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Is your natural hair breaking from time to time, and you’ve no idea how to stop it? Read on to understand how to stop natural hair from breaking. If you’re wondering why you’re losing strands of your natural hair, it’s perhaps time you gave your mane regular care and attention.
Here’s a quick recap of the solutions to consider:
- Keep it Moisturized
- Detangle carefully
- Avoid towel-drying
- Go slow on heat
- Shampoo properly
- Trim split ends
- Wear protective or low-maintenance styles
- Keep it nourished
- Eat healthy, nutritious foods
- Deep condition regularly
Most likely, your natural hair is breaking because you’ve overlooked one or a few solutions above. Let’s dive deeper to understand how to use these solutions to stop your natural hair from breaking.
10 Tips for Stopping Natural Hair From Breaking
Follow these tips to stop natural hair breakage.
1. Keep Natural Hair Moisturized
If you neglect your natural hair, it becomes brittle and lackluster. With time, such hair may start breaking. By moisturizing it, you keep your hair hydrated, reducing the chances of dry hair that can break.
If possible, moisturize your hair daily to provide it with essential nutrients. You can look for a daily moisturizer suitable for your hair type to retain moisture all day long.
While moisturizing works on any hair type, it’s vital to adopt a moisturizing technique that works for your hair. The LOC (liquid + oil + cream) method is the most popular moisturizing technique.
This technique involves applying liquid, oil, and cream in the given order to help your hair retain moisture. Feel free to try a technique that works best for your hair type. For example, you may try the LCO (liquid + cream + oil) method to boost hydration.
Read Next: The LOC vs. LCO Methods, Explained
2. Detangle Carefully
Detangling your natural hair helps to keep knots away, which makes your hair look thick and unkempt. Tangles are some of the leading causes of hair breakage, especially if not taken care of.
Detangling the wrong way can also lead to hair breakage. When detangling your natural hair, avoid tugging too hard or detangling when your hair is dry or when it’s wet. Dry or wet hair tends to be weak and can break off easily when detangling. Keep your hair damp to make detangling easier and with minimal damage.
The other secret to detangling natural hair is choosing the right detangling tools. A wide-tooth detangling comb can be your best bet, especially when done gently.
If you don’t have a detangling comb, use your fingers to remove those knots. Fingers are gentle to your hair and cause less stress and breakage.
Read Next: How to Detangle Matted Hair, Step-by-Step
3. Avoid Towel-Drying
Towel-drying your natural hair after a shower seems the easiest way to get rid of the wetness. However, wet hair is highly fragile and needs to be dried carefully to avoid breakage. Your cotton towel is dry and coarse.
If you vigorously rub the towel on your wet natural hair, it can cause the fragile strands to fall off. The towel’s tough fibers can snag and pull your hair, leaving you with dry and weak strands. Instead, try plopping your hair with an old shirt.
When combing, the fragile hair strands may break easily and frustrate all your efforts. But does it mean you should rely solely on your blow dryer? No, using a blow dryer can cause more breakage due to excessive heat.
If you don’t have the time to air-dry your hair, a soft microfiber towel can do the trick. However, avoid rubbing to absorb the excess water. Instead, use the towel to squeeze and pat your wet hair to absorb the water.
Read Next: How to Easily Dry Naturally Curly Hair
4. Go Slow on Heat
Using blow dryers, flat irons, or curling irons on your natural hair is tempting. However, heat from those devices sucks the moisture out of your natural hair, leaving it dry and lackluster. With time, your dehydrated hair may break off, especially when combing.
Heat can damage your cuticle or cause split ends, leading to hair breakage. Avoid blow-drying your natural hair. If you must, reduce the temperatures to a low setting. You can also use a heat protectant when styling your hair.
Remember to reduce the temperature of your styling tools. Alternatively, use heat-free tools such as hair rollers or Flexi Rods to style your hair. Hot ceramic tools are also better because they distribute heat evenly and glide smoothly on any hair type.
Read Next: Do Heat Protectant Sprays Really Work?
5. Shampoo Properly
Shampoo might be one of the hair care products you rely on when cleaning your natural hair. But do you know shampoo can make or break your hair, depending on how you use it?
Most shampoos contain sulfates, which wash away vital nutrients from your natural hair, leaving it dry. It’s advisable to use sulfate-free shampoos that aren’t harsh on your hair.
Check your sulfate-free shampoo to ensure it has moisturizing ingredients like natural oils, glycerin, butter, or seed oils. After finding the best shampoo for your hair, think about how to apply it.
Apply the shampoo to your scalp and massage the product gently into the scalp to break down the dirt. Rinse properly to avoid leaving any residue on your hair shafts.
Read Next: How Often Should You Wash Your Hair With Shampoo?
6. Trim Split Ends
Trimming natural hair that you’ve maintained for a long time might be the last thing you’d want to consider. But trimming split or damaged ends is one of the best methods of taking care of your hair. It’s a little sacrifice that’ll eventually result in bigger gains.
