Hello everyone! After all the technical and medical knowledge transfers we had for the past five weeks, I thought why not make a productive, light-hearted blogpost. Thus the thought of this post was born. In the next few hundred words, I will offer some useful, practical, day-to-day tips on hair care. Ok, hair we go!

In this world of hurry, where time enslaves us all, we are always on the run at any point of time. Work, plans, and meetings occupy whole of our conscious time and personal care is pushed to the bottom-most portion of our priority list. Our personal care, usually, is so low in the list that when it goes further down, it might even strike an oil well at our earth underground. Even in that list of personal care, hair care will most probably be ranked right at the bottom. We just buy a sachet of shampoo, rub the scalp till the lather forms as white frothy milk, wash them off and speed our way to our next job, all in a matter of few minutes. Just because hair doesn’t hug us and confess its love, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t show our love to it, right?

1.Wash your hair correctly

Wash your hair correctly with proper care. Try not to wash your hair daily as it will strip your hair of its natural oils. It’s ok. Scalp is not teeth. It will still look clean when you wash it once in three days or so. Use a mild shampoo to wash your hair and apply a conditioner after shampooing to keep your hair soft, manageable and moist. Make sure the shampoo is SLS or ALS free, as these are harsh surfactants. They treat the hair the same way Raptors treat humans in Jurassic Park.

2.Manage wet hair properly

A warm hot water to wet, a gentle massage to apply shampoo; the period of bath is always kind to the hair. But the real cruelty our hair experiences is minutes after bath – during drying. The hair is crushed, pulled, squeezed and subjected to varying levels of torture to make it half dry and we comb immediately before the hair dries up. Impatience is a curse upon our modern world. Avoid brushing your hair while it’s wet as this will cause your hair to stretch and finally break. Leave wet hair to dry on its own. By the law of physics and by the law of Indian climatic conditions, it won’t take long.

3.Follow a healthy diet

Follow a healthy diet to prevent hair loss. Eat foods rich in vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc. to keep your hair healthy and strong. Burgers and pizzas can never better our Indian foods in terms of health. Remember, our body gives nutrients to hair only after distributing them to vital organs and muscles. So it is mandatory to take in enough nutrients so that our hair doesn’t starve. Also, drinking plenty of water will help in maintaining a healthy hair.

4.Careful on the hair styles

Nowadays, the world of fashion is making men and women look astonishingly stylish and presentable. But in the attempt to look new, people try experimenting new hair styles. I have seen a number of girls pulling their hair backwards tightly for a neat, compact look. Their hair will be so tight that when a single strand is plucked, it can even sound like a string instrument of guitar or sitar! It is better to avoid pulling back your hair tightly, as this weakens the root and it breaks easily. Even frequent colour and bleaching will harm the hair. Our hair is not politician; why change colours often then?

5.Use hair styling products wisely

Colours, rollers, curls, straighteners and what not! We have thousands of products for creating thousands of hair styles. (Of them a whopping 3 suits us). There’s no harm in trying them out, but make sure that there is no continuous usage of it. Give your hair a break whenever possible from excessive heat styling and chemical processing as this will dry your scalp and eventually lead to breakage of hair.

Hope you liked this blogpost and found it useful as well. I have an appointment with my hair now and I am taking my comb along with me for the meet. Catch you all later with another interesting post. Till then, let’s hope for a world that is peaceful, healthy and strong from inside and outside its head.

Hi everyone! And a special hi to your hair! This is your hair care expert, Hairini, back to enrich you and thereby your hair with more knowledge on the ways to take care of your hair’s needs and wants (and desires?). Fine, let’s get into the root of the blogpost right away…

Our hair is more of a sadhu. (no… not like the present day one who builds an ashram, two engineering colleges and hundred fan clubs globally calling him/her to be a God and bathing in Gold) It’s like the good-old sadhus of the pre-materialistic world. It has very basic needs and when they are satisfied, the hair experiences all the happiness and contentment. This blogpost entails the nutrient requirements of hair and the sources from where the nutrients can be obtained.

Like any other part of our body, our hair needs a variety of nutrients to grow and stay healthy. Like a VIP in a function getting a high priority in terms of hospitality, our body too shows a marked degree of partiality in terms of nutrient distribution. The nutrients obtained from food move to the essential tissues like muscles and organs first, before reaching the hair. Hence it’s important to get enough amounts of a variety of nutrients in order to ensure a healthy hair growth.

