Is Your Hair Older Than You Are?

I am a Frederic Fekkai fanatic, so when he has any new product I quickly read all about it. But when he came out with his Ageless line, I figured I would pass. But then I read that while I am not too old, it turns out my hair is, so his Ageless hair line is a great idea for me. The premise is that if your hair is long, even if untreated with perms or dyes or hot appliances like curlers and straighteners and dryers, your hair is still old because it is long. You need to treat this hair with special products. And if like most of us, your hair is colored or you use a straightening iron, your hair is also old. It is bound to get split ends or break soon, but before that happens, it just looks blah and lifeless. That is where hair products for older hair come in. Fekkai and Pantene both have a line for older hair - and what they really mean is those of us in our teens, twenties and thirties who's hair has been through coloring, perms, straightening and those super fast drying hairdryers. You may get regular trims to cut off split ends and ragged dry ends of hair, but you can also treat it so that the hair can withstand the processes you want to style your hair. Your hair gets even weaker with the use of hair extensions, which can cause your actual hair to break off and weaken the follicle that is holding your own hairs' weight and your extension. But how do you know your hair is ABOUT to start looking old and lifeless?

Your hair grows in thick and full in childhood and then again in puberty, gets thinner in your twenties, and by age forty, most people do not have thick hair. Also your head produces less oil, which for those plagued by greasy hair in our teen years this is good news, but it also means hair is dryer and coarser. Brushing your hair each day to distribute oils and skipping shampooing your hair every once in a while will allow more oil to build up, and make a good gentle brush through coat your hair with this oil that makes your hair less dry. When you use styling products with alcohol teamed with heat appliances like I do, it just dries out your hair even faster. How do you know your hair is not so healthy? You can try to gently stretch a hair a bit - it should expand and not snap off. Check your hair for sun damage by holding your ends up to your roots - is it much lighter? Then your hair has been fried by the sun and oxidized. Using a hair styling treatment with a sunscreen in it or wearing a hat when possible is in order to protect your hair from excess oxidation when you do not want it. If you are a teen, you can probably afford to use lemon to lighten your hair or the "Sun-In" type lightening products in the sun to get some color via oxidation, but if you are in your twenties or older, you are causing too much damage to your hair that you likely cannot repair if you keep your hair longer than chin length. There are special sunscreen products for the beach for your hair that work to condition your hair in the sun and protect it.

What makes your hair look especially old is if it is thin and you use lots of product to try to make it look fuller. Most people address this by adding some highlights and lowlights to create depth to their hair. The thinness can also be caused by your hair not being in a growing phase, something that happens when you damage your hair with curlers or straighteners or with hair extensions and it breaks off at the roots. A good product to consider is the Nioxin line that extends the growth cycle of your hair, meaning fewer hairs will fall out. You can make your hair look healthier by going darker and just framing your face with highlights instead of your whole head. Instead of permanent extensions, consider using something like Jessica Simpsons hair extensions that hook on with a base in the middle of your hair that does not put too much weight on any one section. Your hair is generally not healthy enough to withstand an extension if when you firmly tug at a ¼ section of your hair and more than ten hairs pull out. This means your scalp is not strong enough to withstand the extra weight of an extension and you will only lose more hair using them. Consider instead a good conditioning product for your hair, skipping a shampooing when possible, and using Nioxin or Fekkai More shampoos to lengthen the growth cycle of your hair.