The Science of Hair Hydration: How to Fix Dry Hair.

1. Why Hair Hydration Matters

Hair hydration is crucial for maintaining healthy, luscious locks. When your hair lacks moisture, it can lead to a range of issues such as dryness, split ends, and frizz. This can then affect its appearance, manageability, and strength in many ways.

TEXTURE AND MANAGEABILITY

Correct hair hydration helps maintain the natural texture of your hair, whether it’s curly, straight, or wavy. Hydrated hair is generally smoother, softer, and easier to manage, in turn reducing frizz and tangles.

ELASTICITY

Hydration plays a key role in maintaining the elasticity of your hair. When your hair is well-hydrated, it can stretch easily without breaking and splitting. While dehydrated hair is less elastic and more prone to damage from things like brushing and styling.

HEALTHY SHINE

Hydrated hair will reflect light well and provide you with a healthy shine. Dehydrated hair on the other hand, tends to appear dull and dry.

SCALP HYDRATION

Hydration is not only important for the hair itself, but also for your scalp. A well-hydrated scalp will promote healthy hair growth and reduce issues like dandruff and itchiness.

2. Why Is My Hair So Dry? Factors That Affect Hair Hydration

There are many factors that can affect your hairs hydration and moisture balance such as:

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

Weather:

Dry and cold weather can strip moisture from your hair, leaving it dry and brittle. Similarly, excessive sun exposure can damage the hair cuticle and lead to dehydration.
Solution: To protect your hair from extreme weather conditions, apply a leave-in treatment such as RPR My Vitaliser. This treatment contains UV filters to protect your hair from the sun’s harmful rays, and moisturiser to keep your hair hydrated during the colder months.

Humidity:

High humidity levels can cause your hair to frizz, while low humidity levels can lead to dryness and static.
Solution: Apply a finishing spray or serum such as RPR Fix My Frizz Serum, or RPR Make Me Shine Spray to the mids and ends of your hair. This will create a barrier against humidity, and static, while also keeping your hair smooth and sleek all day.

LIFESTYLE HABITS

Heat Styling:

Excessive use of hair straighteners, blow dryers, or curling tools can damage your hair cuticle, resulting in dryness and hair breakage.
Solution: Always apply a heat protectant spray such as RPR Protect My Hair  before any heat styling. This will safeguard your hair up to 220 degrees and reduce hair breakage.

Chemical Treatments:

Hair colouring and bleaching services can change your hair’s natural moisture balance, and weaken its structure, making it more susceptible to dryness and damage.
Solution: To ensure your hair health is maintained during the colouring and bleaching process, always use professional hair colours such as RPR Mycolour. This will ensure your hair integrity is maintained, while also replenishing and restructuring the hair while it colours.

INTERNAL FACTORS

Hormonal Changes:

Hormonal fluctuations, such as those experienced during pregnancy, menopause, or puberty, can affect oil production on your scalp and lead to a change in your hair’s texture and hydration levels.
Solution: If you are finding that your hair is becoming very greasy, or your scalp is becoming dry and itchy, try shampooing your hair with SO Deep – Detoxing Shampoo or SO Clear – Anti Dandruff Shampoo. These shampoos will deeply cleanse and hydrate your hair, while also moisturising and balancing your scalp.

HAIR WASHING HABITS

Over or Under Washing:

Washing your hair too frequently can strip away its natural oils, and lead to dryness and brittleness. Whereas not washing your hair enough can result in unwanted product or oil build-up on your hair and scalp.
Solution: If you feel like you are over washing your hair, try extending the time between washes by a day, or cutting out one wash per week, then reassessing how your hair and scalp are feeling. The opposite applies if you are under washing, so try and squeeze in another shampoo each week with RPR Rejuvenate My Hair Shampoo. This will help balance, cleanse, and hydrate your hair and scalp in one.

3. Maintaining Hair Hydration: Tips and Techniques

There are a few things you can do to assist in maintaining optimal hair hydration, such as choosing the right hydrating hair care products, regularly deep conditioning your hair, and making sure you drink plenty of water to help boost your overall health.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT HAIR HYDRATION PRODUCTS

Choosing the right hair hydration products is essential to maintaining optimum hair health. At RPR Hair Care, we have a large array of products designed to ensure your hair is hydrated, healthy, shiny, and manageable, wash after wash.

Our favourite go-to hydrating shampoo and conditioners:

– SO Repairing Shampoo | SO Repairing Conditioner: Designed to nourish and reconstruct dry and damaged hair, by deeply penetrating the hair’s cortex, to repair from within.
– RPR Rejuvenate My Hair Shampoo | RPR Rejuvenate My Hair Conditioner: Formulated with moisturising ingredients such as Rosehip, Baobab Oil, Biotin and has been specifically designed to help balance scalp health, whilst boosting hydration on dry ends.
– SO Magic Shampoo | SO Magic Conditioner: Designed to combat frizz and flyaways on all hair types. Its nourishing and lightweight formula ensures your hair is repaired, hydrated, sealed, smoothed and full of shine, wash after wash.

We also have several hydrating leave-in treatments such as RPR My Vitaliser and SO Magic Treatment. We recommend applying a leave-in treatment to your hair after every wash, to ensure your hair hydration is maintained until your next wash.

APPLY A DEEP CONDITIONING TREATMENT REGULARLY

Applying a deep conditioning treatment to your hair weekly (or every two weeks) is vital to ensure your hair is appropriately hydrated, moisturised, and repaired from within. It will also ensure your hair is strong, shiny, and healthy.

Our favourite go-to hydrating treatment masks are:

– SO Intense Mask: Designed to intensely restructure, hydrate, and nourish dry, damaged, and coloured hair.
– RPR Repair My Hair Keratin Mask: Enriched with Keratin Proteins, Aloe Vera, and Ginseng extracts to help restore gloss, and hydration deep within the hair, while also preventing frizz and hair breakage.
– RPR Rejuvenate My Hair Mask: Designed to help strengthen, moisturise, and reduce split ends. It will hydrate dry scalps and balance oily scalps.

DRINK PLENTY OF WATER FOR OVERALL HEALTH

Staying hydrated throughout the day by drinking plenty of water is so important for your overall health. While drinking water doesn’t directly hydrate your hair, it does however impact on your body’s ability to absorb important nutrients, help improve your skin and scalp health, and increases moisture retention. These together, will ensure that your hair follicles receive enough nutrients and oxygen, therefore promoting a health scalp and hair growth.

Embracing Healthy Hydration Habits

Maintaining optimal hair hydration is so important to ensure your hair is healthy, shiny, strong, and resilient against any internal and external factors. So, let’s commit to prioritising hair hydration and give our hair the love and care it deserves. With the right hair care routine, and support of RPR Haircare products, we can all enjoy hair that looks and feels its best, every day.

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