Does Damaged Hair Grow Back Healthy?

The thought that your hair is irreparably damaged is such a nightmare. Imagine your hair is damaged by over-processing, over-styling, or over-dyeing and now has split ends and unending breakage. No one wants this to happen.

However, there comes the question, “Does damaged hair grow back healthy?” This post will solve this issue, so do not miss it!

Does Damaged Hair Grow Back Healthy?

To some extent, the answer is yes. Your damaged hair can regenerate into healthy hair, which looks more healthy, free of split ends, bleach frying, heat damage, or anything else.

Stop what you are doing, get a trim, and let your hair grow back healthy if you really want to restore the damage. You can avoid split ends from traveling up the hair shaft and causing additional damage by getting your hair trimmed. 

Once completed, as long as the hair follicles are healthy and there are no medical issues, your hair will return healthy.

It cannot, though, be totally restored to its previous splendor, particularly if your hair has been highly styled or bleached for many years. In that situation, your hair is nothing more than a collection of dead cells.

How Long Does Damaged Hair Take To Grow Out?

In fact, your hair grows at a monthly pace of 0.2 – 0.7 inches. However, sex, age,  genetics, and diet also affect whether you are at the upper or lower end of that spectrum.

• Sex: Male hair grows quicker than female, but pregnancy may accelerate hair growth.
• Age: Hair will grow the quickest between the ages of 15 and 30, then slows down. When people age, certain follicles cease to function entirely. Therefore,  some people’s hair becomes thinner, or they grow bald.
• Genetics: An individual’s genes determine how fast the hair grows.
• Diet: Proper nutrition is vital for good hair development and maintenance.

Also, at 0.7 inches every month, you cannot be able to repair the harm overnight. The most important thing to do is keep patience and care for your damaged hair properly to look healthy when waiting for new growth.

Note that you cannot wholly recover your damaged hair, but you can help it grow back faster and repair it with some methods mentioned in the following part.

How Long Does It Take For Damaged Hair To Recover?

In general, hair that has been damaged will lose its natural suppleness and hydration. The length of time it takes to recover damaged hair is determined by the extent of the damage.

• If it is minor, the benefits will be noticeable within 2 to 3 months of starting bi-weekly treatments.
• However, you need to wait for your hair to grow out if your hair damage is too severe. Furthermore, you should combine the usage of moisturizing and nourishing products for a better result.

Overall, it will take you from 6 months to 1 year at a minimum to notice a significant improvement in your hair.

How To Grow Damaged Hair Fast?

Get rid of the worst part of your hair

Trimming off part of the split ends should be the first step toward healthy growth. It can instantly give the hair a better look by reducing the frizzy and thin borders and preventing additional damage.

Split ends tend to split up your hair shaft further. Thus, if you keep them for length preservation, you are likely to allow more harm to move up near your roots, which may result in a tiresome cycle of thin and dull locks. 

For these reasons, do not let split ends stay on your hair anymore. Instead, take the bullet and cut them as soon as you see it. You may feel a lot better after you have completed this step. The hair may become shorter, but doing so will help you grow it quicker in the future.

Apply a leave-in conditioner

When most visible damage has been repaired, now you should begin repairing the remaining hair with nourishing treatments to provide it with a finer, thicker, smoother, and healthier look.

Here, a leave-in conditioner will help you. It is a product that you apply to wet hair after washing it and remain on for the entire day or till your following shampoo, enabling it to function for an extended period.

Using a leave-in conditioner can help your hair look less damaged and prevent future damage. 

You should apply leave-in conditioners that have ingredients like jojoba oil, coconut oil, aloe vera, keratin, and others that help hydrate your tresses and smooth out the hair cuticles to keep them in.

Healthy diet

Few factors can significantly impact healthy hair development than your nutrition. A nutritious diet will help to accelerate development and guarantee that your hair will regrow faster and be as glossy and healthy as possible.

You should consume certain foods such as citrus fruits and berries, leafy greens, lean meats, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils, etc.

Here are a few suggestions for staying healthy from your inside out:

• Consume various hair-healthy meals high in omega-3 fatty acids, protein, and iron. For the most remarkable results, combine carbohydrates and proteins. Avocados, salmon, almonds, flaxseeds, and sardines are all high in omega-3 fatty acids, promoting healthy hair development.
• Drink lots of water to prevent dehydration. Once you are dehydrated, the hair might become brittle and dry.
• Cigarette smoking should be avoided. Smoke damage may cause hair to seem lifeless and dry.
• Vitamins and a nutrient-rich diet are vital. For the most satisfactory outcomes, your hair requires vitamins A, B, C, D, and E, as well as iron, proteins, and zinc. Generally, you can acquire these nutrients from whole foods, including sweet potatoes, eggs, milk and yogurt, seafood, or avocados.
• Hair flourishes on additional biotin, a B-vitamin present in most of these meals and available as a supplement.

