Ultimate Guide to Repair Damaged Hair Follicles

Balanced Diet

The secret to a healthy life, in general, is a balanced diet. However, this is doubly true when it comes to hair follicles. The hair follicles not only require the right nutrients to support healthy hair, but they also need to be protected from hormones that the body produces naturally.

For instance, a derivative of testosterone called Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), is the most common reason for hair loss in the world today. While genetics play a role in the quantity of DHT produced in the body, DHT sensitivity has a direct correlation with bodily imbalances.

Since what you eat affects the equilibrium of your bodily processes, a balanced diet can go a long way in reducing DHT sensitivity. With a lower sensitivity to DHT in the body, your follicles will neither get damaged nor remain damaged for long even when the amount of DHT rises in your body.

Minimize the Grease

Greasy and fried foods have a huge impact on the health of your hair follicles. You must be aware that eating excess grease can cause your blood vessels to get clogged.

However, before that happens, your body tries to rid itself of the excess oils and fats that you’ve consumed. It does so by ejecting excess oils and fats via various outlets such as excreting, urinating, and sweating.

If your sweat becomes excessively oily, then it will start clogging your skin pores. In the scalp, it will clog not only the skin pores but also the follicles. This will reduce circulation to and from the follicles. As a result, your follicles will not only receive less nutrition but also be exposed to more hormones like DHT.

Consume More Biotin & Niacin

Biotin and niacin are both members of the vitamin B-complex family. Biotin is known as vitamin B7, while niacin is also called vitamin B3. They’re both extremely beneficial for hair growth and especially work well together.

Biotin is probably the most popular vitamin when it comes to hair care and justifiably so. There is enough anecdotal and scientific evidenceof biotin being beneficial for hair health.

While there are numerous stories of people benefitting from increased biotin intake online, the best scientific proof is the work done by Glynis Ablon. Ablon conducted two studies (2012 and 2015) and found biotin to be incredibly effective in slowing down hair loss and growing new hair in both.

Biotin works mainly by streamlining and strengthening the keratin infrastructure of the body. Since hair follicles are a key component of the body’s keratin infrastructure, they benefit from increased biotin intake.

Niacin, though, works differently. Niacin is beneficial for the body, and by extension, the hair in two ways. The first is that it facilitates the conversion of carbohydrates to energy and the other is that it improves blood circulation in the body. As a result, increased niacin intake can ensure that hair follicles receive the nutrition they need to repair themselves.

Biotin and niacin are very easy to incorporate into your diet. Both can be found in mushrooms, avocados, and peanuts.

Separately, biotin can be found in lentils, whole grains, nuts like walnuts and almonds, fruits like bananas and raspberries, eggs, and salmon. Similarly, niacin can be found separately in chicken, green peas, tuna, and turkey.

Start Taking Supplements

While changing your diet is the best way to incorporate the nutrients needed to repair damaged hair follicles, it isn’t the easiest way. The reason for this is that you cannot always govern your diet with such accuracy, especially if you’re busy professionally. There will always be days where either your schedule will be uncooperative or your iron will give out.

This is why most experts will tell you to support your dietary improvements with supplements. You cannot have too much of either biotin or niacin because they’re water-soluble vitamins. This means that if there is excess biotin or niacin in your body, it will be flushed out with water.

There is no dearth of biotin and niacin supplements in the market either. In fact, there are even supplements in the market that contain all the ingredients known for helping hair growth and damaged hair follicle recovery.

While you can choose from any of the available options, we recommend the HairAnew (Unique Hair Growth Vitamins with Biotin) simply because it is the most effective option out there.

The reason why this supplement is so effective is that it is based on biotin and includes niacin too. However, these aren’t the only ingredients in this supplement.

It contains several others known for their ability to boost hair follicles and hair growth such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin B-6, pantothenic acid, zinc, kelp, inositol, and silica. A side benefit of using this heady cocktail of crucial ingredients to repair your damaged hair follicles is that your skin and nails will show improvements too.

The biggest thing, though, is that you can use this supplement with other methods of repairing your damaged hair follicles. In fact, it is best to do that because the other methods will make this supplement more potent.

Stop Smoking

Smoking is, both indirectly and directly, responsible for hair loss and damaged hair follicles.

Indirectly, smoking damages hair follicles because it increases the rate at which the body ages. People who smoke a lot lose stamina quicker and develop wrinkles faster. Moreover, these people are more prone to diseases of various types.

