The Liz Moody Podcast - Hacks For Shiny, Strong Hair, Science-Backed Hair Loss Strategies + Expert Opinions on Rosemary, Red Light Therapy & More with Bridgette Hill

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Trichologist and hair expert Bridgette Hill breaks down what hair wellness really means, and exactly what tools and practices will give you your best hair possible. the one thing everyone gets wrong about growing shiny, strong hair  exactly how often you should wash your hair  the pre-shampoo treatment that will make your hair grow stronger and longer what ingredients to look for and to avoid when shopping for hair care products an exact weekly hair care routine to follow (it’s WAY different than what I was doing before I talked to bridgette, if i’m being honest) the most common reasons for hair loss + exactly what to do about  a genius shiny hair hack that costs next to nothing expert opinions on trends like rosemary oil, silk pillowcases, red light therapy, microneedling, double shampooing, biotin, collagen, & more and so much more!  For more from Bridgette, follow along at @thescalptherapist and check out her website www.bridgettehill.com.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. Take advantage of Healthy Convo Co’s Mother’s Day sale! Go to healthyconvo.co and use code MOTHERSDAY for 15% off your entire order.  This episode is sponsored by: LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/Liz a to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order.   AG1: visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Paleovalley: head over to paleovalley.com and use the code LIZM for 15% off. Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 40% off your first month. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're uncovering the best ways to actually fight burnout, getting dermatologist tips for glowing skin, or learning how to have the most restorative night's sleep of our lives. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, I am so excited to welcome Bridget Hill to the podcast to talk all about hair.

Bridget is a certified tracologist, meaning that she specializes in the branch of medicine and cosmetic studies that focuses on the hair and scalp. She's been a hair expert for over 20 years and has been featured in Vogue, Goop, Mind Body Green, and many, many more. This episode is an education in hair health, which actually is apparently something we shouldn't even be saying, which is one of the very first things that we get into. We also tackle the one thing everyone gets wrong about growing shiny, strong hair, exactly how often you should wash your hair, the pre-shamphoo treatment that will make your hair grow stronger and longer,

what ingredients to look for and to avoid when shopping for hair care products, an exact weekly hair care routine to follow, which is way different than what I was doing before I talked to Bridget, if I am being completely honest. The most common reasons for hair loss and exactly what to do about it, a genius shiny hair hack that costs next to nothing, expert opinions on trends like rosemary oils, silk pillowcases, red light therapy, microneedling, double shampooing, biotin, collagen, and more, and many, many other topics. I would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest

takeaways as you're listening to the episode, so definitely screenshot and tag me. I am at Liz Moody and Bridget. She is at The Scalp Therapist on Instagram. Talking to Bridgett completely changed my perspective on taking care of my hair and I have not been able to stop talking about what I learned. If you feel the same way, I would love if you would send a link to someone in your life that you think would benefit from all of this amazing information. Sharing the podcast is always the best way to support it and it is so, so appreciated. Also, before I let you go, I would be remiss to not let you know about the amazing sale that we're having over at my conversation cards company Healthy Combo Co. I seriously cannot think of a better gift for your mom or your mother figure.

this year for Mother's Day than our original healthier together deck. They'll help you feel closer and you will learn more about them and you will just have the best conversations that you have ever had. We have 150 unique, obsessively tested questions about adventure, growing up, love, well-being, and more. We are running a special Mother's Day sale right now. You can get 15% off your order of any of our four games. So you can use it for Mother's Day. You can use it for bachelorette parties. You can use it for group trips. You can use it. It's just like something to have on hand. your closet for when events come up that you want a little present for. Just stock up now because

we very rarely do codes. Our code right now is Mother's Day. That is code Mothersday at Healthycombo. C.O for 15% off right now. And we also offer free two-day shipping on orders of two or more. We have Ron cheer together. That's the one for the group trips, for the bachelorets, for the couples game nights. We also have our OG deck, which is the one that I recommend for Mother's Day. We have our journaling decks. We have working together. So explore the whole site at healthyconvo.co. Okay.

