How To Get Healthy Hair: 22 Tips For Every Concern, From The Pros

The best and most universal hair care tip is simple: Spend time getting to know your hair. “I cannot stress studying your hair enough. A stylist can only give you recommendations, but essentially you go home with your hair,” says hairstylist Sunny, owner of Lumiere Vive Salon. “Feel your hair out, document how it reacts. Essentially, keep a journal for your hair and learn to love it.”

With that in mind, here are some of the top variables to get acquainted with: 

Your hair type refers to the shape of your hair strands, which can be straight, wavy, curly, or kinky. There is no set, universally established definition of curl types, but the most widely accepted is hairstylist Andre Walker’s charting system, which categorizes hair from type 1 to 4. Within each hair type, it is further broken down into 3 subcategories, A through C. At the most basic level: Type 1 is straight, Type 2 is wavy, Type 3 is curly, and Type 4 is kinky and coily. In the subcategories, you’ll get into the subtle but important differences between types 4A and 4C. Being able to differentiate among these helps us talk about hair, understand the nuances, and ultimately be better able to style our own. Worthy of note, people tend to fall into a range of hair types—as it’s common to have different strand patterns at different parts of your scalp. Take our quiz here. 

One of the least understood areas of hair care is the porosity spectrum. “Hair porosity describes how the hair’s cuticle absorbs and holds on to moisture in its pores—hence, the term porosity,” says hairstylist Miko Branch, co-founder of hair care brand Miss Jessie’s. Your strands’ most outer layer is the cuticle layer, which looks something like the shingles of a roof. When those shingles are densely packed, that means your hair has low porosity—but when they are more spread out you will have high porosity. You can also fall somewhere in the middle. You can even take this quick test to help determine yours. 

Listen, there are a lot of products on the market and a lot of combinations to use them in to achieve your desired results. So we strongly recommend getting a basic understanding of hair care routine basics so you can customize your day-to-day products as needed. Here’s our full guide to crafting your hair care routine for any hair type, which goes over everything you might need to know. 

The topicals you use for your strands aren’t the only thing they come into contact with—your hair health may be influenced by UV exposure, pollution, and physical wear from a variety of factors. Additionally, how you style your hair daily has significant consequences for your hair health; you’ll want to evaluate your hot tool use, how tight your styles are, and how often you change it up. Finally, understand your upkeep. Do you wash your hair daily or weekly? Do you like to indulge in masks and hydrating tonics, or do you keep it basic? 

You can’t have healthy hair if you don’t know what your outcomes are. Do you want to encourage growth and go for a longer style? Or do you want to maintain color in between hair appointments? Or do you simply want to keep your beauty schedule edited and simple—so you’re looking for as low of a lift as possible? All are worthy endeavors, but they’ll require modified routines in order to keep the strands healthy. 

Heat styling—via hot tools like blowdryers, irons, and wands—works by breaking down your hair’s hydrogen bonds in order to manipulate them into a desired shape. As you can imagine, repeatedly doing this to your hair can do a number. One study even found that daily heat styling can cause significant breakage and roughness1, which seems a little counterintuitive for those who constantly run a flatiron through their hair to smooth out the texture. 

“Most people seek out a haircut to manage the effects from hot tools,” says hairstylist Clay Nielsen. See, as Sunny shares: Once your hair’s structural integrity is harmed, there’s no way to repair it—it simply must go. “[If you’ve used too much heat] there’s nothing I’m going to be able to do. There’s no treatment that’s going to help. If your hair is burnt, you’re going to have to trim or cut it off,” says Sunny.

We’re big believers in the less-is-more mentality of beauty. And nowhere is that more true than when using hot tools: If you can figure out a way to style your hair without putting it on blast, we encourage you to do so. Of course, every head will have a different threshold of what their strands can take. Some will be able to rock a blowout regularly without a split end in sight, while others will barely tolerate the lowest level of a flatiron without breakage. But for a good rule of thumb, board-certified dermatologist Raechele Cochran Gathers, M.D., says no more than once a week if you are seeing signs of breakage or have naturally dry hair. 

“It’s not that these are off-limits,” Cochran Gathers says. “Just be smart about your use of your flat irons, hairdryers, or curling wands. Ultimately, learning how to use these is more important than not using them altogether.” A few of her best tips? Always heat style on clean hair with a heat protectant, don’t go over the same section too many times, and lower the temps. 

Because hot tools can affect your hair’s natural protein keratin, you’ll want to use a protein-based product regularly to help your strands regain some strength. They won’t be able to magically repair your strands, but they can certainly help when used regularly. Read more about protein products here.   

This is a broader category, as there are several types of chemical processing, from perms and relaxing to color-treating and bleaching. Regardless, there is one universal truth for all chemically processed hair: It takes a toll on hair health. These treatments use powerful ingredients such as hydrogen peroxide, ammonium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, or ammonium thioglycolate, which alter the hair cuticle and shaft, resulting in the desired final look—but wreaking havoc in the process. This is why people who decide to alter their hair like this will need to take extra precautions to ensure their strands remain as intact and healthy as possible. 

