Rehairducation

Save Your Edges!!

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Hello ladies,

I put up a client’s feedback some time ago on Instagram and since then I’ve been flooded with questions about edges and how to get them back.
I’ve written about hair loss at the hair line in previous blog posts which you can read here but the huge wave of questions I’ve had about it has made me realise that I should write about it from a different angle.

In this post, I will be talking about naturally thin hairlines and share tips to manage and regrow your hairline. Before I proceed I have to stress that when it comes to our hair, especially our edges, prevention is better than cure.

 

Naturally Thin/Receding Hair Lines

Not everyone has a perfect thick hairline or a hairline so low that it grows towards the eyebrows.  I certainly don’t have a thick hairline.  Some of us have naturally sparse/thin hairlines that has a receding shape.
If your hairline is naturally or genetically thin or has a receding shape, there isn’t anything you can do about it. You cannot change the way you follicles (hair roots) at your hair line have been distributed.

If you have a naturally thin and delicate hairline, you have a higher chance of losing hair at your hairline when you wear styles like braids, weaves and tight buns or ponytails.   Unfortunately because of the natural receding shape or thinness of your hairline, hair loss in these areas will look a lot worse than it actually is.
So if you have this kind of hairline what should you do:

  • Avoid styles that pull or place a lot of tension on hairline. I would say avoid braids and weaves completely but if you can’t, don’t let the stylist pull those fine baby hairs. Don’t use too many bundles of hair. make sure your bun isn’t too tight.
  • Avoid over styling your hairline; heavy gels, harsh brushes and the need to lay those edges will make your hairline thin out or recede even more. Try to use your palms to smoothen your hairline after moisturising it, if you must brush it, use a baby’s hair brush.
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I leave my edges alone majority of the time, my buns are never too tight and I don’t use hard brushes on my hair.

  • When you wear hats, scarves, bonnets, gele…etc don’t place it directly on your hairline. It should be behind or over your hairline not directly on it.  This is particular important for ladies who wear hats/scarves/gele often.
  • Keep hair well moisturised and sealed and don’t forget you hairline when doing so. A dry hairline will break easily when you try to style it.

 

Hairline with Breakage and Signs of Re-growth

So let’s assume that your hairline has been thinning for a while and you are not sure what you are doing wrong.
You have had bald patches along your hairline in the past but it eventually grows back.  You’ve noticed that the thinning is getting worse and you are concerned you will eventually have no hair left.

Ladies, if you are in this category it is important for you to get to the root of the thinning or patches before the hair loss becomes permanent.  In some case the hair loss could be hereditary, due to medication or hormonal changes (postpartum shedding). If you think your hair loss at your hairline is caused by one of these factors you should speak to your doctor or a trichologist.

With a lot of ladies however, the hair loss is often as a result of constant wearing of braids, weaves and wigs. We have to give our hair adequate rest from such styles. The over-wearing of extensions is often combined with lack of proper hair care whilst wearing those styles, for example some ladies relax their hair and install extensions a few days afterwards or some ladies choose to wear styles they KNOW tends to break their hairline.

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If your hairline is becoming increasingly thin and taking longer and longer to grow back what should you do?

  • Figure out what is causing the breakage and avoid it.
    The sooner you can figure out what is causing the hair loss at your hairline the better. Now I am not anti braids or weaves but IF you have significant hair loss every time you wear them ask yourself this, is it really worth it?
    Also consider if it is those hairstyles that is causing the breakage or is it lack of hair care when wearing those hair styles that is the problem.
    If your hair loss is being caused by your hairstyle choices you should consider safer styles to wear or safer alternatives, eg a braided wig instead of actual braids or a bun that isn’t pulled too tight.  If you don’t make significant changes to your hair care and the damage and inflammation to your line continues you may end up with permanent damage to your hair follicles.
  • Take good care of your hair, be gentle on your hairline and have regular scalp massages to stimulate the hair follicles and encourage re-growth.
  • Be patient!! Even with good hair care and safer hair styles it can take several months …a looooong time…. to see significant improvements with your hairline depending on how bad the damage was. Be aware that for some ladies who have suffered prolonged damage of their hairline, the hairs in those areas may remain a bit thinner than it used to be. This is the reason why damage to your hairline should be avoided.

 

Hairlines with Breakage and No Re-growth

If you have suffered significant loss at your hairline for a while and have not had hair grow on your hairline for several years, it is likely that you have permanent hair loss in those areas.
At this stage, it is often too late for scalp massages and good hair care to regrow your hairline. You may need a course of treatment from a trichologist who may be able to provide you with strong topical treatments (creams or ointments) which requires a prescription.

There have been advancements in hair loss management such as PRP therapy and laser treatments which may help, unfortunately these are quite expensive and they are not 100% guaranteed to work.  If these options fail, you may need to have hair replacement surgery which again is very expensive and in some cases may not work.

I don’t mean to scare anyone but it is important that I state the facts.  Please ladies, don’t let your hairline get to the point of no return.  Let your hairline rest and grow…whilst it is still able to.
I hope you have found this post helpful and that it encourages you to go easy on your beautiful edges.
My next post will be a product review of a moisture deep conditioner, I think I may have found the one ladies. …like for real for real.
Come back soon to find out what it is.

