Naturally Luscious Hair, Skin & Nails in the Winter

So as we all know, winter comes with cold, which means we turn our heaters on. Heaters blast hot, dry air into our houses. This dries our skin and hair out so we get eczema and split ends, which is very unwelcome!!!

And, how are we supposed to avoid it?

Well, I got some answers. Lots of people slather the lotion and leave-in conditioner on, but I have a different method.

BALANCE.

Oil Stability in Hair & Skin

During the summer, we can't help it if the sweat, swimming and outside adventures result in every or every other day showers. That's not the case in the cold though! If you are the kind of person that avoids going places because of the icy air, and doesn't go trekking in the woods and sledding every single day, this is for you. I do have to admit though, its kind of city style. Even then, if you do decide to go on a cold adventure, you're not sweating! I mean, you end up going inside because you're freezing.

In conclusion, the amount of dirt, sweat, and water on your skin is way reduced in the winter, than in the summer. So why are you taking a shower every day? Back in the 1800's people bathed once a week. Now, our culture has made it that taking shower's every day is much more appropriate. 

So here's my theory: if people a hundred years ago washed every 7 days, it won't kill us to cut ours down to 3 or 4 when we don't want to dry our body out. 

This is what I did. And guess what? The results were amazing! I went from having dry skin and eczema all over, to only having a few patches on my arms. 

My hair grew an entire inch!!!

I've heard of this before. They say that the longer you don't wash your hair, the more time it has to balance out. After doing this a few times, it no longer looked totally dirty and disgusting on the 4th day. I just threw it up in a bun toward the end and it looked fine. One other thing I did was quit with the leave-in conditioner. Well, not entirely. But I did have to use it almost every day in the summer because it was getting so dry from swimming. I stopped because it just wouldn't make sense to add more oil if we're trying to get the hair to balance out. I do use it when I get bad knots or on the ends when I need a trim.

Already, I've had problems with getting dry skin when it's exposed to too much water, so showering less really helped. Back when I was little, a doctor gave us advice to apply cortisone to my eczema patches, and then moisturize with a natural lotion to prevent it from spreading. This is a method I've used since then. So that's my after shower skin routine. I don't do it any other time because using too much cortisone can be bad, (It's pretty strong, that's why it works.) and over-oiling my skin cause me to need a shower sooner. 

A side note is that this method doesn't work with nails because of how much you wash dishes and hands. Unless you decide to wear gloves and not touch anything germy (impossible). You can cut down on the amount of nail polish and salon visits which both contain damaging chemicals. Not all people have horrible nails though so it isn't totally essential.

Safe Hairstyles

First off, and I'm sure you've heard it before, stop using heat!

Well, it doesn't have to be entirely. 

I only allow myself to use heat once a week or less. You get caught in a cycle of using heat until you damage your hair, then using more heat to make you hair look less damaged, which results in further damaging your hair.

Be careful with elastics that are made of plastic or rubber, and ones that have metal clasps and plastic decor that can get caught and wrapped around your hair. I've heard people suggest scrunchies, which I think is a great idea because of how soft they are. You want to avoid as much ripping, pulling or breaking of your hair to keep it healthy. 

I found these amazing things called flexi-rolls, which I'll write about later. They are awesome because they curl your hair without heat or even that much water! You can sleep in them with out the pain of sharp, hot, plastic rollers. So perfect... so many hair types work with them! Try them out to see if it works and tell me about it! 

Mostly, I have my hair down, and this can help with eliminating the amount of hair elastic damage. Sock buns are a good option though because you basically roll you hair into a soft donut. No damaging hair things!

Diet

Cut down on the sugar, half your plate with fruits and veggies, drink lots of juice and smoothies, reduce the amount of crap, bread and junk food you let though your esophagus. That's really all there is to it!

Supplements

I'm really into these, so don't be surprised I'm mentioning them. There are many hair, skin and nail herbs you can take, but here's a few that I take. 

• Vitamin D is the most important of all of these during the winter. Cold weather influences most people to stay inside and NOT get sunshine. The issue with this is that you get vitamin D from the sun, so when you aren't outside, you don't get it. Studies say that 3/4 of teens and adults in American are deficient in it. All kinds of health issues like soft and brittle bones, skin cancer, and so much more are blamed for it. Even if you don't have skin, hair and nail issues, you really should take this. My dad learned about this and we haven't run out of vitamin D pills for ages!
• A lot of times, vitamins for skin hair and nails are all lumped together in one pill that you take for all three. Here's the reason: they all need the same thing. One of those is collagen, which you can get from vitamin C. So that, you've probably guessed, is the next vitamin I'm suggesting. Really, vitamin C is such a trooper and gives you so many benefits that I would suggest taking it all the time, whether you thing you need it or not! It also benefits the immune system, so that's why you see it in all my posts about fighting sickness. 
• Next is the multivitamin, of course! I literally always suggest this when mentioning what supplements to take. It's just perfect because you can generally boost your body with them! Sometimes you don't realize what vitamins you might be lacking in and what that's causing, so taking a multivitamin might really make a difference.
• The next one I've just started taking, and it's biotin. It has many other benefits other than hair, skin, and nails; most of them are things I need. I've been just testing it out to see if it helps. I think it is working, but I've been making a lot of other changes in my diet and body care routine so it could be the other things too. Thankfully, it's water-soluble so it's difficult to take too much. But this also means that you can't store up large amounts of it, and you have to take it regularly to make a difference. You can learn more about biotin here. This guy is a good source that you can trust. 
• Last but not least, Omega-3. It's been a huge trend to get a good amount of it, and it's nourishing to your tresses, epidermis, and nails. Gosh I'm so tired of repeating hair, skin and nails. REDUNDANT!!!

I can already tell, that after taking these for two weeks, and making all these changes I've mentioned, that there's a real difference. It's amazing!