Directly, studies have revealed that smoking can affect hair follicle health in a wide variety of ways. These include the breakdown of the small blood vessels in and around the hair follicle, DNA modification by toxicants created by smoking, increased inflammation in the follicles, and enzymatic imbalances in the region.

As a result, stopping smoking has to be the most important action you can take to repair your damaged hair follicles.

Avoid Excessive Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol, like smoking, causes damage to the hair follicles. However, in the case of alcohol, the damage is indirect and only becomes pertinent with excess use. Excess alcohol consumption creates two problems.

The first is dehydration in the body and the other is poor absorption of nutrients from the food. Both these problems affect the health of the entire body, including hair follicles.

Therefore, if you can stop excessive alcohol consumption, then your damaged hair follicles will thank you.

Choose Simpler Hairstyles

Another lifestyle decision that can end up damaging hair follicles is over styling. Everything from tight hairstyles to chemicals and hot tools can cause hair follicles to get damaged.

Tight hairstyles such as pulling the hair back hard into a bun or ponytail create a lot of mechanical stress on the roots of the hair and the hair follicles. If this mechanical stress is applied consistently over an extended period of time, it will result in a gradual recession of the hairline caused by damaged hair follicles.

Chemicals and hot tools such as curling irons and flat irons damage hair folliclesthrough the same process that they help you style your hair.

You can straighten or curl your hair with these techniques because they affect the internal structure of the hair. For instance, chemicals and flat irons break down the natural hydrogen bonds of the hair strand, which causes them to become straight.

Similarly, curling irons forcefully create new hydrogen bonds in the hair to make them curl. This forceful restructuring of the basic inherent body of the hair strand, unfortunately, also ends up damaging the hair follicle.

Therefore, if you want to repair your damaged hair follicles, you should start by avoiding complicated hairstyles that put undue pressure on your hair follicles.

Learn to Manage Stress

It is a well-known fact that stress can cause hair loss. However, most people don’t realize that stress causes hair loss because it damages hair follicles. In fact, there is more than one way that stress damages hair follicles.

The first is by pushing them into their resting phase. Hair follicles have three phases – anagen, catagen, and telogen. The anagen phase is the growing phase, the catagen phase is the transition phase, and the telogen phase is the resting phase.

The follicle cannot grow any hair in the telogen phase and severe stress can push hair follicles into this phase. The resultant condition is called telogen effluvium.

The other is by facilitating alopecia areata. Alopecia areata is a hair loss condition where the body’s immune system starts perceiving hair follicles as foreign invaders in the body. As the immune system starts attacking the hair follicles, they get damaged and the hair falls out.

Therefore, the best thing to do to repair your hair follicles is to avoid stress altogether. This means taking plenty of rest, sleeping a lot, and even taking long vacations. However, since most people lead high-pressure, fast-paced lives these days, it can become quite difficult to avoid the inherent stress of such a lifestyle.

For such individuals, managing stress levels becomes important. This brings us to the next lifestyle-related change that can help you repair damaged hair follicles – massages.

Massage Your Scalp Frequently

Getting regular massages or regularly massaging your scalp can be hugely beneficial if you’re trying to repair damaged hair follicles. There are three reasons for this.

The obvious is that the massage will help you relax. It will give you a break from your stressful life, which will, in turn, help reduce the adverse effects of excess stress. Moreover, if you choose the oils carefully, massages may end up giving your hair follicles more nutrients to work with.

Massaging your scalp will also boost blood circulation in your scalp. With better circulation, your hair follicles will receive more nutrients from your body. Further, improved circulation will allow excess DHT to be removed from your scalp too.

The final way that a massage will help you repair your damaged hair follicles is by exfoliating your scalp. Scalp buildup can occur due to any number of reasons, including excess sebum production, inflammation, infection, or even excessive product use.

If the follicular ducts of your hair follicles get blocked due to any reason, it will result in the follicles getting damaged. Exfoliating, with the help of a massage, will prevent buildup in the scalp and ensure that your hair follicles recover faster.

Wash Your Hair Less Frequently

Did you know that your hair and hair follicles are most at risk of damage when wet? No? Well, you can take solace from the fact that most people don’t know this simple fact.

When your hair is wet or even damp, it loses its natural elasticity and malleability. It becomes weighed down and more prone to tangling. Moreover, excess moisture can affect the structure of the hair by penetrating through the protective cuticle and fraying it in various ways.

In simple words, your hair, and by extension, your hair follicles gain a predisposition towards damage when wet. The solution is to wet them less frequently.

