When it comes to hair care, many people focus mainly on washing and moisturizing, but what we often overlook is the importance of the hair cuticle. The cuticle is the outermost layer of each hair strand, and it plays a huge role in protecting the hair shaft. Without proper care, the cuticle can become compromised, leaving your hair frizzy, damaged, and dry. I’ve seen this firsthand with clients who neglect their hair cuticle, leading to poor appearance and less shine.
A damaged cuticle exposes the inner layers of the hair shaft, causing your hair to lose its strength and shine. It’s like your hair’s natural shield has been broken. This often leads to hair that feels rough and looks less healthy. To maintain healthy hair, it’s crucial to take proper care of the cuticle by using the best care products and techniques.
What Causes Damaged Hair Cuticles? The Answer
What Are Hair Cuticles?
Hair shaft’s outermost layer is known as Hair Cuticle, acting as a protective barrier for the inner structure cortex, medulla and entire hair fibre. This layer consists of 8-10 layers of flat, overlapping cells that appear translucent and resemble scales on a rope. The cells point away from the scalp, giving the hair a directional texture that can be felt when running fingers through the hair.
A healthy cuticle is crucial for maintaining the health, hydration, and texture of your hair. When the cuticles are smooth, they allow light to reflect off the hair, giving it a shiny glossiness and a smooth feel. Healthy cuticles also help reduce friction between hair strands, making it easier to manage.
The cuticle’s hydrophobic nature means it binds to oils and other water-repelling substances, which is why hair products like sprays, mousses, and gels work directly on it. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), strong cuticles contribute to a healthy look and feel.
When hair cuticles are damaged or raised, the hair can lose its smooth texture, leading to a bad hair day. Raised or damaged cuticles can result in dryness, frizz, and breakage, making the hair look less shiny and healthy. Closed cuticles, on the other hand, are considered hair goals as they create smooth, healthy hair.
How Can We Identify Healthy Cuticles?
Healthy hair cuticles are key for strong hair and maintaining a vibrant appearance. When cuticles are in good condition, they are flat and closely overlap, creating a smooth surface. This alignment allows light to reflect off the hair, giving it a shiny, lustrous hair look. Healthy cuticles retain moisture, preventing dryness and brittleness, ensuring hair remains soft and manageable.
It is also good to know that these cuticles and their alignment is responsible for identifying porosity of someone’s hair.
On the other hand, damaged cuticles appear lifted or peeled, making the hair more susceptible to frizz, dullness, and breakage. They lose their protective barrier and resilience, leading to poor appearance and texture. The cuticle’s inability to retain moisture leaves the hair vulnerable to environmental stress, increasing susceptibility to damage.
What is the Truth Behind Open/Close Hair Cuticles?
The scenario of hair cuticles “opening” or “closing” is often misunderstood. In reality, heat, moisture, and treatments can cause cuticles to become lifted, creating a rougher texture that might improve the absorption of products like conditioners.
However, using cold water when rinsing or applying products with lower pH levels can help to flatten and smooth the cuticles, leading to a shinier and healthier appearance. While we can’t truly alter the structure of cuticles, we can still manage them to maintain good hair health and improve the appearance of our hair.
What are the Principal Factors Damaging Hair Cuticles?
There are various causes of damaged hair including dye, bleach, and styling tools. These can harm your locks and cause long-term damage. To help prevent further damage, consider smoothing the symptoms and cutting the affected hair when possible, and sometimes, you might need to double dip to meet all your needs.
Hair Coloring and Dyeing
No doubt Hair coloring and dyeing transform your entire look however, it becomes a little harsh to your twisty treasure. When you dye your hair at home, or incorporate chemical dyes and bleach can be particularly harsh, especially if your hair was already light in texture and leading to consequences like the loss of natural moisture, leaving hair feeling coarse and lifeless. Experimenting with bold colors like rainbow or going bleach blonde to cover greys can also damage the cuticle.
How to Overcome The Damage?
Experts suggest using colors closer to your natural color and choosing darker shades over lighter ones to help maintain hair health. To avoid damage, try to dye less often, waiting 8-10 weeks between touch-ups. Shampoos specifically formulated for dyed hair can help, and rinsing with cool water will keep the cuticle from opening and letting color rinse out.
