Why is it that some women seem to have such naturally luscious, long, smooth, shiny, and healthy hair? Part of it can be attributed to genes, but the rest of it is totally up to you. How you take care of yourself, and the hair on your head will dictate how quickly it will grow into flowing locks of beautiful, natural, and healthy hair.
Hair is like the skin in that it reflects what’s going on with you. It’s also influenced by external factors, like pollution, UV rays, and all that other glorious stuff.
But despite everything that may or may not be working against you, you can follow tips for natural hair growth and really love your hair into a healthy condition.
One of the most important factors for natural hair growth is stimulating scalp massage. Used with hair oils and masks that contain natural ingredients including aloe vera, rosemary oil, ginseng, coconut oil, onion juice, fish oil, and Viviscal, hair can grow in naturally and healthfully.
There are no magic tricks here. If you want to grow healthy and natural hair, you have to step up your hair care regimen.
Fortunately, once you build these habits, you’re going to see your hair grow naturally healthy, beautiful, and strong. Keep reading and discover all the tips that will take you on your journey to better hair!
Grow healthy natural hair with these tips
The secret to healthy natural hair growth can be revealed when you follow all these tips to help your hair along.
Additionally, I encourage you to eat a healthy diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, dairy, and whole grains to give your body the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants it needs from the inside out. This will help you along with the following healthy hair tips.
1- Maintain a clean scalp
If anyone ever told you that dirty hair can grow faster, they had potatoes in their ears. Slightly dirty and greasy hair is great for bleaching it, but not for making it grow in healthier naturally.
Hair growth begins at the root, which is at your scalp. If you want to have the most beautiful natural hair, you have to start with your scalp and keep it healthy.
One of the prime culprits gumming up the works is product buildup from everything you use. Your styling products, heat protection, and yes, even your shampoo and conditioner, are all guilty of clogging up those precious hair follicles.
You’ll have to get rid of all that gunk to help your scalp breathe and grow more hair.
What to do for a clean scalp:
- Cleanse it regularly to remove buildup from products and sebum
- Massage your scalp regularly to increase circulation and blood flow
- Don’t scratch your scalp
- Take time to exfoliate your scalp every week or two
Oh and yes, one more thing…eat healthy! That really will help your scalp improve!
2- Keep your hair hydrated
Next up, hydration! It’s so important to make sure your hair is thoroughly moisturized. Water is a key element for our bodies, and that goes for hair too.
When your hair feels more like a haystack than a head of hair, you’ll wind up with more breakage and snarls.
Healthier and stronger strands come directly from proper moisturization. But just like anything, there is such a thing as going overboard. Over-moisturization can bog it down, and if you’ve oversaturate it and your scalp, you’ll wind up making it greasy and clog your scalp again.
Best hair hydration tips:
- Only shampoo your scalp to preserve those essential hair oils
- Try a pre-poo (and read my post about Why Do You Need to Pre-Poo)
- Don’t go crazy and over-moisturize your hair
3- Massage your scalp before washes
Now for the fun stuff. Remember above when I was talking about scalp massage? Well this right here is one of the most critical things you can do to grow healthy natural hair.
You’ll want to start doing this right away so you can stimulate your scalp. This brings oxygen flow to the follicles for healthy hair growth. It can also boost the thickness of your hair.
Not only will it help encourage your hair growth and thickness, but it will also help you relieve tension and stress. Scalp massage is so invigorating. There once was a time when I didn’t massage my scalp.
I simply slathered my shampoo on, rinsed it away, applied conditioner, and rinsed that away too. Once I started massaging my scalp, it was a true game-changer.
You can massage it on its own, just use the pads of your fingers and keep your fingernails from scratching your scalp. Gentle yet firm pressure is all you need.
And if you really want to help things along, massage your scalp using natural ingredients that have been known to help encourage healthy natural hair growth.
– Aloe vera
Aloe vera is one of nature’s wonder ingredients. It’s potential to soothe, nourish, and condition is why it is widely used in natural beauty products across the globe.
Another thing about aloe vera is that it can help with hair loss, reduce dandruff, and unclog your hair follicles.
Try applying pure aloe vera gel (the real stuff!) right to your scalp several times per week for your massage. Or look for a shampoo and conditioner that contains a pure form of it (and no sulfates!).
- Cold-Pressed Organic Coconut Oil
- Provides Deep Hydration
– Coconut Oil
Revered for its robust content of fatty acids, coconut oil can penetrate deep into your hair shaft and improve protein structure.
You can use it before or after washing, though, which is best really depends on your hair type. Most hair types should do a leave-in with coconut oil overnight.
At the very least, make time to let it sit for a few hours before washing it out. When you apply it, massage it into your scalp and then down the strands.
After using coconut oil, you should notice your hair looks healthier and more luscious. It’s little wonder why this natural ingredient has been used for ages!
- Leave-in Treatment for Thicker Looking Hair
- With Keratin, Biotin and Zinc
- Suitable for all hair types
– Viviscal
Some women need more help than others. If your hair has thinned out, it might be worth considering Viviscal. It’s a natural supplement for hair growth.
