Can I repair split ends?

No. The only way to cure them is to cut them off. So-called ‘split end-healers’ may temporarily glue the ends together, but only until the hair is washed or combed.

Does hair get used to the same shampoo?

No. The same shampoo, used on the same hair under the same circumstances, always gives the same result. Shampoo buyers are noted for their disloyalty, and manufacturers frequently take advantage of consumer dissatisfaction with other competitors. Very few people are truly happy with their hair’s performance so they try to improve it by switching products.

Will frequent shampooing dry my hair?

Quite the contrary; shampooing, if done correctly and with the right products, actually remoisturizes. It is often thought that frequent shampooing ‘dries out the natural oils’. Oil flow does not control the hair’s dryness; it’s the moisture, or water level that does this. You can apply as much oil to the hair as you want, but without moisture it will still be dry. Anyway, who wants oily hair?

See section on shampooing

Will frequent shampooing make my hair oilier?

No. You might as well say that the more you bathe, the dirtier you get. Clean hair shows grease faster than hair that is already oily; similarly, clean clothes show dirt immediately, whereas dirty clothes have to get much dirtier before it shows. It is a matter of individual perception. As cleansing oily skin does not stimulate oil glands, shampooing does not make your hair oilier.

See section on shampooing

Will frequent shampooing make my hair fall out?

No. Everyone’s hair falls out and all hair is eventually replaced. It may be falling out due to metabolic reasons. Shampooing only loosens the hairs that already have become detached from the follicle’s base. In fact it may encourage faster growth as it has a stimulatiing effect on the hair follicle.

See section on shampooing

Will a cold rinse after shampooing close the pores and add shine to my hair?

Cold rinses may be invigorating but they don’t exactly close the pores, they actually constrict the blood capillaries. These tiny blood vessels carry nutrients and pick up waste products from the skin’s surface need to be active for optimum effect; suddenly constricting them does no good at all to your hair. A cold shower doesn’t make your skin shinier!

See section on shampooing

Will a lemon or vinegar rinse add shine after shampooing?

This doesn’t apply nowadays. In the old days, before modern shampoo, you would have washed your hair with soap. These soaps would deposit an alkaline film on the hair, dulling the hair’s cuticle. An acid rinse, from lemon or vinegar, would neutralize this alkaline deposit and add shine. Modern shampoos do not create an alkaline film so an acid rinse is unnecessary.

See section on shampooing

Are products labelled as ‘natural’ healthier and better for me?

Should the description ‘natural’ on a label influence your choice? No!

This is a psychological ploy adopted by advertisers. Products labelled ‘botanic’, ‘organic’ or ‘herbal’ carry the connotation that they are ‘natural’ products and therefore healthier or better for us. We could easily say that poison ivy and beestings are ‘natural’ however, these are hardly good for us! ‘Chemical’ has negative connotations, although everything is chemical. Water is natural, but it is composed of the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen.

By the time a natural ingredient has reached a commercial product it is completely different to its original form. Truly natural expressed oils of flowers, herbs or fruit are many times more expensive. If you are buying a reasonably-priced product, the chances are that the fragrance is not natural either. Any plant, fruit or food will spoil without preservation and the most effective preservatives are chemicals, which are found in so-called natural products.

The ingredients on labels are printed in descending order of percentages, the highest first – look and you will see where the ‘natural’ ingredients are!

Are products labelled as ‘alcohol free’ better for me?

‘Alcohol free’ is a gimmick. Most cosmetic manufacturers will have you believe that alcohol as an ingredient will do dreadful things to your skin, scalp and hair. There are many different types of alcohol – types to rub on your skin, to drink – even a gas alcohol. Some alcohols are drying agents but other alcohols are emollient, protective, smooth to the touch and highly beneficial when dryness is a problem. The latter are used extensively in cosmetics for this reason. An ‘alcohol free’ product is not necessarily better than one containing alcohol – it may even be worse.

Can my hair suffer from build-up or product overload?

Hair and make-up products often have similar ingredients. In making up your face you use many products and at the end of the day you cleanse. You wouldn’t consider that your face suffers from build-up or product overload, so why should your hair be any different? It’s not. You can remove whatever you put on your hair simply by shampooing it.

