In this se­ries I will be look­ing at the fac­tors im­por­tant for healthy hair growth, whether your hair is nat­ur­al or chem­i­cal­ly processed. I have re­alised through the in­ter­ac­tion with my clients that many peo­ple seem to be un­in­formed when it comes to at­tain­ing healthy hair and re­tain­ing length. Some per­sons with afro tex­tured hair in par­tic­u­lar tend to be­lieve that their hair can­not grow long be­cause of their genes. I would agree that genes have a ma­jor im­pact on hair growth; how­ev­er, with pa­tience, knowl­edge on prop­er hair care and know­ing about the sci­ence be­hind your hair, you can con­trol your hair growth and its health. Pa­tience – some­thing a lot of us do not have when it comes to our hair – is very im­por­tant for us to prac­tice if we would like to achieve our hair goals.

Many of us are fo­cused sole­ly on styles and keep­ing up with the lat­est trends and ne­glect the fact that in or­der for our hair to pros­per, we need to pro­vide it with the things it needs and not al­ways what we want. I'm not say­ing that you should not have the lat­est styles, but you need to al­so take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the needs of your hair in or­der for it to be healthy. Chicoro, the au­thor of the book 'Grow it!' high­lights six fac­tors we need to look at in de­tail in or­der to grow healthy hair. These are de­tan­gling, cleans­ing, con­di­tion­ing, mois­tur­is­ing, pro­tect­ing and grow­ing. Each of which re­quire us to have pa­tience with our hair.

Grow­ing up, I was nev­er re­al­ly ed­u­cat­ed much about my hair. All I knew is that I need­ed to comb it or have it combed in or­der to look pre­sentable. How­ev­er, this view changed a few years ago when I re­alised how much care had to be tak­en in or­der for me to have healthy hair. This is when I be­gan read­ing on­line and watch­ing 'YouTube' videos on hair care. The amount of in­for­ma­tion I found (which was not in my dai­ly, week­ly or month­ly rou­tine) as­ton­ished me. Sim­i­lar­ly, my clients and oth­ers I have spo­ken to can at­test to the same sit­u­a­tion. I nev­er knew how im­por­tant pH bal­ance was in grow­ing healthy hair. Nor did I know how im­por­tant ex­er­cise and a prop­er di­et were to the health of my hair. So, through­out this se­ries I will be ad­dress­ing these is­sues (among oth­ers), and go­ing in­to the sci­ence of it to show you how this sys­tem of hair growth re­al­ly works. If you would like to get start­ed on your read­ings for the bet­ter health of your hair, Chicoro's 'Grow it!' and Davis-Siva­sothy's 'The Sci­ence of Black Hair', are great books to be­gin with. Be sure to look out for fu­ture ar­ti­cles on hair care. I as­sure you, whether you are male or fe­male, you will ben­e­fit from them.

Safiya Damani

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