For Proper Hair Growth:

Now let’s look at the various process involved in ensuring a healthy hair, as extrapolated from the illustration above.

Hair Amino Acids:

Amino acids are organic compounds that combine to form proteins. There are a number of amino acids that combine to perform a variety of functions. Humans need a number of Amino acids to:

• Break down food
• Growth
• Repair body tissue
• Perform other body functions

As far as hair nutrients are concerned, the amino acids combine to form a collective group called hair-amino acids. It is formed of 16 amino acids. The scalp uses the amino acids to form a protein called Keratin (details of this protein can be found in my previous posts) that is responsible for proper and healthy hair growth. Quality of hair can be improved substantially and quickly by consuming some of these key amino acids – Taurine, Arginine, Ornithine, Lysine, Glycine

Supporting Vitamins & Minerals

Hold on! The amino acids I had mentioned earlier are just one of the few nutrients that your hair needs. That’s more like the blue colour of the rainbow. There are more colours still left. The vitamins and minerals are one among them. The root containing the follicular development contains further vitamins and minerals that support the development of the hair. Hence the consumption of amino acids alone is not sufficient as there’s a need to increase our consumption of the supporting vitamins and minerals like – Calcium, Biotin, Folic acid, Iron, Zinc, Copper, and Magnesium etc.

Antioxidants

Nature is a prankster. It fills the world with oxygen and makes the gas the necessity of life at one hand and sprinkles a generous amount of darkness over it at the other. The oxygen we inhale for our survival carries out a chemical process called oxidation inside our body which releases a number of free radicals. These free radicals initiate a chain reaction inside a cell leading to the damage/death of the cell. These results in ageing, grey hairs, weakening of hair and other phenomena that make people say ‘hey, you are getting old!’ Antioxidants are substances that protect our cells from free radicals and oxidative damage. These free radicals play a vital role in hair loss.

Antioxidants obtained from green tea and green apple extract are found to be effective in preventing hair loss and related hair damages.

DHT Blockers

We have discussed in detail about DHT (Dihydrotestosterone) in our previous posts and by now, you must know for a fact that this protein is the primary cause of hair loss in people. DHT attacks hair follicles and prevents further hair growth, leading to male pattern baldness.

Experts believe that the best course of action for stopping hair loss is to start using DHT blockers. These blockers inhibit the action of a primary enzyme called ‘5α Reductase’ which converts Testosterone to DHT.

Saw Palmetto

• It is the extract of the fruit Serenoa repens
• It is a very effective and safe anti-androgen
• It lowers the levels of DHT in the body by blocking 5 alpha-reductase enzyme
• Scientists have proved that Saw palmetto is a safer alternative to finasteride as it inhibits 5α reductase without affecting the testosterone levels in men

ANDROANAGEN:

Well, worried from where to source all these essential nutrients that your hair needs to stay healthy? I can hear you, loud and clear. I recommend you a safer alternative, Androanagen. Androanagen is a safer, systemic long term approach towards Androgenetic Alopecia. All the ingredients in Androanagen are comprehensively formulated using the nutrients needed by your hair for effective treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia. It is that one rainbow having all the seven VIBGYOR in it so that you need not worry about the intake of each and every essential nutrient in your diet.

For Effective visible results, the recommended dosage for Androanagen is one tablet per day taken 30 minutes after food for a minimum period of six months.

Hope you have enjoyed this blogpost. Until I see you next time with another interesting update on hair care, this is Hairini, your hair care expert, signing off. Bubye!

Hi everyone! As a famous, muscular, Hollywood star turned politician, whose nose was the only expressive element in his face once said, “I’m back!”

This time, Hairini is here to erase off the common misconception people have about hair loss and its treatment. Well, as a hair expert, it is my duty to enrich you with as much knowledge as I can, that too when the world is getting expertly misled by false promotions and information.

Now imagine this situation. You have a green, beautiful flowering plant. You keep applying water, fertilizers and nutrients to its stem and leaves, for days together. You add nothing to the soil or to its root. The plant starts wilting, turning weaker and weaker as the time progresses. You then buy an expensive bottle of mineral water and sprinkle to its stem; follow it by adding chemically enriched, highly researched fertilizers to leaves and flowers. Do you really think the plant will survive?