You don’t need to shower or wash your hair everyday anyway. The only reason you feel the need to do this is that you’re using shampoos that are too strong. Modern-day shampoos strip your scalp and hair of their natural oils, making your scalp compensate by producing even more oil. The result is that you wash your hair everyday because you feel that your hair is too greasy.

If you just reduce the number of times you wash your hair every week, i.e. twice, you’ll soon realize that you never needed to wash your hair so often. Initially, you may feel that your hair is too greasy, but if you persist, your hair follicles will adapt and produce less oil.

There’s another benefit that you need to consider here. If you wash your hair less, you won’t have to worry about product buildup. Since buildup blocks follicular ducts, this is a highly desirable outcome.

More importantly, when you don’t wash your hair so frequently, your follicles will exist in a more natural environment and will be able to repair themselves faster.

Learn to Dry Hair Properly

One of the reasons why wetness is so damaging for our hair and hair follicles is that we don’t know how to handle such hair. More specifically, most of us don’t know how to dry our hair.

For instance, did you know that you shouldn’t be rubbing or pulling your hair while it is wet? This causes more breakage and can even cause the hair bulb to come out of the hair follicle. Also, this damages the hair follicle along the way. It is preferable to dab or squeeze the hair in sections rather than pulling at it.

Further, it is highly likely that you’ve been using a cotton towel on your hair. Did you know that cotton is prone to catching pulling hair? A better alternative will be to use microfiber towels.

Microfiber towels neither catch nor pull hair, but they’re significantly more efficient at capturing moisture. If you can get a microfiber cap, then that is even better than a microfiber towel because your hair will dry passively.

You should also know that air drying is the best option for all types of hair. In contrast, hair dryers tend to be very damaging to the hair and the hair follicles because they produce a lot of heat.

Here’s another elementary mistake most of us make while drying our hair that damages our hair follicles. We try to dry our hair in the bathroom itself. Whether you’ve just taken a bath or a shower, your bathroom is likely humid.

Therefore, when you try to dry your hair in a humid environment, you end up touching and drying your hair longer because it keeps absorbing moisture from the environment. If you were to step out and dry your hair, your hair follicles would thank you because there would be less mechanical stress on them.

Just by making these simple technique and equipment changes while drying your hair, you can help your damaged hair follicles repair themselves faster.

Use Organic Shampoos

Most of us buy whatever shampoo is available in the store we frequent. Many of us even choose our shampoos based on the best deals on offer. In fact, some of us don’t even buy our own shampoos and just use what our mothers and wives get.

However, the shampoo you use has a huge say in the health of your hair and your hair follicles.

Most mass-produced shampoos contain lots of artificial ingredients that damage our hair follicles such as sulfates, parabens, and even phthalates. These shampoos not only damage our hair follicles but also prevent our bodies from repairing them.

However, there is no reason why you should continue using these types of shampoos. It is very easy to get shampoos without these types of harmful, artificial ingredients. For one, you can make a completely organic shampoo at home with easily accessible ingredients.

Besides, there are plenty of organic shampoo options available in the market. The majority of these organic shampoos, in fact, are designed for people with damaged hair and hair follicles.

These shampoos are based on organic, botanical ingredients and are developed specifically to fortify the hair and hair follicles. In fact, there are so many organic shampoo options in the market that the biggest challenge you’ll face will be how to pick the right one.

In all our research into hair care and hair loss solutions, the best organic shampoo we’ve come across is Laritelle Organic Shampoo. This shampoo is a class apart when it comes to quality and effectiveness.

Firstly, this is one of the very few shampoos in the market that can claim to have an organic certification. This means that every ingredient in this shampoo is organic and free from all artificial, human interventions such as pesticides and fungicides.

Further, every ingredient that this shampoo contains is helpful when it comes repairing damaged hair follicles and hair. Its formula boasts of extremely beneficial ingredients like argan oil, rosemary oil, jojoba oil, lemongrass, cedarwood, ginger, peppermint, lemon, and even silk proteins.

The combination of these ingredients and their organic nature makes this shampoo an excellent choice for everyone, regardless of their hair type or how sensitive their skin and scalp are. The only problem with the Laritelle Organic Shampoo is that it is too expensive.

However, if you want a good organic shampoo in the medium price range, then you may want to consider the PURA D’OR Original Gold Label Anti-Thinning Shampoo.

This organic shampoo’s specialty is that it is primarily based on biotin. Biotin, as we’ve explained earlier in this guide, is one of the most beneficial vitamins when it comes to repairing damaged hair follicles.

