Every week in a newspaper somewhere there is a chilling report about the effects of synthetic dyes on somebody’s body. Recently, there was a story in the Daily Mail about a mother who was left in a coma after using hair dye, the doctor’s warned that even if she survives she will almost certainly be brain damaged. The culprit or should I say, active ingredient in the hair dyes that seems to be causing all the hullaboo is called para-phenylenediamine, or a close chemical variant of para-phenylenediamine (PPD). This ingredient …

There are times when we take medications and are completely unaware of the side effects of some of these medications as it relates to hair. Drug induced hair loss is quite common, recently a member of my family who has bursitis was taking medication for her condition but her hair started falling out. She called me quite distressed about her hair loss and demanded that I write up a hair regimen for her. She said she followed everything I said about hair breakage- Typical Hair Regimen for Breaking Hair and …

It was at the turn of the twentieth century that what we now know as hair relaxers was created and by a small accident, Garrett Augustus Morgan was working in a sewing machine repair shop where he was attempting to invent a new lubricating liquid for the machine needle. He wiped his hands on a wool cloth and when he returned the next day, he found that the cloth was smooth where he had wiped his hand. The lubricating liquid had changed the texture of the wool. Excited by the …

There are several reasons why synthetic hair dyes are bad for your hair. Chief among them is the fact that they contain harsh chemicals that strip the hair strands and they contain some preservatives that should not be put anywhere near your brain. However, if like me, you would like your hair to be thick and healthy after a hair coloring process, here are some reasons for you to take the plunge, so to speak, and make your own homemade dye using herbs and other natural ingredients.
Reasons To Make Your …

There are natural solutions for coloring gray hair permanently without the use of chemicals. These natural gray hair dyes are so good for your hair that you can use them without fear of damaging your hair over time. Here are the options:
Henna
Henna is a plant; it grows into a small tree or shrub. This plant has been used for centuries to dye hair and skin because of the coloring properties that are due to lawsone,  also known as hennotannic acid, which is a red-orange dye present in the leaves …

Before you dye your hair  it is best to know what you are getting yourself into. Years ago I went to a friendly neighborhood hair dresser who bleached a chunk of the front of my hair with hydrogen peroxide and something else, I had no idea what that something else was, all I knew was that my hair was almost bleached to white- yikes!
I wish I had known what on earth I was getting myself into before I took the plunge. All I knew at the time was that my …

Recently, I met a group of women whose ages ranged from 40-65, all from the same family and only the oldest lady among them had a dusting of gray hair along her hairline. I found myself wondering what on earth did they use to dye their hair and still keep it so thick and strong looking.
When I asked I was laughed at, they did not use any hair dye and their grandmother, who was still alive at 90 something was not completely gray. I was shocked and a little envious; …

Traction Alopecia is a hair loss condition caused by damage to the dermal papilla and hair follicle by pulling or tension on the hair root over a long period of time. It often occurs in persons who wear tight braids, weaves and wigs. It is very common with black women and men who put their hair in tight braids. The segment of the black population where this condition occurs more frequently is with children, and young adults, it occurs less frequently in older women and men.
This is not an uncommon …

It is a shame that the ingredients that I am about to name are actually in our hair products. When you think about it,  hair is dead so why make so much fuss about it? But and this is a big one, hair is attached to the head where the bed of the hair is very much alive and is separated from the covering to our brains by just a smidgen of an inch or so. Which means that we should be very aware of what it is that goes …

Here are five more ingredients that should give you pause when next you go shopping. I do not want to be an alarmist; I just want you to be aware. I remarked to my mother the other day that people are getting cancer left right and center and there is seemingly no cause for this, even persons who are supposedly eating right and exercising. Is there some part of the equation that we are missing?
I am quite sure that many of the things we place on our bodies and in …

Hair oils and moisturizers – Are the two interchangeable? Are hair oils and hair moisturizer one and the same?
I was confused because whenever I used ordinary hair oil it just sat on my hair and didn’t make it feel as soft and silky as I know it should. It made my hair shiny but if my hair was dry it remained dry, albeit oily. It didn’t make sense, so of course I went and did some research and also experimented on my own hair until I found the perfect formula …

For the record, I do not use commercial shampoos, if I can avoid them. The cheaper the shampoo the more it seems to strip the hair and damage it. I am determined to phase them out of my hair regimen since my hair does so much better without them. I wash my hair with homemade recipes or I use a very weak, heavily diluted non-sulfate, non-ammonium, shampoo to wash my hair when I can’t get what I want. There are some  ingredients in commercial shampoos that aren’t really the best  …