Build up is just a term and not a myth. You may want to build-up your hair with leave-in styling aids or conditioners to add body or texture. The myth is that it is dreadful and you need special products labelled as ‘clarifying’ to remove them. You don’t. The same goes for so-called product overload.

Is my hair normal, oily or dry

What is normal? Your normal is not everyone’s normal, or even your family’s normal. Abnormalities are very rare – so we are all normal! With the terms ‘normal’, ‘oily’ and ‘dry’ it is impossible to describe our hair accurately. Hair can be fine, straight, limp and ‘dry’, or coarse, curly, frizzy and ‘dry’, or ‘oily’ at the roots and ‘dry’ at the ends… and so on. Each of these hair types could also be coloured, bleached, permed, as well as short or long – all different but all dry. We should assess hair by its size and shape. That is whether the texture is fine, medium or coarse and whether its shape is straight, wavy, curly or frizzy. Then take into account what has been done to it, and use all of that information to choose a hair care routine that best suits the individual’s hair.

Use our product finder to find your hair type and personalised hair care routine.

Will brushing my hair 100 strokes a day be good for it?

No – it’s bad for it. Brushing pulls your hair out, breaks it off and scratches the scalp. Your hair can get worn out the same as if you repeated brushed a wool sweater. A brush should be used as a styling aid only, not as exercise for the hair.

See section on brushes and combs

Does dandruff result from a dry scalp?

No. Dandruff is more likely to be oily than dry.

See section on dandruff

Is grey hair coarser than other hair?

Grey hair may be drier because hair goes grey at an age when the oil flow begins to be reduced. But it is generally not coarser.

Can hair turn white overnight?

Scientifically, it is an impossibility. The myth may have started with alopecia areata, whereby clumps of hair fall out and are replaced with white hairs, but this can’t occur overnight. It is one of those statements used to convey the degree of stress somebody has undergone. Stress can affect the hair colour gradually as the hair is growing, but certainly not overnight.

If I pull one grey hair out, will two more grow?

When you notice a grey hair you don’t like it and you pull it out. This action can rupture the hair follicle and the replacement hair that will eventually grow takes longer to regenerate, by which time another, mostly grey, hair is beginning to grow next to it. Then the hair that was originally pulled out does regrow, you have two grey hairs.

Will colouring my hair make it fall out?

There is no scientific evidence to support this – colouring does not make the hair fall out more.

See section on colouring

Do tight hats cause baldness?

No. If you wore a tourniquet twisted tightly round your head for hours on end, you would collapse before your hair fell out! This theory started because many men returning from wars had experienced some baldness and proceeded to blame it on the compulsory wearing of hats. Men go to war at an age where they are more prone to hair loss; it’s just a coincidence that they wear hats. It is also possible that the stress of war can accelerate any tendency towards hair loss.

See section on hair loss

Do women have more hair than men?

No. In a clinical study in the early nineties it was established that the average number of hairs per square centimetre was 279 on women and 312 on men – about 10 per cent difference. It also indicates that men have finer hair than women, because each hair takes up less space, there is room for more of them.

See section on biology

Are bald men more virile?

No. This myth may well have been instigated by bald men. It is a fact that bald men almost always have hairier bodies, particularly on the chest and back. The reverse is true of men with full heads of hair. Hairy chests and backs might have been associated with virility because gorillas and apes have hairy bodies and it is thought of as being more male, just as a lack of body hair on women is thought of as being more feminine.

Men with very little scalp hair have follicles that are more sensitive to androgens (male hormones), which makes it thin. Body hair is quite the opposite; androgens stimulate it to grow.

See section on hair loss

Is baldness inherited from the mother’s family?

It can be, but it can also be inherited from the father’s side, or there may be no history of baldness on either side of the family and you are simply unlucky to have thinning hair. Somewhere in your genetic pool your genes help to control what your hair does. It takes two, a male and a female, to make a baby, and the genes of either sex can affect the onset of baldness. It is really just a matter of luck.

See section on hair loss

When a hair comes out with a white bulb attached, does that mean that the root is dead?

You may notice than some of your fallen hairs have a small white lump at the root and therefore you think that the root of the hair has also been removed. This white bead is simply part of the hair follicle lining which is similar to skin and, like your skin, is continuously being replaced.

See section on biology