Split ends may continue to deteriorate and tangle with other healthier hair strands. If you’ve several split ends, they may cause more tangling and hair breakage.
The best way to avoid more damage to your hair is by trimming the split ends as soon as you notice them. A curl test can help determine how far you should trim your hair strands. Dampen a small section of your hair, twist two strands, and check the ends.
Trim the ends to where your strands create perfect curls. If testing and trimming a few strands feel daunting, trim your hair 2 to 3 times a year. You can cut at least 1/4 inch each time.
7. Wear Protective or Low-Maintenance Styles
Styling your natural hair means manipulating it into the shape you want. While styling makes your hair look elegant, excessive manipulation can cause hair breakage. Look for the best protective and low-maintenance styles that protect your hair from breakage.
Common protective and low-maintenance styles include buns, two-strand twists, box braids, and cornrows. These styles offer much-needed beauty and give your hair a safe growing space. Ensure your choice of hairstyle seals your ends.
The ends are usually the first victims when your hair starts to break. Sealing protects them from breaking. Oils such as jojoba, castor, avocado, argan, or hemp can help to seal ends.
8. Keep It Nourished
Natural hair requires some essential nutrients to stay strong. When you deprive your hair of its essential nutrients, it becomes less elastic and breaks off easily. One of the best ways to keep your hair nourished is by performing protein treatments.
Protein helps to keep natural hair strong, reducing the chances of breakage. Shop for protein treatments with ingredients such as silk protein, keratin, hydrolyzed proteins, and oat flour.
When treating your hair, avoid overdoing it. Too much protein can make your hair dry, curly, and dull, resulting in breakage. To ensure your hair has the right amount of proteins, perform protein treatment once or twice a month.
Read Next: Take Our “Does My Hair Need Protein?” Quiz!
9. Eat Healthy, Nutritious Foods
While protein treatments help maintain strong hair, a healthy, nutritious diet should help strengthen your natural hair. Like other body parts, your hair requires a regular supply of nutrients to grow tall, strong, and healthy. With healthy and strong hair, you can minimize the chances of breakage.
Ensure your diet has the following essential nutrients:
- Proteins: Proteins help to grow strong, healthy hair. You can find proteins in eggs, beans, chicken, fish, and nuts.
- Vitamin C: Vitamin C is essential for hair growth and strength. Eat plenty of oranges, papaya, strawberries, broccoli, blueberries, and sweet potatoes.
- Omega-3: Helps moisturize your hair. You can find omega-3 in fish, pumpkin seeds, avocados, and walnuts.
- Vitamin E: Protects your hair against dry air and sun. Eat plenty of walnuts, cashews, and almonds.
- Iron: Helps to prevent hair loss. You can find iron in spinach, broccoli, and lentils.
If you’re struggling to find foods with these essential nutrients, consider supplements such as biotin, vitamin, omega-3, and iron supplements.
Read Next: What Types of Vitamins Are Best for Hair?
10. Deep Condition Regularly
Deep conditioning is one of the best hair care routines that provide nutrients and moisture to your hair. You can deep condition once a week or biweekly to help your hair grow faster, healthier, and stronger.
Deep condition your hair after washing it with shampoo. Remember, shampoo strips all moisturizers on your hair strands. When you deep condition after washing, you reintroduce moisturizers and essential nutrients to your clean hair.
Deep conditioning will also soften your hair and detangle it. Shop for deep conditioners that best suit your hair type to prevent and reduce hair breakage.
Read Next: The 7 Best Deep Conditioners for Relaxed Hair in 2023
Frequently Asked Questions
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Below are answers to commonly asked questions about hair breakage.
If you’re worried about losing your beautiful mane due to breakage, you only need to be patient while upgrading your hair care to grow your hair back. Moisturize, nourish, trim and deep condition your hair to ensure your hair grows fast, healthy, and strong. Growing hair after breakage takes time and commitment. On average, it’ll take six months to one year for your hair to grow back. Use nourishing products and eat healthy foods to speed up the process of hair growth. Haircuts remove dry, dead, or split ends that will eventually break. You should include haircuts in your hair care routine if you’re growing hair. If you ignore cutting split ends, they tangle with other healthy hair strands, causing more breakages. Hair breakage and hair loss are two different things. If you want to know if your hair is breaking off, look for signs such as split ends, rugged ends, thinning ends, and short, broken hair that stick in your comb. Hair that’s about to break off tends to be brittle and dull. Hair breakage in natural hair might result from heat, some styling techniques, over-brushing, shampoos containing sulfates, and chemicals. If you ignore your hair care routine, your natural hair can become dry, brittle, and dull, which might eventually break off.Can hair grow after breakage?
How long does it take hair to grow back after breakage?
Can a haircut help with breakage?
What does hair breakage look like?
What causes hair breakage in natural hair?
So, How Do You Stop Natural Hair From Breaking?
The first step to avoiding hair breakage is to follow your hair care routine. You can do so by correctly moisturizing, detangling, shampooing, and trimming split ends. Then, provide your natural hair with essential nutrients and deep condition it regularly.