There are natural ways to achieve hair growth and thickness with persistence, research, and perseverance.

Everyday people congregate in places like salons, discussing the frustration of challenges they face while trying to grow healthy hair. For this reason, budget-breaking amounts of money are spent on highly priced products and services that must be frequented in order to maintain the important feeling of desirability or presentableness. Naturally, most of us hope for that in our appearance.

What I've learned over years of trying to manage my hair - when it's been damaged or has thinned due to anesthesia - is that natural approaches to many problems are available before resorting to spending a lot of money for common remedies. These natural methods can actually be incorporated with the regular routine of visiting salons. In fact, I found that for me, there are more advantages to incorporating natural methods with salon visits rather than replacing those visits with DIY* hair care.

The main challenges in taking natural approaches toward healthy hair include:

1... the long waiting time that requires our patience before we finally see results,

2... the expense of premium natural products, and

3... the shift of goals that may be required when choosing alternative paths of taking care of the hair.

The following 5 practices have been raved about in blogs and conversations by fewer people than the number who actually could report on their results - if only more people were willing to give these unconventional methods a try for the very likely results that are reported (unless medical or rare conditions/treatments actually do interfere):

1. Taking Vitamins And Supplements

This is the main method I have found to be effective in my hair growth as well as in the hair growth of others. Yet it's still the least known way of taking care of hair.

This method requires a lot of patience. A gradual process is the result of taking vitamins and supplements. Here are the products which I have personally taken after reading about them in Phyllis A. Balch's Prescription For Nutritional Healing before year 2000:

1... Flaxseed Oil and Salmon Oil gel capsules in order to retain healthy oil for dry hair;

2... Ultra Hair by Nature's Plus or a similar supplement that contains biotin and inositol;

3... Vitamin E - if it is not an ingredient in a good hair vitamin.

(Vitamin E is not an ingredient in Ultra Hair by Nature's Plus.)

Before I had started taking hair care supplements in the late 1990's, my hair would only grow a couple of inches past my shoulders (once I stopped damaging it with direct heat). But after I started taking supplements on a regular bases, it began growing and thickening to my heart's desire.

2. Externally Applying Pure Oils

In numbers too large to count, there is a wide variety of name-brand oils and moisturizers specifically for hair care sold everywhere. I've used them and have been satisfied. Although I still buy them, I find their qualities enhanced when I mix one or more of the following oils into those products: (Of course, I also use the oils by themselves.)

1... 100% Pure Virgin Coconut Oil (Unrefined)

2... Almond Oil or Apricot Oil

3... Castor Oil (As a pre-shampoo dandruff treatment or as a hot-oil treatment)

The next 3 following practices require absolutely no additional funds. They're just old-fashioned habits to learn and carry out in order to grow healthier hair.

3. Shunning or Minimizing Direct Heat On The Hair

This natural practice of simple discipline is not exactly advice that style queens prefer to hear. But cutting heat down to a minimum in hair care can actually preserve the health of the hair.

Blow drying and curling irons kept my hair unable to grow past my shoulders my first two years in high school. When my mother switched me to a hair stylist that refused to blow dry during my junior year, my hair grew healthier than it had grown since I was a child during the pre-blow-drying years.

In addition to healthy hair care tips, recommendations on overall health can be found in Prescription for Nutritional Healing.

This book has been kept as a reliable source of health information inside stores and homes like mine (since the late 1990's when we had its first edition).

The sacrifice for going to the better stylist was time. Instead of having heat routinely applied directly onto my hair, I had to have my wet hair set in rollers before having to then sit under those old hair dryers for over 1 hour 30 minutes until my curls were finally dry. Those dryers did not give a lot of heat at their maximum - which is probably why my hair became so healthy. (I wouldn't suggest sitting under a dryer set on high heat.)

4. Regularly Clipping Split Ends

A hair stylist once pointed out an occurrence in the Bible's gospel to make a good point about hair. Basically, in Mark 11:12-25, Jesus cursed a fig tree because it was not bearing fruit. He had actually used His actions of cursing the tree in order to give this message: Cut off whatever does not bear fruit. (In whatever way that is applicable and within reason for each unique situation, of course.)

The hair stylist applied those passages to split ends. They don't produce growth. In fact, they oppose growth because the end of a hair strand can split as far upward as its poor strength will allow it to go before eventually breaking from combing or brushing through the hair. Some strands break near the end; some break near the root. And then there are others breaking somewhere in between. Multiply a single hair strand times the number (or large fraction) of hair strands you actually have on your head.

In order to prevent yourself from having a full head of damaged hair, clip those ends where they begin - at the end. Don't wait before you see them forming at the ends. Just keep a routine of clipping them. My hair looks its healthiest when I keep them clipped every 6-8 weeks.

5. Wearing Styles That Keep Hair Off Of Clothing Fabric

For those who like to let their hair hang freely, choose to wear silk fabric, satin fabric, or clothing with those types of textures so that the hair won't snag on it. (For some, that might mean shopping name brand or thrift.) Hair can snag on fabrics like cotton and, worst, on wool. This is why satin or silk-like pillow cases, slumber caps, and head scarves are best for sleeping.

If that fashionable top just has to be worn, wear the hair up in a nice style to accentuate it.

Although our hair is not the most important part of our bodies by a long shot, there is a way to preserve it as our crown if we do want to treat it as an important part of grooming.

*DIY - do it yourself

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