Consider a professional colorist to use the correct products to minimize damage, or opt for semi-permanent or demi-permanent treatments that are less likely to permanently alter your hair.
Hair Bleaching
Bleaching your hair involves using chemicals like hydrogen peroxide to remove its natural pigment. This causes the hair strands to swell, allowing the bleach to penetrate the cortex and dissolve melanin, which gives hair its color.
The process often includes using a demi-permanent or semi-permanent color to deposit a tone and neutralize any unwanted brass or yellow undertones. However, bleaching can make hair dry, porous, brittle, and fragile. It damages the keratin proteins that maintain hair’s structural integrity and strength, leading to permanent changes in the hair’s structure.
How to Overcome The Damage?
To prevent excess damage, try to bleach less, add moisture, avoid heat styling, and use sun protection like a wide-brimmed hat or UV protection hair spray to protect your scalp and hair from UV damage.
Harsh Chemical Procedures
Strong chemicals like relaxers, texturizers, and permanent hair colors can seriously damage your hair. These chemical treatments alter the hair’s internal structure, affecting both the hair cuticle and cortex. For instance, relaxers and perms use reducing agents to break disulfide bonds, which can leave your hair porous and more prone to breakage.
The use of chemicals like H202 (hydrogen peroxide) in colouring can also weaken the cuticle integrity, making it susceptible to surface damage. In addition, these treatments often result in uneven, frizzy, or damaged hair, especially when the cuticle is not properly protected.
How to Overcome The Damage?
To avoid this, it’s crucial to rely on professionals who know how to use these chemicals safely and apply the right protective products and techniques. Keep your hair moisturized and safe it from UV radiation to protect it from further harm.
Heat Styling
Excessive use of heat-styling tools like blow dryers, curling irons, and straighteners can lead to severe damage to your hair cuticles. These tools strip the hair of moisture, causing dryness and brittleness, which eventually results in split ends and a rough texture. Over time, the cuticles lift, and hair becomes dull and lifeless.
The high temperatures of hot tools force changes to the cuticle layer, making it more porous and vulnerable. A 2015 study from the Journal of International Trichology revealed that blow drying can cause more surface damage than natural drying or air drying.
How to Overcome The Damage?
Maintaining the practice of continuous motion and holding the blow dryer at a distance of 15 cm reduces damage significantly. It’s crucial to use protective measures like heat protection products and always set tools to the lowest heat setting.
If possible, air dry your hair or using heat-free drying techniques, like gently wrapping your hair in a towel to remove excess water, can help avoid further damage. Experts recommend styling with flat irons or curling irons no more than once a week to maintain healthy hair.
Chlorine Water
When exposed to chlorine water for extended periods, swimmers often notice changes in their hair’s texture and color. Prolonged exposure to chlorine in swimming pools strips the natural oils from the scalp and hair, affecting the cuticle and causing damage to the protein, known as keratin, that coats the hair shaft.
This stripping leads to hair that feels dull, dry, and brittle-looking, making it prone to damage, split ends, and increased frizz.
How to Overcome The Damage?
To help protect hair, it’s important to use a leave-in conditioner or wear a swim cap before swimming. After soaking in chlorine water, rinse the hair with pure water and follow up with a hydrating shampoo or specialized swim shampoo. A dime-sized amount of almond oil can be applied to soothe and strengthen hair, helping to restore moisture and shine. For extra care, a rice water rinse with inositol can penetrate and repair damaged hair.
Improper Detangling Techniques
Improper detangling of hair is also a culprit of cuticle damage. When detangling hair, avoiding tugging, pulling, or snagging knots is important, especially when working with curls or coils. Shedded hair can easily get stuck, creating a knotty situation.
How to Overcome The Damage?
I recommend using your fingers first, starting from the bottom ends and gently working your way up to the roots. A wide-tooth comb or a detangling brush can be used after removing most tangles. Using slippery conditioners while in the shower helps keep the hair moisturized and reduces friction caused by raised cuticles, preventing unnecessary breakage of fragile hair.