This is exactly the process that a majority of population is made to believe when it comes to hair-treatments. Buy expensive hair oil or a costly shampoo; apply on the hair and tadaaa! The hair loss problem gets solved! True it will get solved once and for all since you would have no hair left to care for. This is as absurd as expecting the plant mentioned above to survive.

UNDERSTANDING HAIRLOSS

As detailed in last blog post, the male sex hormone Testosterone gets converted to more potent form Dihydrotestosterone aka DHT which is the main cause for pattern baldness. So the main problem here is the genetic sensitivity to DHT. The DHT strikes at the root of the hair and weakens the hair, from inside. When hair follicle comes back to anagen phase (growth), the hair gets thinned out and the follicle weakens until no hair is produced at all. When the problem is internal, what’s the use of rubbing the scalp continuously with oils and shampoos? They can, at the most, produce static electricity.

THE RIGHT TREATMENT

Each hair in our head is connected to a blood vessel which supplies all the essential nutrients for healthy hair growth. Ever wondered why it never pains when a hair is cut but pains terribly when it is plucked? That’s because a hair lives on its root, a touch below the scalp layer.

People who suffer from hair loss have blood vessels without adequate nutrition at hair’s root. So, in order for hair to grow again we need to breathe life back into these tiny vessels.

To do so, all the essential nutrients for hair growth have to be supplied to the hair internally, i.e., any effective treatment for hair loss must be taken orally. The next time someone suggests you just a topical treatment to your hair loss problem, feel free to laugh at them. Ignorance is bliss, for those who mislead.

With hopes of completing an educative post once again, this is Hairini, the hair care expert signing off. See you again with a new post, in a very short time. Until then, take care of your hair.

Hi everyone! It has been quite a while since I caught up with you all. I am now back to share some more information I knew about hair-care. This time, about the very important difference you might need to know on one of the ever-confusing homophone pair in the hair-care industry – Androgen and Androanagen.

We live in a world where confusions are bound to occur. Here, ‘minit’ and ‘mineyoot’ are both spelled as minute; deodorant and condom ads are nothing but the same; Bollywood heroines with and without make-up are two different women altogether; and God is… hehehe… one. So, it’s quite natural for people, who come across the words Androgen and Androanagen while reading hair-care articles, to get confused between the two. Never mind, Hairini, the hair care expert is always here to clear off your confusions.

ANDROGEN

Androgens are group of hormones that play a very important role in male traits and reproductive activity. And no, these androgens are not sexists. They do find their presence in women too. Both men and women produce these hormones; it’s just that the quantity differs.

In males, the most prominent and active Androgen is Testosterone. In women, Androgens are converted into female hormones called Estrogens. Both are sex hormones, and hence, quite unsurprisingly, always make an interesting read.

ROLE OF ANDROGEN IN HAIR-LOSS:

You may think that hair-loss occurs because of stress, because of pre-birth karma, because of your Manager who calls at 2AM and asks you to submit a four-hundred page report in the next seventeen minutes, because of the rainbow colours you dyed your hair with, and because nature considered you to be sexier with a bit of baldness. I am not saying that you are wrong; I am saying these, if true, are only the peripheral causes. Deep under those thinning black strands of hair, there’s a much more evil villain.

An androgen called DHT (Dihydrotestosterone) is a potent form of Testosterone and is produced with a help of a protein called 5 Alpha Reductase

Experts say that 95% of cases male pattern baldness occurs because of the effects of DHT on their hair follicles.

When DHT gets into the hair follicles, it reduces the absorption of vital nutrients for healthy hair growth thereby, leading to male pattern baldness.

ANDROANAGEN:

If there’s a villain, there has to be a hero, isn’t it? Well, at least that’s how the world has been designed; very cinematic. The triumph of good over evil all through the story, with a few item numbers sprinkled here and there. Say hello to our hero, ANDROANAGEN.

Androanagen is a comprehensive treatment for hair loss. Its unique combination effectively tackles Androgenetic Alopecia and addresses the issue from the root. Androanagen is designed keeping in mind all the essential nutrients required for healthy hair growth. The ingredients in Androanagen not only help in effectively managing the hair loss but are absolutely safe as well.

