If Hair Is Dead Can It Be Really Be ‘Healthy’?

Some scientists describe death of a body as the end of health. So how is it that we can describe hair as healthy or not when it’s essentially dead?

Before I tackle that question let me tell you about my man’s mistress! Her name is Roxanne and we know each other, their relationship is no secret because my husband is pretty honest about how he feels about his Roxanne and I have learned to live with` and accept it.

Every weekend Roxanne gets buffed shined up and preserved, she never gets wet and she remains covered in the garage until it is time to show her off. You see Roxanne is my husband’s most prized possession, she is a 1970 or 71, I forget, Oldsmobile Cutlass.

She is white with some thick behind w heels and a heavy, loud exhaust system that can rival any 2014 muscle car. He kept everything original, he says it looks more ‘natural’ that way, and he constantly maintains it to the point of it being borderline insulting. As a matter of fact our other vehicles will never see what the inside of that garage looks like, not until Roxanne ‘disappears’.

So what’s the point of all of that? The point is that we all do things to preserve and maintain the things we love. My husband cleans and shines his car as many of the guys in our lives do with their hobby possessions.

Your grandma has her favorite China she only pulls out to clean every Easter and we hair obsessed motivated have dead cells in the form of hair strands emerging from our scalp that we care for daily in order to preserve them.

There are a couple of things to consider when looking at this topic. The first thing is that hair though described as dead is attached to living breathing human being that is still functioning.

We eat, stay hydrated and supplement our diets to feed our body and keep our organs at ideal function. What happens on the inside of our body determines almost everything that happens on the outside, even things like thoughts, beliefs and how we feel day to day. Without getting too scientific, growth is based on a system of cell division and hair growth works precisely in that manner.

We write all the time about a variety of vitamins*, minerals and even odd single food items such as garlic and onion juice that help to stimulate or speed up hair growth. When you break it all down it comes down to the healthy stuff in the vitamins* and minerals and in our food that help us survive and helps our hair to continue growing.

Preservation and maintenance

With that said we will always maintain that you should never think a hair product ‘makes’ your hair grow, your hair is always growing if you are a relatively healthy person. Now that we have established that growth is solely dependent on what happens on the inside, what happens once your hair leaves your scalp?

Death! Yes as gruesome as that sounds, once the strand leaves our scalp you are now in preservation mode. You are now the head preserver in your own personal Smithsonian, what you know about that Smithsonian life?

When you preserve something whether living or dead you are preserving the functional health of that thing. With that said we often describe our bodies as healthy when we practice a healthy lifestyle and we consider our strands healthy when we preserve it to the point of maintaining it for years and years with minimal damage.

What we really want to drive home is that your body is built to heal itself. If you get a cut and you decide never to put anything on it to help your cut heal, you will notice your blood starting to clot and eventually a scab starting to form to protect the cut from infection. While this is all very technical, your body is simply doing what it was built to do it, to protect itself, sometimes even from…you!

Your hair is quite different, once it leaves your scalp if you do nothing to it, you will see it start to deteriorate and it will continue to do so if you continue to neglect it. It cannot mend itself so if you find yourself in a rut where you feel like neglecting your hair, just know that things will be much worse than where it started when you finally decide to pay attention.

How do we preserve our hair?

Well ladies that’s what this whole song and dance that this website and others like it is all about.

All this stuff about cleansing, conditioning for 5 minutes versus 4 hours,  shampooing, styling, protective styling, blogging, tutorials, vlogging, hair meetups, hair products, salons, stylists and everything in-between has everything to do with how we preserve our strands.

Guys buy wax, and terry cloths for their rides and we buy conditioner and use a micro fiber towels for our hair, two very different scenarios but preservation of objects that cannot preserve themselves nonetheless.

But what does all this really mean?

Products

Since we are preserving what is essentially dead cells, the hair industry has become very innovative at creating products that do just that, some are of course better than others.

Some are dedicated to naturally curly hair and others are dedicated to straight hair. Some products make your hair appear shiny others are dedicated to hydration and some are focused on hair strength.

Even though we say that hair is a fiber made up of dead cells, the cells in our strands are pretty responsive, they swell like a balloon when filled water and they shrink when water leaves, they aren’t alive they just react to what we do to it.

Additionally If you fill your hair strand up with water, you can then trap the in with oil, so essentially we are just manipulating our strands and their ‘health’ with the use of products, all in the name of preservation.

Protein and moisture are the two things that we use to preserve our hair the most. Protein is pretty special because this is what our hair is made of and there are products that have protein that can bind to the cells in our hair thereby reinforcing its structure.

Ever heard the saying ‘there is strength in numbers’ well that’s how protein works, it steps in where there is a loss in the strand from damage and patches up the area leading to a stronger fiber.

Water as mentioned before hydrates the strand and can penetrate the hair shaft easily so products that have water as the first ingredient are typically dedicated to moisturizing your hair strands keeping your hair in better condition.

Hair type and structure

Whether your hair is naturally curly, kinky* or straight is dependent on our genes, which means before the strand leaves the scalp, how it behaves is already predetermined. Curly hair has dents twists and turns making it a little harder to preserve than naturally straight hair.

Curly hair products tend to market to us using words like ‘slip’ ‘ great detangler’ and other words that manufacturers know that curly girls are looking for.

Chemical relaxers and other chemical straightening agents

We all know how chemicals work, they can change the molecular structure of the hair they touch through a series of reactions. So even though our hair is dead, using a chemical can change the structure of the curls and change them to straight.

Thinking about what the chemical is doing is really not that much of a stretch, essentially the chemicals break the bonds in the hair that gives it that curly structure breaking them to the point of rendering them permanently straight.

The straightening effects of the chemicals causes the hair strand to lose some of its strength which makes relaxed hair more likely to need protein than natural hair that has not been exposed to chemicals.

Heat works in a similar way and if used excessively can also cause a naturally curly strand to become permanently straight, this is “affectionately” known as heat damage. Much in the same way, natural hair which is exposed to heat often requires more protein than natural hair that is never exposed to heat.

In conclusion can hair which is dead truly be healthy?

Yes absolutely! Health in the sense that you are diligently caring for and trying to preserve your hair strand by keeping it intact and strong. We know that hair is not perfect, how can it be with everything that it is subjected to?

The hair strand does not heal itself like the skin would, it gets damaged and your choice is to manually improve it by using various products and hair care techniques or your can leave it alone and watch as it deteriorates further.

The real key to healthy hair is what happens on the inside, eating healthy and drinking plenty of water determines the quality of the strand as it emerges from your scalp. A solid hair care regimen preserves the hair strand allowing your strands to remain healthy for years to come.