Therefore, give importance to your food and supplement to ensure you get enough of these elements so that your damaged hair can come back faster and healthier.

Get scalp treatments

You should begin with the scalp to stimulate robust new hair development since a healthy scalp promotes healthy growth. Consider getting a scalp treatment once a week, which is a substance you may apply to the scalp just like a head mask.

You should get scalp treatments containing the same hair-growing ingredients mentioned before, such as vitamins, biotin, vitamins, keratin, and oils.

While using this product, you should spend several minutes kneading it into the scalp to promote blood flow to your hair’s cuticles, promoting more significant development. Additionally,  it will provide you with far more pleasure.

Stay away from heat styling

Excessive temperatures from heat styling tools alter the form of the hair’s keratin tresses. 

Temperatures above 300°F convert ⍺-keratin to β-keratin, resulting in weaker hair losing its flexibility and being more susceptible to damage. Once the keratin is dissolved, your hair retains its form on a molecular scale, and this is irreversible.

Indeed, using heat on your damaged hair can worsen its condition. Also, it may harm healthy new growth before it has time to flourish.

As a result, stay away from heat styling to guarantee your hair comes back healthy. Let your hair air dry and experiment with different styles without using curlers, straighteners, or other hot equipment.

Avoid using harmful chemicals

The use of harsh chemicals is another factor that can lead to further breaking. If you have damaged hair, try to refrain from dyeing, straightening, or perming it, which can be exceedingly destructive to hair health and harmful to your damaged hair.

Hair damage happens once the hair cuticle’s proteins are reduced. Hair dyeing is a technique that elevates these proteins to deposit pigment into the hair shaft.

Therefore, when the hair is already damaged, elevating any leftover proteins may result in even more protein loss as well as further damage—relaxing and perming both functions similarly, making your hair more brittle and fragile.

If you still want to dye your hair, look for conditioners in the hair colors to lower the amount of hair damage. Hydrolyzed silk proteins are one example.

Also, it is best to accept natural texture and color throughout the normal hair growth process to avoid damaging your hair.

Take extra care when working with wet hair

The hair becomes more delicate once wet than once dry because its structure changes once it is wet – the proteins produce weaker links when water is added. 

It means that even minor tugging or pulling may cause the hair shaft to break in a second.

This tendency is magnified if the hair has already been damaged, as there are fewer proteins to start with. Therefore, you should take additional care once working the hair after a hot shower to avoid it from breaking off completely.

Below are several tips that may be helpful when you handle wet hair to keep as much of the hair as possible without causing further harm to the hair follicles. 

Also, these steps will assist in hiding your damage and establishing a healthy environment for future hair development.

• While washing your hair, rub the scalp using your fingertips and pull the shampoo into the hair gradually rather than violently. Apply conditioner in the same manner.
• Allow your hair to air dry for several minutes before carefully squeezing out extra water using a T-shirt or microfiber towel. When drying your hair, prevent using a washcloth because it might snag on the hair strands and cause breakage.
• Detangle carefully with a wide-tooth comb or your fingers. To help the detangling process easier, apply a leave-in conditioner. You should start detangling from the hair ends and gradually moving up.
• Avoid using heat on the hair.

What Can You Use To Fix Damaged Hair? 

In fact, there are many things that you can use to fix your damaged hair. Here we have listed several ones that are effective and easy to use:

Coconut oil

Massaging your scalp hair using pure coconut oil is a great way to repair the damage done to your hair. 

Because coconut oil is rich in lauric acid, it has a strong affinity for hair proteins. Because of this, it can enter deep into your hair strand,  protect the cuticle, and give the hair a fresh and healthy look.

Olive oil

It is among the most popular home cures for damaged hair that you can frequently use to protect your hair from harm. This oil reduces split ends and dandruff while making your hair healthier and more manageable.

Virgin olive oil contains a high concentration of Vitamin E, which helps preserve hair elasticity by lowering the chances of dryness and breakage.

Henna

If henna is mixed with water and put on your damaged hair, it will become more lustrous and healthy. 

Henna binds to keratin by reaching the hair strands. Also, it strengthens the hair cuticles and thickens your hair by giving it more resistance to breaking. Therefore, it helps repair damaged hair.