ANDROANAGEN: Site-Specific Treatment for Androgenetic Alopecia

Hair is a live tissue inside the head and a dead tissue outside the head. Anything that addresses hairfall, therefore, has to work from within the body. And Androanagen works wonderfully well from within the body by addressing the root cause of the problem, ie., the Hair loss. Androanagen supplies all the necessary essential nutrients, amino acids, minerals, etc., that works right at the area of problem, i.e., at the follicle and treats hair loss from within. It increases the blood supply and provides all the necessary food for your hair to have a healthy growth. Very typical of a hero, isn’t it? Yeah, now hoot and whistle for the hero and while you are at it, let me silently sign off. Meet you in my next post. Don’t pull your hairs till then…

Hi everyone! Hairini is back. This time with more specific information about a haunting and distressing problem of today, faced impartially by both men and women… Hair loss.

Morning 7 AM, when the rush of the morning life mercilessly unfolds… You get up reluctantly from the cosy blanket … after the 5th snooze of the alarm, bathe and iron with a blink of an eye; the smell of morning coffee refreshes you with its soothing aroma and the voice of your manager yells at every sound of clock tick… You finally sneak some time to sit before your dressing table to make yourself presentable, take a roller comb and roll the entire length of your cascading hair… AND BOOM! There comes the shock.

The sight of the silky strands winding chaotically into the teeth of the comb, shattering every possible hope the dawn had brought and brutally ruining the entire day from then on. This is the story of every young and middle aged office goer, beyond genders and beyond identities.

But there is nothing to get depressed at the sight of it. All it takes is a better understanding of our hair and the causes for the loss. Let’s look at this hair loss aka Alopecia at depth now.

CAUSES:

All of us lose hair. Yes that is the truth. We all lose hair on a daily basis. But as long as the number of strands we lose is around 40, we don’t need to panic. This is very normal. But most often when a clutch of hair comes of in the comb, if we count them and see, we would be losing over a 100 strands in a day. There, we have an issue. While we all have over 1,00,000 follicles sprouting their respective hair strands, it does upset us a bit if we lose a 100 of them daily. What we need to understand is that hair loss is not caused by misfortune or karma. You cannot blame them if you are a victim of it. The love that holds the scalp and the hair together is a romantic story that has many powerful villains to break the bond between the two. Some of the strong villains are mentioned below.

MEDICATION

Medications for blood pressure, heart conditions, depression and Birth Control can cause a temporary hair loss.

AGE & GENETICS

Genes play an important role in hair loss. If a family member has baldness, then you stand at a greater chance of having it. Hair loss is common with ageing.

HORMONAL IMBALANCES

An over active or a lazy thyroid gland can cause hair loss. Levels of Androgen and Estrogen can play the role of villains too.

DISEASES

Hair loss can also be an early sign of an undiagnosed condition such as diabetes.

PREGNANCY

Though temporary, thankfully, women may experience hair loss after giving birth to a baby.

STRESS FROM ILLNESS/SURGERY

This is a temporary condition and Hairini advices the readers not to worry much if the hair loss happens in this period. Almost every single day every man or woman living in urban landscape faces a huge amount of stress and a stressed individual will certainly lose hair…

TYPES OF HAIR LOSS

A shot arrow and a spoken word can never be taken back. A fallen hair strand deserves a worthy inclusion in that list. Based on the way it falls, hair loss or Alopecia can be classified into the following types.

TELOGEN EFFLUVIUM (TE)

Is caused of dietary deficiencies, anaemia, high grade fevers, stress etc. it usually recovers within 6 months.

MALE PATTERN BALDNESS AKA ANDROGENETIC ALOPECIA

Is the thinning of scalp hair in a definite pattern. The three main reasons for this are: genetic, age and hormones.

FEMALE PATTERN BALDNESS

Is the thinning of hair around the entire scalp extensively on the crown area.

And that’s all for today folks. I am getting late for my hair massage. See you next time with some more information on hair care. Until then, this is Hairini, the hair care expert, signing off.

ALOPECIA AREATA

Is the loss of hair from the scalp in small patches.

ALOPECIA TOTALIS

Is the loss of hair from the entire scalp.

ALOPECIA UNIVERSALIS

Is the loss of hair from the entire body including eyebrows and eyelashes.