Happy hair journey

x

Lade

Learn | Change | Grow

Gold Rush!!

Hello Ladies,

You know how you learn something new about yourself every once in a while?  Well recently I’ve learnt that I like putting gold (plaited) things in my hair.  And from the looks of it many ladies out there love it too.

I remember when I put the picture on the left on Instagram, it had over 40k likes across many natural hair pages. I spent quite a number of months answering questions about where I got the head piece from. For the record I got it from Asos but I had my own ideas of how I would wear it.

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I was stocking up on my hair products a few weeks back when I stumbled on some gold hair clips which I thought would be fun. They cost £2 and because you get what you pay for they all broke after my niece and I wore them once. I went shopping at H & M recently and saw these hair clasps which were more study and were still really cheap. 10 for £4 cheap.

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I decided to pimp out my bun with them but they aren’t as flexible as the first set I bought so it was hard to tighten them in my hair and they occasionally fell out. So my hunt for gold hair toys continues.

What are your favourite hair accessories??

My next post will be all about our edges. I have written two posts about this already but now realise I need set out more facts about it.   For some reason I’ve received quite a number of questions about edges lately so I know its time to revisit it.

Happy hair journey and see you soon

X

Lade

Learn | Change | Grow

Lifestyle Tips For Healthy and Long Hair : Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt covered with a few yummy things

Hello ladies

I have decided to start a new series in which I share some lifestyle tips which actually play a very important role in healthy hair growth.

There are two parts to having a healthy head of hair,  there are the internal factors such as diet, exercise, adequate water and sleep, etc, these help to ensure that our hair grows at the speed and  has the quality it is genetically supposed to.  Basically a lack of these can result is slower hair growth or of hair that is drier or weaker than it is naturally supposed to be.   The second part is hair care which helps to prevent damage and breakage of the hair we have already grown so that we retain length and thickness.
A vast majority of the posts on Hairducation focus on hair care and I thought it would be good to start this series focusing on the internal factors.  I hope the series will remind us all ( most especially myself) how much of our lifestyle choices can affect the quality and speed at which our hair grows.
The series will mostly focus on dietary tips but also include advise about exercise, and how adequate rest and water intake affects our tresses.

So without further ado, let me get on with the first post.

 

Greek Yogurt and Why Its Good for You and Your Hair

Since my return to the UK I have rekindled many of my old habits which looking back, I believe may have contributed to the success of my hair journey. I have a breakfast ritual that every family member of mine knows I do not go without….plain greek yogurt. If you are wondering what greek yogurt has to do with healthy hair growth please keep reading.

A balanced diet is great for our bodies and this alone is enough reason to try to eat sensibly but an added bonus for us ladies living this hair journey life is that it is great for our hair too.

Greek yogurt is beneficial to hair because is a very good source of protein.  Our hair is made up of protein and so a body lacking in protein is less likely to grow hair as fast or as healthy as it would if it is given adequate supply of it.
If you don’t have enough protein in your diet, the benefits of the little amount you consume will be diverted to support your essential organs and this of course does not include your hair follicles.  Having enough protein in your diet will ensure that your body is able to use some of those nutrients for hair growth.

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Greek yogurt mixed with honey and chia seeds topped with golden kiwi. So its not pretty to look at but its pretty good for my insides

In the past I struggled to eat enough protein because I wasn’t to keen on meat so I looked into alternative sources and found that greek yogurt was a great option.  Because at the time my protein intake was low, I believe it may have contributed to the lack lustre nature of my hair. I made a conscious effort to eat better and ensured I had enough protein in my diet around the time I started my hair journey.  I think this could have contributed in some way to the improvements I noticed with the strength and health of my new growth.

Please note that if you are already eating enough protein, increasing the amount in your will not increase hair growth.  But if for example you are trying to cut back on the amount of meat in your diet, then greek yogurt would be a good substitute.

 

Tips For Including Greek Yogurt in Your Diet

Greek versus Greek Style  Yogurt
A mistake I made for a while was buying greek style yogurt instead of traditional or authentic greek yogurt.
Original greek yogurt contains more protein than greek style yogurt and tends to be all natural. Greek style yogurt sometimes contains artificial ingredients such as thickeners.
Original greek yogurt, depending on the brand you buy can be packed with 10grams of protein per 100grams. This is quite good considering that the average adult women needs about 46 grams of protein daily.
I tend to have greek yogurt as my main breakfast most days and therefore tend to consume approximately 200 grams of greek yogurt every morning. It goes a long way in helping me reach my daily protein intake goals.
Switch It Up, Make It Fun and Top Up Its Goodness
Plain unsweetened yogurt can be is very boring and bland but resist the temptation to by the flavoured brands that may be packed with artificial flavours, colours and sweeteners.
What I recommend instead is that you buy the plain brands which you can sweeten with a little honey and top with fresh fruits like strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, mangoes, bananas, etc for added flavour.
To boost the benefits of my greek yogurt even more, I like to top it up or mix in a variety of seeds and nuts like the following two which I purchased from Holland and Barrett. ( This is not intended to be promotional for any brand and all items mentioned were purchased with my money)

This is what I had next to the strawberries in the first picture

I hope you have found the information in this post helpful. Please comment below to let me know if you think this is a good series or if you think I should scrap it 🙂
For ladies in Nigeria or any location where it may be  a little difficult to find greek yogurt,  I see you and I have many more posts coming up in this series with tips that will be easy for you to get into.