While its biotin base is incredibly important, it isn’t the onlystandout feature of this shampoo. The fact that this shampoo contains 16 other major ingredients is something else to look forward to.

The variety and efficacy of these ingredients are such that you can easily count this organic shampoo as one of the most complete when it comes to repairing damaged hair follicles.

This means that everyone can use this shampoo, irrespective of why their hair follicles got damaged in the first place. This shampoo even has a great smell, produces loads of lather, and leaves the scalp with a nice tingling sensation after each wash.

Avoid Hot Showers

Most of us enjoy hot showers because they’re so relaxing. However, did you know that hot showers strip your scalp and hair of its natural oils? These natural oils are responsible for keeping your hair and scalp conditioned.

With them removed, you run not only the risk of dead skin cells and product buildup in your scalp but also infections. Naturally, when such problems crop up, the effect is damage for your hair follicles.

Therefore, whether you’re looking to prevent damage to your hair follicles or repair already damaged hair follicles, it is advisable to take showers with lukewarm water rather than hot water.

Drink More Water

Your hair follicles and hair draw as much moisture from your body as they absorb from the surface of the scalp. People who get enough hydration in their daily diets tend to have brittle hair and dry scalp.

If you want to repair your damaged hair follicles, having more water should be a fundamental change for you. It is also worth remembering that any liquid will not do. Fruit juices, carbonated drinks, or flavored drinks actually end up facilitating dehydration because of their high sugar content.

You should instead have plain water. As to how much you should have, you can follow the 8 x 8 rule. The rule requires you to have at least eight 8-ounce glasses per day.

Oil Your Hair Often

While having more water will help improve circulation and moisturize your hair follicles and scalp internally, you also need to find ways of moisturizing them externally. The easiest way to do this is to oil your scalp.

We’ve already explained the importance of massages in an earlier section of this page. If you massage your scalp with the right oil, you will not only reap the inherent advantages of massages but will also benefit greatly from the conditioning provided by the oils.

The key is to find the right oil, though. The two best conditioning oils you can go for are castor and coconut oil. Both are traditionally known for their hair hydrating properties. In fact, it is oils like these that were used before conditioners started being mass produced.

These oils aren’t only excellent at conditioning the scalp and the hair, but they also contain numerous nutrients that can help with the repair of damaged hair follicles.

You can even add some essential oils into these oils to create hugely beneficial oiling cocktails. For this, you’ll need to find organic or virgin versions of these oils because purity is the most important thing when you’re trying to condition your scalp and hair with oils.

When it comes to castor oil, the best one you can go for is Sky Organics Organic Castor Oil. This castor oil product is an excellent choice when it comes to purity. It is also mild enough to suit every individual and pocket-friendly enough not to put undue financial pressure on anyone.

Viva Naturals Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is the best coconut oil product you can put in your hair, though. It is the purest because it carries the USDA certification with it.

Further, this coconut oil is obtained through the cold-pressing process. Cold pressing is important because it ensures that the nutrients remain intact and don’t get destroyed because of the heat.

Use the Right Conditioners

The modern-day alternative of oiling the hair for hydration is to use conditioners. Conditioners can be particularly beneficial because they complement shampoos.

In fact, to repair your damaged hair follicles, you should start using a conditioner every time you wash your hair with a shampoo. Additionally, experts recommend putting the scalp through the deep conditioning process at least once a week for people trying to repair damage to their hair and hair follicles.

Conditioners may be less natural than oils, but they’re equally effective when used right. Moreover, they can be as beneficial as organic oils provided you choose the right products.

The best conditioner you can go for is from the highly-regarded brand Pure Biology. The Pure Biology Premium Hair Growth Conditioner may be priced exorbitantly, but it is unbelievably beneficial for the hair and the scalp.

The most important thing with this conditioner is that it is specifically designed for people with damaged hair follicles and hair. As a result, it is very mild, superb at hydrating the scalp, and completely free of harmful chemicals and artificial substances.

Another excellent conditioner available at a much more realistic price is the ArtNaturals Argan Hair Growth Conditioner. This product is primarily based on argan oil, but it also contains biotin which we’ve already explained can make a huge difference to how quickly your hair follicles get repaired.

This conditioner, like the one from Pure Biology, is incredibly effective at conditioning the hair and the scalp. As a result, it is great at protecting fragile and damaged hair follicles from further harm, giving them much needed time to repair themselves.