Blog - 5 Ways to Boost Hair Growth This Winter
December 09, 2018 by Swirly Curly
Cold weather is here, and you might be thinking about some ways to protect your hair and boost hair growth this winter.
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Everyone has different growth rates, all dependent on health, age, hormones, genetics, and other factors. But if you think that your hair takes forever to grow during the winter months… you might be right.
Researchers have found that the release of hormones during the summer months can increase hair growth. That means you could see slower growth during the colder months.
If you’re trying to grow your hair out, this can be bad news. Especially if it seems like your hair doesn’t grow, or it takes forever to see length.
Try these remedies this winter:
1 Cover Your Hair
What’s the best way to avoid the cold? Make sure your hair never sees it! If you live in a harsh winter climate, you need to be taking advantage of all the cute winter scarves and hats on the market.
A scarf or a hat will protect your hair from the cold and it will make your hairstyles last longer because your hair is not blowing around in the wind.
What kind of scarf or hat should you buy? You may be tempted to purchase the same winter gear that everyone else buys because it’s easy to find and super cheap. But winter knits can be drying to natural hair and they can even be abrasive and cause friction.
There are a number of hat manufacturers that place silky satin inside as a soft lining. Purchase one of these as an investment and you’ll end up saving money on hair repair products.
Besides covering the strands to retain length, using a hat will trap in body heat. That’s exactly what you need to counteract the cold winters. Keeping your head warmer will help your blood circulate to the hair follicles. Hence, follicle stimulation and new growth!
2 Exercise
During cold seasons, your blood may circulate less and cause a lack of nutrients being supplied to the scalp. This lack of circulation can result in slowed hair growth.
So, what can you do to turn it around? Get moving!
Exercise will get your blood circulating so that it can feed your follicle cells nutrients and oxygen. Heavy exercise with sweating will help to unclog the pores of the scalp too.
However, your exercise doesn’t always have to be an all-out sweat fest. Try increasing the number of days you practice yoga this winter. Yoga is a discipline that gets the blood circulating.
Feeling discouraged because you can’t do complex yoga moves? You don’t need to be a full-on yogi master. One of the most basic poses in yoga, down dog, will do a lot to send oxygen and nutrients to the scalp.
3 Hydration
Water is life-giving. You probably already know to drink water during the summer to replace lost fluids, but what about the winter?
Water is a curly girl’s best friend. Cold weather seasons are a good time to double up on your water intake. Using water is one of the easiest ways to combat lack of hair growth in the winter.
A lot of people don’t feel thirsty during cold weather, but the body needs water during the winter too, especially if you live in a dry climate. Even just having the heater on all day can make the atmosphere dry.
You need at least 8 cups of water per day, but you should try taking in a little more if you’re on a beauty regimen to improve hair and skin. If it feels odd to drink a lot of water in the winter, try sipping hot tea all day.
Besides drinking water, you could try adding a water-only rinse or a cowash to your routine between wash days. Cowashing will help your hair and scalp soak up water during the week. If cowashing is too much work or you’re worried about product buildup, try doing water-only rinses.
4 Scalp Massage
Massaging your scalp is an excellent way to stimulate cellular activity and promote more hair growth this winter. You can do scalp massage with a tool, but an easier way is to just use your fingertips.
Using essential oils will also help to grow your hair in the winter. Four essential oils--lavender, peppermint, rosemary, and eucalyptus—have been scientifically proven to stimulate the scalp and help hair growth.
Plus, lubricating your fingers with essential oils will help your fingers to glide over the roots instead of tangling the strands.
To massage, use 5-15 drops of the growth promoting oils, and stand in an inverted position. Place your feet shoulder-width apart, and bend over with unlocked knees while you gently press your fingertips into your scalp.
Be gentle when you massage. Hard rubbing will only cause an irritated scalp, and the inflammation will slow hair growth.
Do your scalp massage 3 days per week for 5-15 minutes each day to promote hair growth in the winter.
5 Add Heat!
You know you should be counteracting the cold weather with heat, but how do you pull it off without damaging your hair?
You need to choose your heat method carefully. Heat from blow dryers and flat irons can damage your curls and disrupt the curl pattern, leading to dull and lifeless hair or even split ends.
Hooded dryers are a little better, but they can also damage hair if it becomes too dry or if the heat blows from the top on to your crown section.
So, what’s a curly girl to do? Hair steaming!
Hair steaming will heat your hair while emitting small water droplets on to the hair, resulting in a fabulous heated hydrotherapy session for your curls.
You can benefit from steam from your shower, or you can purchase a hair steamer. Carefully using the hair steamer on your scalp will open pores and get your blood circulating. Using the steam on your hair will help you retain length during the winter.
Which methods will you do to boost hair growth this winter?