Tangling, knotting, frizz, dullness, breakage: these are all signs of very dehydrated hair.
Signs Your Hair Is Overly Moisturized
Here are a few indicators your daily hair conditioner or your deep conditioning efforts are doing more harm than good: Your hair is limp and falls flat. Your hair is dull and flat-looking. Your hair feels spongy and mushy when wet and feels too soft and fluffy when dry.
A professional hair stylist will be able to diagnose your hair's condition in more detail, but in general, damaged hair breaks easily when pulled and has visible split ends (due to fragile bonds), while dry hair is often accompanied by white flakes of skin and a coarse, rough texture.
Hair that lacks hydration (a.k.a. dehydrated hair) typically looks dull and feels rough. Additionally, it's tough to style, extra oily, lacks volume and split ends are much more noticeable. In appearance, it's very similar to dry hair which is why it can be tough to distinguish between the two.
Unhealthy hair usually has a rough texture, lack of shininess and luster, have split ends, lack of moisture and elasticity even after treatment and easily broken. Damaged hair will also get tangled up and result in knots due to hair dryness.
Using products that are designed to nourish the scalp and hair can definitely speed up this process, but on average you'd be looking at six months to a year to fully see a difference in your hair's condition.
You can use products that have ingredients to hydrate and moisturise your hair. Avocado, coconut, olive and almond oils; aloe vera, shea butter and glycerine can help hydrate and moisturize your hair. Ensure your conditioners include some of these ingredients too in order to lock the water content in your hair.
The hair will feel mushy, limp and excessively soft. Your curls will struggle to hold their shape, they will have little definition and tend to fall flatter than normal. You will have more frizz than normal, a fluffy, soft type of frizz. Your hair will feel weighed down, as if you applied too much product.
Moisture overload occurs when there is too much moisture and too little protein. This is the second kind of imbalance your hair can experience. Moisture overload tends to affect those who have high hair porosity, causing it to look limp, stringy, and even greasy.
Getting your hair wet more often will hydrate and restore the life of your hair. It's a journey to find the right balance, and it doesn't have to be strict and stressful. If you're struggling to figure out if your hair is either dry or dehydrated, explore with the amount of wash days per week and see how that goes.
Our skin glands produce less sebum making our tresses feel perpetually dry. Having low hair porosity or even high hair porosity and using the wrong products can also contribute to having dry hair, even when using a conditioner. Low porosity hair is hard to hydrate while high porosity hair loses moisture easily.
Why Does My Hair Feel Dry After Deep Conditioning? If your hair feels dry after deep conditioning, then more than likely you have not cleansed your hair properly, or you are dealing with a significant amount of product build-up.
You can over-moisturize your hair and cause more harm than good. Over-moisturizing your hair is called hygral fatigue. Hygral fatigue happens when our hair swells when wet, then shrinks as it dries, and that back and forth swelling and shrinking causes breakage.
Changes in your hair could indicate nutrition and health issues. A dry scalp or hair could mean you aren't getting enough healthy fats in your diet. Likewise, thinning hair could mean your diet lacks protein.
Frizzy hair is caused when hair is dry or damaged. This dryness allows moisture from the air to enter the open hair shaft and causes it to swell, which leads to frizz. Here are some common reasons for why your hair is so frizzy: Dryness and dehydration causing your hair to absorb excess moisture.
All hair needs both protein and moisture to stay healthy and strong. In fact, protein and moisture can't work well without the other. You need a strong protein structure in order for water molecules to bind with your strands and to keep the water locked inside.
Signs of a protein deficiency
Common signs that your body is extremely low on protein include: Brittle hair and nails, often the first sign of deficiency.
Hair that is stringy, flat, or limp is a definite sign that your hair needs a protein treatment. Normally, hair should be pretty durable and full, so when it starts to droop, take notice. By adding protein back into the hair, you can revitalize your strands and get them to a healthier state.