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Hair breakage is easy to spot — all of those much shorter hairs you’re seeing around your crown are signs — but much more difficult to treat. While the one surefire way to address hair breakage may be a really good haircut (and patience), it’s just as important to change certain habits that could be contributing to hair problems so that you keep breakage and split ends from happening again.
Change starts as soon as you wake up. This is the one thing you should stop doing in the shower every morning because it’s causing hair breakage.
You’re Washing Your Hair Twice
If you stop and read most shampoo bottle directions, you’ll notice they usually say the same thing: lather hair, wash, repeat.
Repeat?
Unless you have DIY hair dye on your roots or went pretty hard with the dry shampoo and mousse and need to purge products from your scalp, there is probably no good reason to shampoo your hair more than once.
And over-washing your strands can lead to damaged hair.
According to Healthline, one of the root causes of hair breakage is dry hair. Even if your scalp is naturally oily, be careful not to go overboard and dry it out with too frequent shampoos. If you are washing your hair too often, you are stripping it of natural oils the protect strands and keep them glossy and healthy. And always be sure to apply conditioner from your ends to your roots.
There could be one more mistake you are making AFTER you shampoo and condition your hair that is ALSO a leading cause of breakage: rubbing wet locks too hard with an abrasive cotton towel.
According to Heathline: “When you step out of the shower, it’s a natural response to rub a towel on your skin and hair. However, this rubbing motion actually damages your hair when it’s most vulnerable (after being wet). Instead of rubbing water out of your hair, blot an absorbent towel around your hair instead.”
Even better: invest in a specially designed microfiber hair towel that absorbs water faster than cotton, causes less (no!) hair damage, and even minimizes the amount of time you have to spend drying and styling hair with a blowdryer.
Kitsch Microfiber Hair Towel, $14.99, Amazon
