The Honey Challenge: Thin, dry hair

The Honey Challenge

Thin, dry hair care

January 27th, 2013

This is my mother. Notice the long, thick, gorgeous flowing hair. Despite her coloring it on a monthly basis, and straightening it to no end, it remains healthy-looking and at the very least, always manageable.

This is my dad. Notice the thin, unruly scraggles and pronounced widow's peak. Great smile though.

So my dad is a great big nerd, super funny and likes take it easy and spend a lot of time by himself or just with a few friends. Pretty low key. My mom is super bubbly, spontaneous, also funny, loves animals and no person to fuck with. I got most of their traits, a giant nose and high forehead from the both of them, but guess who's hair I got?

OF COURSE IT WAS DAD'S.

Anyway, the main difference between my mom's hair and my hair is that hers grows at a reasonable rate with minimal damage, it's very thick, and very strong. Mine on the other hand, grows slowly and is prone to breakage due to how thin it is. Though there are a few things that I do to promote as much healthiness and growth as possible, which again are tips and tricks experimented with from Pinterest, and to just generally make my hair look all-around as nice as it can. If you have thin hair, or hair that is prone to breakage and isn't growing quite as well as you like, you might find these helpful.

1. I don't use brushes. I use a wide-tooth comb that looks like this:  I only use it in the shower and before styling. Also, if I am straightening my hair.

2. I comb my conditioner through my hair in the shower, then tie it up and leave it there, rinsing it out in the very end. I usually wash my hair first, do all my other showerly duties, then rinse it out at the very end.

3. I don't wash out every last bit of my shampoo/conditioner. Here is the stuff I am using right now, in my pursuit to find the perfect german shampoo/conditioner combination:

 

The shampoo is not clear, and quite thick, as is the conditioner, which I find are the trademarks to super moisturizing shampoo/conditioners. I only wash out about 80 percent of both. When your hair turns that "squeaky" clean, it means it has been stripped of all it's natural oils, which leads to dryness. Washing your hair isn't even necessary, in fact washing your hair has been proven to damage it, you can find countless articles online that tell you washing your hair often is actually a bad thing. Even though my hair is quite dry, if left unwashed for a day I get severe flat-head syndrome, and it gets extremely greasy around my scalp, while remaining dry towards the ends. On the weekends, I don't wash my hair, I only condition it.

4. I only use conditioner on the ends of my hair, after combing it through, only a very small amount makes it to my scalp. This prevents flat-head syndrome.

5.  I let my hair air-dry as often as possible. If I have enough time in the morning, I let it air dry then style it. I also don't style it at all on weekends.

6. I pat my hair dry with a towel, I don't rub it like my mom used to when I was a kid.

7. I never let my hair go completely naked. I always add in some kind of moisture-promoting product. These are my go-tos: 

While the Organix (only found in NA) brand is amazing for great-smelling shampoo, their conditioners aren't so great, and don't moisturize very well. However this morroccan argan oil for smoothing really does the trick. I'm sure that real, pure argan oil is way better, and one day I will try it, but for now, at 6 dollars, that'll do for me. Two drops, only to my ends then combed through. I normally only use it on extra dry days, so for the winter I have been using it more than the other. The Got2b lotion by Schwarzkopf is found everywhere in Germany, and it really helps with fly-aways and frizziness. It smells amazing and makes my hair super smooth. It's also very light, so perfect for the summer, while the heavier oil is more ideal for me in the winter.

8. Lastly, which brings me to my honey challenge, every couple days I use a homemade hair treatment that works serious wonders on my hair, found on a long-hair forum a couple months ago.

Recipe: 3 parts conditioner of your choice

1 part honey (any kind of honey, but the closer to organic the better)

1 part clear aloe vera gel

What is clear aloe vera gel? It's just the aloe vera gel that isn't bright green, the one I use looks like this: 

The reason why you are supposed to use clear aloe vera gel is because the green stuff normally contains alcohol and other additives, you could definitely use the green stuff in place of it, because its the aloe that is providing the benefits, but I haven't tried it.

Adding some oil to it is also beneficial, the type of oil really depends on how your hair reacts to it. My hair doesn't react very well to olive oil, but it does to castor and vitamin E oil. Vitamin E oil is quite sticky and thick just like honey, and if it's pure you won't need much, a teaspoon is just fine. You can really add whatever you want to this recipe that you think might help your hair, avocodo, egg yolks etc, but I just use the basic 3 ingredients. In a later post I will try out various hair mask recipes.

Mix it all up in a container of your choice, I keep mine in a jar, because I keep everything in jars. Here it is after I used half of it:

Slather as much as you want in your unwashed hair wet or dry, focusing on the ends. Comb it through, and give yourself a good thorough scalp massage. Stimulating the blood flow to the scalp promotes hair growth and feels damn fine. After that, tie it up and relax for at least a half an hour, but you can leave it on as long as you want, even overnight. I would really recommend wrapping your hair in a tshirt if you leave it on overnight or if you are going to walk round the house with it on for a long time. A towel will soak up a lot of the product, and if you sleep on it can tug on your hair and actually pull some of it out. A tshirt is flexible and comfortable to sleep in, unlike a towel or a plastic bag, and you can secure it with bobby pins.

When you rinse, only rinse about 80 percent of it out. Make sure you can still run your fingers through your hair and feel a little bit of the product. Let your hair air dry and see how it worked for you!

Over time, I'd say it has helped my hair grow a lot longer and stronger, and allowed me to be able to no-heat style it and have it look like this: