Aging Hair Starts Younger than you Think

My biggest fear of aging is about my hair. I always thought that I was invincible to hair damage and I would never experience hair loss, but it’s real and it’s happening to me. My entire life I’ve had fantastic hair. It’s not too thick or thin, and it’s manageable. I say “volume,” and my hair responds, “how high?” In fact, my hair is so easy to deal with that I use hot tools on it every day to style my hair. What’s better than walking around with luscious, bouncy hair? Well, here I am at 21 years old and in the past year, alone, I’ve noticed big changes. I have broken hairs that won’t grow back from endless ponytails and tight braids. Every time I take a shower, there’s a fat hair ball in my drain awaiting its funeral. Most of all, the hair which frames my face is thinning and breaking from recurrent styling. I’m terrified that one day there won’t be any hair left on my head. I came to the realization that this is a sign of aging. Our skin is not the only thing that ages. Our hair ages, and we shouldn’t accept aging hair, just like we don’t accept aging skin. So, what’s the problem here and how do we fix it without giving up our self-esteem? The key is knowing the following: the signs of aging lag our lifestyles. The environment, chemical treatments like color and bleach, and natural hormone levels all affect our hair. What we do now to our hair will affect its appearances next year, five years from now, ten years from now, and so on. Aging is inevitable; everyone grows older. But, we all want to look and feel our personal best as this process takes place. This kind of sounds like an oxymoron, because we can’t actually slow aging. But, like we can lessen the appearance of wrinkles with creams, SPF, and serums, we can improve our hair’s texture, manageability, thickness, and shine. I am not just going to stop styling my hair. My hair’s appearance is my life, my confidence, and my self-esteem. However, I need to take better care of it. As long as I start to treat my hair like I would my skin—protecting it from heat, chemicals, environmental factors, and carefully selecting my products—I may be able to restore what I thought was gone forever.