My next post will be a hair update/hair accessory pictorial. See you soon.

X

Lade

 

 

Hair and Life Update

Hello ladies

It’s been a little while. I know.
I hope you have all been well.  I usually don’t tend to give too much about my personal life away -aint nobody got time for that 🙂 – but because I know things have been unsteady for the last month on the blogging front I thought I should let you know why.

I moved countries.
I moved back to the UK in March and as you can imagine, things will be a bit disrupted whilst I settle back in the swing of things.  I will off course keep trying to keep the Hairducation going regular and helpful blog updates.

Hair Update

Being back in the UK has been a bit of a shock for my hair and I’ve had to make a few adjustments in my hair regimen.
I am still using the same products but I have to moisturise and seal a lot more often than I did in Lagos.   The cooler weather and the fact that I now live in an area with hard water which can be very drying to hair and skin are the reasons why I’ve had to double up on how often I  moisturise my hair.
Besides this, its business as usual with my hair. I may experiment with one or two products now that I have much easier access to them. So there may be a few product reviews coming up soon.

How is your hair doing? Have you made changes to your hair regimen recently?

My next blog post will be about diet related. It has just occurred to me that one of my all time favourite things to eat may be one of the things that contributes to the health and length of my hair.
Find out what it is by coming back soon.

Happy hair journey

x

Lade

Learn| Change| Grow

Lessons from my 6 month stretch and my texlax results

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Hello ladies

You may know that I relaxed my hair almost three weeks ago and I have shared some of the pictures on Instagram but this post is crammed with loads more.

I stretched for 6 months plus and I certainly learned a few lessons along the way which as always, I hope you can benefit from.   I will attempt to keep things short and sweet and jump right into it.

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The Cons of My 6 Month Stretch

 

It was time consuming and got increasingly difficult

The longer your hair and the longer the stretch, the more time and effort hair care takes.   I am usually quite good at stretching but I really struggled on this stretch and absolutely dreaded wash days.

Even though my wig regimen usually makes my stretches more bearable, I struggled to be consistent and patient with my hair.

I think I also found the stretch challenging because I was quite busy with work over the last few months and just really didn’t have the time that was needed to manage my hair as well as I would have liked.
Breakage at the line of Demarcation

I noticed that I had more breakage at the line of demarcation. The breakage occurred more in the areas that have thinner and weaker hairs. This reminded me that everyone’s hair is different and some ladies may not be able to stretch for long periods as it may do more harm than good. I usually notice some breakage on my 5 month stretches but the breakage on this stretch was more than I felt comfortable with. This is the main reason I doubt I’ll stretch for 6 months in the future.

 

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The Pros of My 6 Month Stretch

 

My hair feels healthier than it does after shorter stretches.

At several points on this stretch, I felt as though my hair was becoming quite damaged as a result of my struggle to manage the two textures. The length of my hair added to the difficulty of it all.

To my genuine surprise, when I texlaxed eventually, I found my hair to be in the best shape it has ever been since I began my hair journey. This reminded me that the less we expose our hair to harsh chemical processes the healthier our hair is….so long as we remain consistent with good hair care practices.
My ends are the best they have ever been

A long term hair goal of mine was to have even blunt or full looking ends.

I don’t want to create unrealistic hair goals.  It is normal for hair to be a bit thinner towards the ends because with age and wear and tear, the cuticles of our hair gradually chip off and results in thinner hair especially towards our ends which are the oldest part of our hair.  I however felt that because I was no longer letting my hair get longer by cutting off approximately 6 inches a year, with normal hair growth, good hair care and regular trims I would eventually have thicker ends.

Towards the end of my stretch, my hair began to look very uneven and I became discouraged about the stretch and I ended up cutting off two inches just so that wouldn’t look so bad.
When I eventually texlaxed my hair I could see that my ends where nowhere near as bad as it looked but I still cut off a further inch and half after my texlax.
I have trimmed off a total of 3 and half inches and my ends are currently in pretty good shape. I hope to maintain this by being consistent with my regimen and trimming as and when necessary.

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If you are on a long term stretch, it is normal for your ends to begin to look very thin and lifeless in comparison to your thick new growth. Try to hold off trimming until your next relaxer and if for whatever reason you can’t wait that long, try not to get too scissor happy and cut too much off.


Despite the positive aspects of this stretch I don’t think I will stretch beyond 5 months in the future. I simply don’t want to work as hard as I had to on this stretch.

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Have your recently ended a stretch? How did you manage the stretch and were you happy with your results?
My next post will be a simple hair style pictorial after a much needed wash day.

See you soon.

x

Lade

Learn | Change | Grow