Follow these simple ways to keep hair looking and feeling healthy during lockdown

We all joke about wearing our pyjama bottoms with a smart top for a ‘working from home’ zoom meeting, but we haven’t really discussed how lock down and minimal styling can be detrimental to our hair. Putting your hair back in a ‘messy bun’ ponytail first thing and not bothering with it for the rest of the day, might seem like an easy, minimum fuss option, but why are so many people complaining about ‘lockdown hair’?

Grey roots are now a ubiquitous look, but we hear cries of lack lustre hair, thinning hair, brittle ends, and increased hair fall. Because of lockdown? Here’s what we can do to increase hair volume, growth and decrease hair fall.

Brush hair twice daily

It’s easy to skip this when you are in doors all day, but just like our bodies, hair needs blood circulation, and to get that it needs stimulation. Brushing hair doesn’t just detangle hair, it creates movement, so the follicles are vitalised, and this increases the blow flow across the scalp, and in turn the blood, carrying all the nutrients, delivers nourishment to the hair to help it grow healthier and stronger. Hair that stays static in a bun all day, or doesn’t get brushed, misses out on this rich cocktail of extra nutrients.

And hair that gets plenty of stimulation, also stays in the growing ‘anagen’ phase for much longer and therefore stays attached to the head. This means hair can grow longer and there is much less fall, thus ensuring more natural volume.

To get the most out of brushing your hair, many experts say tipping your head forward and brush hair the ‘wrong’ way, before brushing back the right way before styling is an easy win for getting extra blood flow around the scalp and stimulating the hair follicles.

Sosson Boar Bristle Paddle Hair Brush

Brush like a Victorian

Everyone is washing their hair less. With less activity, hair doesn’t get so dirty and with nowhere fancy to go, why bother? However, we can turn this to our advantage, when we have greasy hair, we should brush like a Victorian. The Victorians claimed that brushing your hair 100 times a night was all that was needed to keep hair clean and healthy, whereas we tend to think this is excessive. What they were actually doing is using a wild boar brush (natural bristles) to draw the natural oils from the scalp, down the hair shaft with long strokes of the brush. Hair really responds to this ‘re-distribution’ of the natural oils in the hair with a noticeable difference in shine and volume. Ordinarily we don’t let our hair get greasy enough to benefit from doing this, but now we go a few extra days between washes, it may pay dividends to get one of those natural brushes and see how nature’s own conditioner increases your hair’s health. We love the Sosoon Boar Bristle Paddle Hairbrush* and Urtheone Boar Bristle Hairbrush*, both available from Amazon £8.99 and Kent Hairbrushes for their selection of Ladies Finest Hairbrushes.

Stress busters

Doctors have been saying that women have been coming to them with stress related hair loss. They had been so worried about Covid earlier in the year, but they hadn’t seen the results of this stress until their hair started to fall, three months later. It typically takes three months for hair to fall after a stressful situation and whilst you can’t avoid some of the events that happen, we can take try and manage our reaction to them. If hair starts to fall like this (and not with the more severe alopecia), it generally does come back after a period of shedding, and much quicker if you take some of these measures. There are so many meditation apps to help us lower stress levels and now is the ideal time to start a practise, even for your hair’s sake. Buddhify is great as it has a meditation for various situations or there is Deepak Chopra’s app which has free 21 day meditations where his deep voice lulls you into super calmness.

For healthy hair, take Kansha Alchemy Good Hair Nutrient Complex daily

Nutritional support

If your hair is lack lustre, taking a hair supplement is an easy option to make sure you are getting the right nutrients. Ann-Louise Holland of Kansha Alchemy couldn’t find one that was going to help address the real causes behind hair loss when her own hair started to thin, so after a lifetime in the beauty industry helping brands to market, she developed her own. The resulting Good Hair Nutrient Complex doesn’t just feed the hair with extra nutrition, it helps address the causes of hair thinning and excess shedding. She says, “I was desperate about my hair at the time having been diagnosed with androgenic alopecia which is getting more common in women due to modern diets and lifestyles, so I went to America to create a more sophisticated formula and it worked”.

According to the American Hair Association, DHT (a derivative of testosterone) is the main cause of hair thinning in men and women, and the formula of over 30 vitamins, minerals and herbs aims to block DHT, as well as help hair stay in the growing phase for much longer so there is less shedding.

When hair is compromised, stress, hormones and diet are big factors, so it’s no surprise hair problems have become more prevalent during this past year – but there is something you can do about it  Kansha Alchemy Good Hair Nutrient Complex £39.99 for one month’s supply.

john masters organics Deep Scalp Follicle Treatment and Volumiser

Scalp treatments

Any dermatologist or trichologist will tell you, if you don’t have good scalp health, it’s difficult to grow strong, healthy hair. The scalp is the ‘soil’ in which hair grows, so using a root boost is going to help moisturise the ‘garden’. There are plenty, but I like Swell Hair Ultimate Volume Root Nutrient Complex because essential oils make it smell divine and it is specifically created for correcting thinning hair. We also love john masters organics Deep Scalp Follicle Treatment and Volumiser* 125ml £23.00 available from Amazon.

But what really powers up ‘the soil’ is using a derma roller for the scalp, which is the same as for the face, and gives the same youthful boost, as it encourages all the growth factors to swarm to the hair root to ‘repair’ any damage. Warning! It does hurt, so you have to be brave, but go for a shorter needle (around .3mm or .5 if you have thicker hair) and use quick, short movements, and then spray your root boost straight after.

The resulting flourish in hair growth is phenomenal with increased hair volume, and even less greys in some cases. What you experience in zing to the scalp, is the increased blood flow around the scalp and any discomfort is worth the hair benefits.

You can buy the Kitsch Micro Derma Roller Pink* from Boots £14.99 or check the selection of Derma Rollers* available from Amazon.

*Affiliate link