Look on the red carpet and you will find hairstyles from almost every era…modernized! The 20’s brought short, close bobs. The 30’s, waves were in. In the 40’s hair got longer with curls or updos and sexy bangs. 50’s brought soft touchable hair, 80’s were wet and wild and the 90’s we chopped it all off again…so that we could grow it out again starting around 2010. Now with our longer tresses…we slick them all back into sleek ponytails.

In order to have hair to play with in so many fashions, it needs to be plentiful, healthy and shiny. Color doesn’t matter as we can dye it, and if we naturally have straight hair we will end up curling it, and if it is kinky or curly we will end up wanting to straighten it…so with all of the processing involved to get the latest look we want, let’s start with healthy hair…plenty of it!

First of all we need to start with our scalp. A clean, healthy scalp has no oil and built up debris such as dead skin cells clogging the entrance to the hair follicles. Shampoos and conditioners without sulfates (which make all that lather) and that do contain small amounts of vitamin E and coconut oil or other skin softeners that do not cause buildup keep the skin supple. However, the follicles themselves need to keep well fed in order to produce a thick, shiny hair shaft. One treatment for thinning hair and male or female hair loss treatment actually stimulates the blood flow directly around the bulb or base of the follicle. This brings a fresh supply of nutrients to the area that produces each hair. The Nutreve Personal Hair Therapy Laser is the latest laser hair brush and has the maximum number of lasers, a comfortable head and handle and runs on rechargeable batteries so your device is as portable as a regular hair brush! It also has a hands-free stand that lets you test or make calls, read, sew or whatever while you use your laser hair comb for the 15-20 minutes every other day.

Preventing heat damage is another way to ensure healthy hair. Our blow dryers, flatirons and straighteners all break the cuticle or covering of each hair. A great moisturizing shampoo and conditioner can coat the hair strands so that damage is minimized. The best have vitamins A and C and can be applied before we get our blowout! Frizzies can make hair look less shiny, but there are new keratin products that can safely repair damaged cuticle for a few months. This helps to combat breakage from excess combing and brushing as well. Newer blow dryers have ionizing properties and flat irons now come with moisturizing steam like a steam iron does. Sun, salt and chlorine can be harmful too, so wear a hat and rinse hair promptly after a trip to the pool or beach.

There are shine boosters that spray on (use just a little!) and spritzers that visually volumize our hair. These create body and a bouncy, tousled look which makes hair look thicker and allows it to move which always looks more youthful. (Think of grandma with her perfectly coiffed helmet.) Creams that volumize and anything that we add to our hair can damage it or weigh it down if over used, so use sparingly! Hair coloring is another culprit that can damage hair if overdone, although it does make hair look thicker. Just getting your roots touched up to hide gray is a more hair-friendly way to go. Touch up kits, sprays and even mascara type wands of color are smart alternatives.

For those of us that need a female hair loss treatment for thinning or balding that can go along with the natural hair loss treatment offered by laser hair therapy, there is minoxidil (Rogaine). The two products can be used simultaneously without any interference. Laser hair therapy and this female thinning hair treatment drug are safe on any hair type and any ethnicity. Please check with your doctor or dermatologist before taking any medications orally, however. The rest of the fixes I mentioned are available in salons, stores or on the internet and work to help us keep, or help us get an amazing head of hair that will support ANY style!

I’ve been noticing lately that there are a lot more celebrities making hair changes. The most recent is a certain unwieldy basketball star who just switched teams AND his hairline! Media is trying to decide…did he have a hair transplant, start taking a pill, start using a topical medication or start using a laser hair brush for hair loss? We may never know exactly, but I’m betting on a combo of Rogaine and laser hair therapy. Let me tell you why.

Hair transplants

They have been around for a long while now. At first, they were considered the best treatment for thinning hair. Hairs from other parts of the head are literally transplanted to the front hairline to fill in where balding is occurring. This sometimes gave the appearance of a patch of hair from someone else stuck on the front of one’s head, and there were patchy spots there and in the areas from where the hair was taken.

 

There were also scars that started to form in the donor sites as time went by. Basically now the person’s head was just thinning all over. Now, however, they are using robotics to image, harvest and replant hairs in a much more miniature and precise pattern so that the looks are much improved. Of course, with this comes a heftier price tag and it IS a surgery. The price tag is not a big thing for a basketball star…but it may be for the rest of us!

Next is Propecia (Finasteride), an oral medication that can be taken by men and post-menopausal women. One must take this continually for any effect to show and for the hair thinning to stop. Rogaine (Minoxidil) is a topical application that can be more site specific. In both cases the pores of the scalp must be unclogged and remain clear for the hair to push out of the follicle, so sometimes a Retin-A product is used. This can be irritating to the scalp so that a topical gel may also be needed (and NO sun exposure). These products have become mainstream as a thinning hair treatment.

My latest bet is on the clearance for the drug Bimatoprost known as Latisse to be used on a bigger scale for conquering balding. Currently it is used to keep eyelashes in the growth phase so that they are longer and thicker. It is now being used “off-label” for eyebrows…

Trick is, that growth stops as soon as your use of the product does, and at the cost of $100+ per month just for eyelashes, what would it be for a large thinning area on our head?

Seems like the laser hair brush for hair loss is the most economic and least invasive manor of treatment on the market today. It uses natural light in a cool laser form to stimulate the hair follicles to grow thicker hair faster. It takes about 15-20 minutes every other day to run the laser hair brush over the thinning parts of your scalp.

This device is portable, light, and the smartest company out there offers you a hands-free stand so you can multi-task by doing your e-mails or reading at the same time. The Nutreve Personal Hair Therapy Laser also has pulsing lasers (not just LEDs like so many) for the perfect output of healing light at the correct intervals for optimum hair growth. At a one time cash outlay of around $600, this beats taking pills, having surgery or spending endless amounts of money for other treatments over time. It is also safe to use with Rogaine for a “one-two punch” to tackle those thinning and receding hairlines. LeBron, tell us the truth…you must be using the Nutreve Personal Hair Therapy Laser…..aren’t you???