Sulphate Shampoos
Sulphate shampoos are known for their strong cleaning power. They contain sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and other surfactants, which remove dirt and oils from the hair. However, sulfated shampoos can strip the hair of its natural protective oils, leading to dryness, frizz, and increased hair breakage.
Over time, using sulfates for extended periods can make the hair brittle and prone to split ends. This damage occurs due to the harsh nature of these chemicals, causing friction between hair strands, leading to dullness and damage to the hair cuticle.
How to Overcome The Damage?
To minimize the risk of damage, experts recommend incorporating sulphate-free shampoo in your haircare regimen.
Air Pollution
Air pollution in urban environments and cities contains harmful particulate matter, such as fragments of soot, grime, and dust, along with gaseous pollutants. These particles cling to the surface of the hair and reach the follicle and scalp, causing structural and chemical alterations in the cuticle and cortex.
According to research from the National Academy of Sciences, exposure to higher concentrations of pollution leads to increased damage, making hair look brittle, rough, and dull. This damage also contributes to the degradation of keratin.
How to Overcome The Damage?
It is good to keep your hair from direct sun exposure, use an appropriate cap, scarf to cover your hair also use heat-protected spray to minimize harm.
Inappropriate Washing Techniques
Washing your hair frequently can strip away the natural oils your hair needs. This leads to dry, damaged cuticles. Improper washing often includes rubbing hair vigorously with a towel, which creates friction.
The friction can cause the cuticles to lift, making them more susceptible to damage. This damage results in increased frizz and a rough feel to the hair. A gentler washing routine can help protect your hair’s health.
Lack Of Hydration
When you neglect proper hydration and conditioning, your hair lacks the needed moisture. Without this balance, the cuticles become raised and brittle, which weakens their protective barrier. This leads to dry hair, dullness, and increased breakage, resulting in an unhealthy appearance. Always ensure your hair gets the right care to maintain its strength and smoothness.
How to Prevent Hair Cuticle Damage?
- To prevent hair cuticle damage, it’s essential to take care of your hair with a few simple steps. Start with gentle brushing, focusing on the ends and working your way up. Always gently hold the mid-lengths to avoid pulling on the roots.
- Wash your hair with warm or cool water—hot temperatures can exacerbate dryness and damage.
- After washing, pat your hair dry using a microfibre towel to reduce breakage and tangles.
- Using a wide-tooth comb on wet hair can help avoid tension and further damage.
- Protect your hair from chlorine damage by wearing a swimming cap and applying a conditioning hair mask.
- To protect against sun exposure, use a sun hat to shield your hair from harmful UV rays and prevent dryness and breakage.
- Keep your hair moisturized to maintain a healthy scalp and a shiny, healthy hair look.
- Keep focus on the end if you find something damaged, don’t hesitate to go to the salon.
- When you sleep, your hair rubs against the rough texture of cotton, causing it to break and tangle. Switching to silk or satin pillows is a revelation, as it makes hair easier to manage between washes and significantly reduces breakage.
Closing Words
Unless you have a time machine, you can’t undo hair damage once it’s done. However, understanding the etiological factors of cuticle damage can help you change your habits, improve your hair care routine, and give your hair some extra love.
FAQs
How to Fix Damaged Cuticles in Hair?
To rehydrate the hair and smooth the cuticle, oils like Olive oil can be used. It helps to soften the hair, replenish much-needed moisture, and is easy to work with, making it an inexpensive solution that helps fix damaged cuticles. Many studies have shown that oils can greatly help to improve the health of your hair.
How to Strengthen Hair Cuticles?
To maintain healthy cuticles, apply conditioner to the ends of your strands after every shampoo. Conditioners help smooth the cuticle layer, aid in creating shine, and condition the hair to detangle, which protects it from friction and damage.
What Does a Damaged Hair Cuticle Look Like?
A damaged hair cuticle appears open and uneven, resembling scales along a rope, exposing the cortex to environmental stressors. while a healthy strand has a uniform and consistent appearance.
Does Water Damage Hair Cuticles?
Hard water buildup, when untreated, can cause the hair cuticle layer to dry, making it prone to breakage.
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