If you’ve made the decision to process your hair in any way, do your research before and find a pro who is an expert at the outcome you’re looking for. Yes, feel free to peek at Instagram pages, check out reviews, and ask around for word-of-mouth recommendations. But be discerning! For example, even if you like a stylist, colorist, or salon, but they don’t work much with curls or lightening to blond, then you’ll likely fare better by continuing to look for someone who does.

Once you find someone who you think might be a fit, listen to their advice. For example, if you’re trying to dramatically change your hair color, and the pro doesn’t think it’s a good idea to do it in one sitting (a common coloring mistake), follow their lead. 

If you’ve been relaxing your hair, and you’ve decided that it’s time to transition to natural curls—there are several ways to do so, says Sunny in this podcast episode, including doing the big chop (cutting it all off) or slowly trimming the processed parts during the regrowth phase. No matter the route you chose, she says your best course of action is to come up with a game plan with a curly hair specialist and then be patient with your curls in the meantime.  

Chemically altered hair fundamentally dries it out (you’re creating holes in the cuticle, so water more easily escapes and evaporates leaving hair dry). At the very least, treat yourself to a deep conditioning mask once a week. 

In other words, pick your poison. Most hair types—but especially curly, thin, or dry hair—can’t tolerate too much manipulation. Cochran Gathers tells us that the more chemical treatments you do (relaxing, coloring, or otherwise), the more you need to be mindful of how other altering methods will further erode the cortex. All of these treatments manipulate the hair’s bonds, and if you do this frequently enough, those bonds aren’t going to be strong enough to keep it together. 

At-home toning products (like purple shampoos) color-correct your hue in between appointments, says hairstylist Natasha Speth: “When we are canceling unwanted tones, we refer to our faithful color wheel to select the proper tones. We would use complementary colors to cancel out unwanted tones.” The basics of at-home toning are using violet for yellow, green for red, or blue for orange. 

You don’t have to be lusting after long, lush locks to want optimal hair growth—even those with short styles want strands that are full and healthy. Ultimately, it comes down to a simple one-two punch: Care for the hair you have while encouraging robust growth. If you want all of our tips on hair growth, check out our full explainer here. 

Scalp massages not only feel great and relieve tension, but they do amazing things for your hair. In research, regular massages have been shown to promote hair growth2 as they encourage blood circulation to the area, which helps deliver vital nutrients and oxygen to the hair follicle. You can make yours fancy by using a scalp massager, or keep it simple. “While shampooing, massage the scalp to increase the flow of blood, relieve everyday stress, and stimulate hair follicles. It’s a win-win,” says Branch. 

“Your scalp will affect the quality of your hair growth. When you have product, dirt, and oil building up around your follicle opening—which is where your hair grows out of—that buildup starts to slowly suffocate your hair root,” says trained trichologist and hairstylist Shab Reslan. While you don’t want to overwash (and dry out the strands), never let your scalp become irritated or have too much buildup. Pay attention to your wash schedule and toss in a clarifying shampoo when needed. 

Hair hydration benefits everyone. “The hair on your head is probably the driest thing on the body, and if you are trying to grow it longer, you need to keep it moisturized,” says hairstylist Anthony Dickey. “If your texture is naturally drier, it is even more essential to keep hair hydrated. Dry hair turns to brittle hair, and brittle hair breaks.”

If you have naturally brittle strands, many of the above tips will likely work for you, as well as the below. But for extra tips, check out our guide to hydrating hair: 

There are many ways to wash your hair, from pre-shampoo treatments and co-washes to clarifying numbers. Use these with intention for your hair type. For example, if you experience tangles (a common concern for dry hair), you may benefit from a pre-shampoo oil to coat the hair and protect it from physical wear. Co-washing is an ideal option for those who want to wet their hair but don’t need the full gusto of surfactants. And on the flip side, clarifying shampoos can be particularly useful for those with buildup (a primary cause of dullness and brittleness). 

“A deep conditioner is an intensive moisturizing and nourishing treatment, also called ‘deep treatment’ and ‘masque.’ These can be broken down into two categories: those meant to provide proteins, and those primarily for moisture,” writes hair expert and consultant Sarah Roberts. “As you may know, healthy hair is a balance between moisture and protein, so we need to use both, depending on the individual needs of our hair. These conditioners are normally quite thick in consistency and should be left on the hair, with heat, for 20 to 30 minutes. Think of deep conditioners as a five-star meal for your hair.” 

Healthy hair isn’t straightforward—and it would be a disservice to your time and energy to pretend like it is. It takes time and self-knowledge to home in on what works for you. However, you don’t have to go on the hair care journey alone. There are many professionals and there’s a lot of advice to lean on as you strengthen your strands.