Viviscal has a special marine complex called AminoMarC, which combines a bevy of vitamins, minerals, and both shark and mollusk powder. I know, yuck, but it has a huge following thanks to being able to help regenerate new hair cells and boost existing ones for better hair.
It comes in pill form, which you’ll need to remember to take as recommended each day. The results take a while to see (about 6 months minimum).
If you’d rather keep things topical, you can look for Viviscal’s shampoo and conditioner instead, or take the supplements along with it.
– Fish oil
Personally, I love fish. LOVE. If you told me we were going out for seafood right now, I’d already be in the car. Seriously though, those omega fatty acids that you get from fatty fish are a blessing for hair.
No, you do NOT have to rub it on your head and smell like a bait shop. But if you eat lots of fatty fish, you’re going to improve your hair from the inside out. And what if you don’t like fish? Well, you can take an omega supplement plus antioxidants, which will improve hair density as well as diameter.
If you’ve been experiencing a bit of hair fall, omega fatty acids can help with that. They get your cells on the right track, boost immunity, and help improve your overall health. There are brands that won’t give you gross fishy burps either, so don’t let that be an excuse not to try it!
– Ginseng
Ginseng has been adored for ages for all its healthful benefits. When you take ginseng supplements, you can help promote your hair growth right at the follicles. You can thank the active compounds known as ginsenosides for helping your hair.
- With Black Seed, Wheatgerm, Hibiscus, Curry Leaf Oils & Vitamin E
- Repairs Damaged Hair & Promotes Hair Growth
– Onion juice
Ok, I know, I know. It sounds so gross. It smells gross. But just hear me out.
There are studies that confirm the use of onion juice on the scalp can successfully correct patchy hair loss like from alopecia areata. Researchers surmise that because it improves circulation, it gets hair growing again, even where it fell out in patches.
You can eat onions too, but if you want the benefits of onion juice for hair growth, take a few onions and throw them in the blender.
Strain the remaining juice and apply it to your scalp, massaging gently as you do.
Let it sit for a minimum of 15 minutes before carrying on with your shampoo and condition.
4- Deep condition at least once a month
Personally, I do a deep condition once a week to keep my hair from drying out. But my hair type and yours might be different. That’s why experts advise doing it a minimum of once per month.
Deep conditioning goes beyond the normal daily condition. It contains even more nourishing ingredients, the kind that work best when they have time to sit and soak into your hair strands. You’ll wind up with healthier hair that also grows better.
If you previously dyed, permed, relaxed, or even heat-styled your hair to excess, hear me now: DEEP CONDITION!
It’s essential to nurse your hair back to proper health. And even when it is back to being healthy, you’ll want to keep up this good hair habit, so it never looks or feels unhealthy again.
5- Pay attention to the ingredients products you’re using
In order to have healthy natural hair, you need to be vigilant about the products you put on your hair. Do you know what’s in them?
Go ahead and grab your bottles. I’ll wait. Got them? Ok, good. Now, if you see any of the following, ditch it immediately:
- Parabens
- Sulfates
- Mineral oil
- Silicone
What you want are natural ingredients that won’t impede hair growth. These 4 listed above are notorious hair destroyers. Stay away!
Replace your hair care products with ones that have ingredients that have been shown to stimulate the healthy growth of natural hair.
Things like peppermint oil, rosemary oil, biotin, and ayurvedic herbs all hold good promise for healing the scalp and helping your hair grow in more beautifully in a natural way.
When buying natural hair products, you want to check and make sure it contains natural ingredients. You can also look for ingredients that stimulate healthy hair growth, such as Biotin, Ayurvedic herbs, Peppermint oil, and other natural extracts.
There’s a website you can use to check and see if a product contains all-natural ingredients. You can click on the link below to check it out.
You would simply copy and paste the ingredients, and the results will show if you should avoid using it on your natural hair.
Water should be the main ingredient when going natural. How do you know if it’s a main ingredient?
This tip will serve you well with everything from hair care to skin care to makeup, even to the food you buy… the ingredients listed first are the main ingredients or comprise the most of the formulation. If it’s at the end, it’s more of an afterthought.
6- Trim your hair regularly to keep split ends at bay
It often seems like the opposite of what you want to do since you want your hair to grow, but trimming it regularly is important to keep it growing healthy.
Sure, you can let it keep growing and not trim it and get split ends. But that length you think you have will all be unhealthy.
It will look ratty and frizzy, and we don’t want that. Plus, when hair splits, it keeps going up the shaft. This will ruin your hair, and you’ll wind up having to cut off much more to get it back to good health.
So, do yourself a favor and get it trimmed every 6 weeks to help it stay free of split ends.
Bottom line
Make sure you follow these tips to grow healthy natural hair. And while these are all good from the exterior, please don’t forget to take care of your interior.
You can literally do everything I mentioned above, but if you’re not eating healthfully and getting enough water, you’re going to undermine every last bit of your efforts.
Take care of your hair from the inside out and from the outside in, and you’ll see it grow in a healthy, natural, and gorgeous way!