Hibiscus

Its leaves and blooms are helpful for your damaged hair development and repair. Putting the leaves paste on your scalp and washing it using warm water will boost the gloss and volume of your hair.

To know more ways to repair your damaged hair, we highly recommend you have a look at this video because it provides you with a lot of helpful tips:

How Can You Keep Your Hair From Getting Damaged?

Avoid excessive brushing

Over-brushing the hair might cause it to break. If you are continually brushing your hair, chances are there will be too much friction going on. 

So, only brush your hair when absolutely necessary. It is not something you should do out of habit. Brushing your hair twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, is recommended.

Avoid using excessive heat

Heat alters the hydrogen bonds keeping hair together, which means that using heat too frequently might result in long-term hair damage.

You should use curling irons and straighteners coming with a heat adjustment for the best result. Fine, thin, or fragile hair should utilize the minimal heat level, and the average amount of time needed to keep a curl is from 5 to 10 seconds. 

To minimize the heat hair damage, you should start with a low heat level with less time and gradually increase if necessary.

Further, you had better use heat protectant products since they provide a layer around the hair cuticle, allowing the product to absorb the heat rather than your hair. Also, it defends your strands against heat for up to 450 degrees.

Remember to spray it over your damp, clean hair and around 6 inches away from the head when using it.

Tight hairstyles

While updos, ponytails, and braids are a great way to change your style, they are tight hairstyles that can damage the hair due to the continuous pull and drag from the scalp.

As a result, you should avoid tieing your hair up every time. Instead, embrace your natural hair down.

Wet hair brushing

Hair damage can be exacerbated by brushing and towel drying wet hair. Once your hair is wet, it will be more elastic and thus more brittle if stretched out, making additional stress more likely to cause hair breakage.

Hence, it is preferable to use a softer hair cloth because it is gentler on your hair.

Avoid using a cotton pillowcase

Although this material is soft, it is not what you should look for if you want to keep your hair healthy.

Cotton is a textured, rough fabric that absorbs your hair’s natural oils, which help care for the roots and scalp. Therefore, it will leave your hair dry and prone to tangles when you sleep.

Since using a cotton pillow can increase the chance of hair damage, you had better use a silk or satin one instead.

Avoid combing from top to bottom

Do not begin at the top and gradually work your way down when brushing your hair. It is because once you begin detangling from the top, you are likely to face many more tangles than when you begin at the bottom, which will physically tear the hair out. 

For this reason, to prevent hair damage, you should comb your hair from bottom to top.

Protect your hair from the sun

Undefended sun exposure affects the hair cuticle on the exterior of the strand of hair, causing brittleness, dryness, and split ends since UVA and UVB radiation especially cause your hair to dry.

Fortunately, you can avoid this by using sunscreen-infused hair treatments and wearing a hat when you go outside.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Your Hair Grow Back After Chemical Damage?

The answer is no. Hair treatments using chemicals, such as hair colors or perms, will all cause harm in some way. 

These products may not cause significant harm if used correctly by a skilled practitioner. However, poor application and over-exposure can result in damaged hair when performed by untrained hairdressers. As a result, damaged hair follicles cannot produce new healthy hair.

Non-surgical hair loss therapies are unlikely to be helpful if the hair follicles have been damaged. Thus, it is less probable that your hair will regrow on its own. That is why people prefer surgical hair loss treatments rather than non-surgical hair loss ones.

Will Your Hair Grow Back Faster If You Cut It Off?

No. Cutting hair will not help it grow faster since having a damaged hair cut does not affect anyone’s hereditary growth cycle. 

Even though it does not speed up hair growth, it is vital in restoring your damaged hair because it brings several benefits.

• Once you trim your hair, you trim off the damaged section, and based on how much has been cut off; you may eliminate all the damage and split ends, giving you a better look with no hair broken or split ends.

Next, you should trim off your damaged hair part since it will gradually work up the tresses, causing more damage. When you chop it off, you can prevent the damaged section of the hair from causing harm to the rest.

• Second, detangling your hair is also aided by newly clipped ends because maintaining and managing damaged hair is relatively challenging. 

Although cutting hair is beneficial to your damaged hair, it will not grow any quicker than it does even if your damaged hair remains existed.

Final Thoughts

We have clarified the issue of “Does damaged hair grow back healthy?” Indeed, no one wants to go out with dry, frizzy, or breakage hair. Therefore, you should take extra care of your hair to improve its health as well as prevent it from further damage.