phase) & the exogen (the shedding Phase)

the one that you want to remember is the anagen phase that growth phase in order for your hair to be growing. Most people's hair on average grows about inches a year and can grow hair to be around 3 feet long if they don't damage it or cut it.

Fun fact is one of the studies that helped determine was done at Disney World.

This myth is burst by Sarah Ingle. According to her, you need to grow your hair faster for it. In 1988, a woman named Diane Witt was listed in the Guinness book of world records for having the longest hair.

After 4 years when her hair was measured again, it was 12 feet long. Diane did not grow any faster than average.

Why did her hair get so long?

Diane Anagen phase lasted over 20 years and she also didn't cut it or break off. So, was her hair healthy? Probably not by the hairdresser's standard but healthy enough not to break.

The 2 keys to LONG Hair

So, your 2 keys to long hair are:

1. Keep your hair in the growth phase as long as possible.

2. Keeping your hair from breaking off (And obviously, not cutting it)

So, do you want perfectly healthy hair? Do you want long hair? or wanna style your hair a lot?

How to keep your hair in the growth phase longer?

Let's first talk about how to make your hair stay in the growth phase longer. Both hair loss when people's hair starts to thin and the length of hair is tied to the growth phase. The growth phase of hair typically lasts 2 to 6 years for most people. It's completely normal to shed some hair as it is a part of the cycle.

• In adult Caucasians ages 18 to 35 the hair sheds about 100 hairs per day.

• Asians hair sheds 70 hairs per day.

• African hair sheds about 60 hair per day.

If you are malnourished, it's going to mess up your hair growth cycle and you are going to lose hair. This is why hair gummies can kind of make the claim that they do. Vitamins that are in hair gummies typically are things that are shown because if you are deficient in them it can make you lose hair. Nothing like growing hair faster or so. Most people are not deficient in the vitamins present in the hair gummies. Also, most of the gummies are just multivitamins and they are just charging you the most for the pretty packaging and the marketing.

Note: there are no scientific studies n healthy subjects demonstrating the effects of dietary vitamins on hair growth.

So, no vitamins or minerals can make your hair grow faster or longer!

There are a lot of things about the hair growth cycle that we don't understand but we do know that it has a lot to do with hormones. Hormones are so intertwined with your hair growth cycle that pregnant women's hair tends to stay longer in the growth phase. And maybe this why many people think that prenatal vitamins make hair grow and it's not actually the case. The fact is that the hormones that happen during pregnancy make people's hair stay longer in the growth phase. The shedding rate also typically goes way up after having their baby. After having a baby, their hair sheds like crazy.

The shedding rate also increases with age, especially with men. Another little variation is that there's more hair fall in the fall.

So how do you get your hair to stay longer in the growth phase?

There are chemicals that make the hair growth phase last longer and the moment you stop using those products, you hair falls out. There are lot of good evidences to support laser LED therapy. It is meant to help people with hair loss but technically, if it is helping your hair stay longer in the growth, it could potentially when you are dealing with really long hair It would make your hair grow longer than it would otherwise.

Stopping your hair breakage!

To stop hair breakage, let's understand the hair structure.

The cuticle is the clear scale on the outside of the hair that protect everything on the inside of the hair shaft like shingles on a house they're overlapping the cuticle is your protection barrier. And the cuticles differ dramatically between different races and hair types.

Asians hair typically has the most layers of scales, Caucasians has fewer layers of scale, and African has the fewest layers of cuticle scales. More layers means more protection and the more you open the cuticle, the more you wear down the protection means hair can be damaged easily and be frizzy.

So avoid products with high ph levels like bleach and even many shampoos because they lift open the cuticle scales leaving the hair extra vulnerable to damage.

Another piece of the puzzle is the cross section shape. So if you think of your hair as a big long noodle and you chop it then the circle part is the cross section. The asian hair tend to be the most perfectly round in a cross section than caucasians is still pretty round but it's little bit more elliptical and African hair is tend to be the most elliptical.

Because Asian hair has the most layers of cuticles and it is the most perfectly round hair shaft, it tend to be more resistant to damage on multiple levels on from pulling, twisting, and even chemicals. Also, it makes harder to bleach. African hair is on the opposite extreme. It has fewer cuticle, the elliptical shape and the curl pattern, the cuticle scale doesn't fit together as uniformly. So the hair is much more susceptible to breakage.

So depending on what type of hair you have you understand that it can be more or less susceptible to damage.

How to reduce damage to your hair?

It's actually you who is breaking your hair while brushing it. Some of the treatment and heat does make your hair fragile and damages the cuticle but the actual breaking usually happens with brushing and combing. So when you get the tangle in your hair then go through the tangle and work it out to detangle it. That way it's going to be less breakage.

In fact,

Go for tapered haircut than a blunt hair cut as you'll get 3x as many split end combing.

Use combs and brushes with more space between the teeth lead to less complex tangles. And it lowers the combing force so it cause less abrasion and fewer boken hair.

Most importantly,

If your hair is curly then may not break your while combing wet hair however on the opposite side straight or wavy hair tend to break more while combing wet hair.

Whatever your hair types is, use the detangler to brush or comb your hair.

So the overall 20 tips are

1. Avoid Bleach

2. Avoid heat styling

3. Use UV Protection

4. Protective hair styles especially in bed

5. Silk/Satin Bonnet for sleeping

6. Silk/Satin Pillowcase

7. Switch up Protective Styles

8. Avoid products with high ph

9. Don't wash your hair every day (Water temporarily breaks hydrogen bond and swells the cuticle.

10. Always use conditioner with shampoo

11. Use a shower filter

12. Secure your hair before going to exercising or in wind

13. Use Silk/Satin hair elastic

14. Avoid pool Water

15. Avoid or be careful with blow drying

16. Do not tease your hair

17. Avoid twisting (especially if your have coily hair)

18. Avoid chemical straightening & Relaxers

19. Rubbing hair each other damage the hair avoid rubbing or moving too much

20. Avoid DIY treatments unless you are really aware

At last, Do NOT compare your hair with one another.