SCARRING ALOPECIA AKA CICATRICIAL ALOPECIA

Is caused by burns or infections which may cause permanent damage to the hair follicle

TRACTION ALOPECIA

Is the loss of hair due to hair styles that tie or pull the hair so tightly that the hair roots are pulled from the scalp.

TRICOTILOMANIA

Is the loss of hair due to repetitive or compulsive self-pulling by the patients themselves.

I am Hairini, yeah the name is a product of numerology but being a hair care expert, perhaps the spelling was just a destiny. Of late, I have been seeing a large number of people losing sleep over losing hair. Day by day, there is an increase in the volume of hair in their comb to that on the scalp. With palms on their forehead and their eyes cursing the mirror, they try every possible solution ranging from highly expensive choices like ‘TV advertised’ hair oils to the cheaper choices like changing their comb (!). But the good thing here is most of them have started caring about their hair. For those who don’t, ‘today’ is always an auspicious day to start caring and ‘now’ is the best time to.

As a hair expert, I always believe that caring for hair starts with a good understanding of it. Hence this blog is to make those caring individuals understand their hair first and make the bonding between their hair and scalp tight.

THE HAIR MACHINERY

Just like our Indian cricket team that is made up of batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders and Sir Ravindra Jadeja, our hair is made up of a number of elements that are vital to its existence. The picture below will guide you through a hair’s manufacturing unit where a number of small machines work together to form your beautiful hair.

The order should be Hair Follicle, Dermal Papilla and then Sebaceous Gland.

Hair Follicle:A pouch shaped structure within which the entire hair machinery functions. If hair is a gift, the follicle is the gift wrap.

Sebaceous gland:The lustrous shine on your hair is because of the oil secreted by this gland to avoid friction. No use in praising your shampoos alone!

Dermal papilla:This is the gateway for blood vessels and in flows the essential nutrients such as amino acids, vitamins, minerals etc. No entry fees.

THE HAIR INGREDIENTS

THE HAIR PACKAGING:
The portion of hair that we see outside from the scalp is called SHAFT. So when Rajnikanth stylishly caresses his hair, what we actually see is a cluster of hair shafts. This Shaft, in turn, can be divided into three layers inside, as depicted in the following image.

THE HAIR GROWTH PHASE:
We live in a world where nothing, ranging from Prime Minister to pencil box, is permanent. How can growth alone be permanent? The growth of hair follows a definite cycle, as in the image below.

Anagen, the growth phase:

• Occurs for 3 to 7 years
• 90% of hairs are in this phase at any given time.

Catagen, the transition phase:

• Occurs for 1 to 3 weeks
• Hair follicle shrinks to about 1/6th of the normal length

Telogen, the shedding phase:

• Occurs for 1 to 3 months
• 10 -15% of hairs are in this phase at any given time

THE COMMON HAIR PROBLEMS:

A Hair without problems is water without wetness … a nation without politician … a country without taxes. They are inevitable, like politician or taxes. Since hair is essential to our identities, we would love to hold on to them as much as we can in the scalp. But holding them in our comb? Well, that’s fearsome. One way to drive away the fears is to understand the normal hair problems better. To remove unnecessary fears, there has to be a sound knowledge of hair issues. Of the problems I see, the following four are the most common problems associated with the hair.

DANDRUFF

Dandruff is the skin cells that grow and die off too fast. The shedding of these cells from the scalp is what you see as white powder on your shoulders. The microbial origin of dandruff is yeasts (fungi) of the genus Malassezia.

HEAD LOUSE

This pestering parasite that thrives on your scalp is a common problem in the lives of many. The main way to avoid a lice attack is to maintain proper scalp hygiene and regular hair cleansing.

TREATED HAIR
It’s common to use chemical treatments to make your hair straighter, curlier or more colourful. But the process of making extreme changes can cause lots of damage to your hair. Even hot blow drying and ironing your hair break the natural chemical bonds in your hair and force them into a new shape.

THINNING OF HAIR

When your hair’s natural growth cycle slows down, thinning or loss of hair occurs. This is mainly due to hormone imbalance, genetics or due to some physical trauma.

I hope you are a bit more informed and relaxed at the moment after reading the contents of the post. Keep looking at the mirror admiring your hairstyle and stop cursing your comb for acting as hair magnets. I will be back with more information in the next post. Until then, this is Hairini, the hair care expert, signing off.