Now let's talk all about hair with Bridget Hill. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Bridget. I was just telling you how excited my entire community is. We have so many questions for you all about hair. I love that you all are approaching this topic. I think just since the pandemic has become this fascination with this idea of quote unquote hair health, which I can't wait to get into that oxymoron because it really can't be such thing. But let's say hair wellness or the understanding of what the hair is doing, we obsess over

it. It's surprise possession, but then we overdo some things, underdo other things, and really don't know much about the scalp at all. So I'm so excited to dig in and kind of unearth some of those answers, but recognizing also that this world of trichology of scalp and hair wellness is still very new. Science is very new. There are just some things that we don't have scientific data for, but we're in that process. And I think that's what makes this time so exciting in this moment of hair wellness and scalp health. Okay. So you said that hair health is oxymoronic. I'm going to guess the reason that you're saying that. Is that because hair is dead? Exactly. It's not a living thing. It's a fabric. So my philosophy and under my approach as this hair colorist, hairstylist,

psychologist is hair is a fabric, the hair fiber, the things that we touch feel, that is a result of your body's own natural textile. It's like a beautiful textile that grows uniquely to you based on your DNA. There's nothing that can make that healthy. Once it exits the scalp, there are things we can do to respect the integrity of that fiber. There are things we can do to improve that. I want us to start thinking as this hair more along the lines of, we think of linens and dry cleaning, right? This is a whole other conversation. That's a whole other podcast, I'm sure. But as we're speaking about scalp health, hair growth, not hair health, we want to do the integrity of hair fiber. So really, we can have healthy hair growth functions,

but we want to have an improved, beautiful, high quality hair fiber and fabrics. So the scalp can be healthy. Our hair growth functions can be healthy. But the hair itself, we need to retain the integrity of it. So we need to shift a lot of that, in my opinion. And that's what I'm disrupting and bringing into this world of beauty right now. I love that. And then you said that we're going to get into all of the different ways to take care of our scalp, to take care of that fabric, to take care of our internal functions to keep everything functioning as well as possible. But you said we were underdoing some stuff and overdoing some stuff as well. So I would love a few examples of a few things that you think we're underdoing and a few things you think that we're

overdoing. I love that great question. Let's just break down hair is a non-essential tissue. We don't need hair to breathe for our hearts or for our lungs. All of those essential functions that our body performs on a daily basis, we can go without hair. Now psychologically, in this world that we live in as these physical human beings, it can be just as shocking or traumatic because not having hair can also directly impact those vital organs. If it's not real, it's not a essential, I care about what my hair looks like. That forces you to then begin to start thinking about your body. So one of the first things we underdo is we really don't take time, especially as women, to understand the delicate makeup of our body. We undervalue the role that minerals,

nutrients, and hormones play in our development of hair, healthy hair function, healthy hair, beautiful hair, the quality of the hair, the density of the hair. But yet we spend so much time overly thinking about it from this external component as if there's going to be something that we topically can do. We put very little attention to what really is the key component to healthy hair function, which are hormones, minerals, and nutrients in our body. And within those three categories, if somebody said to you, okay, that sounds great, I want to focus on those things. Where should they start? There is so much great. High quality supplementation on the marketplace, internal supplementation I'm speaking of. We do have access

to nutritionists. We have so much information about how to eat properly when it comes to us thinking about beauty and hair. It's multifactorial. Just accepting myself as a woman, you know, in my late 40s, I'm probably on the verge of menopause. And my hair and my beauty and my skin are so important to me. So I realize I have to make some type of decision to recognize where in this internal game of like, where can I put some focus into what's important to me from my beauty? What am I committed to you? Is it me hydrating? Is it me taking calcium supplements? Is it me making sure my iron deficiencies or vitamin Ds?

You get to make those choices because the body will always respond. And I'm a believer that as a tracologist and as someone who balanced. some of these underlying issues, if I can say my vitamin D from my body, my vitamin D, my iron, I know I cannot play around with, right? So I'm always making sure that I know my levels need to be in a higher range. Additionally, I commit myself to hair supplementation. I'm going to do that for the rest of my life. That's a commitment that I make that I feel like because of the habits and my lifestyle.

I'm going to commit to that internal process. Then, of course, there's a thousand and a jillion things that I can do externally because I'm a lover of beauty rituals. I'm a lover of taking care of my skin and my hair. I'm a lover of trying new products. So those things, I think, come very easy to us, but it's just the real underlying issue of root causes for anything in our bodies. We know is what's happening in our diets, our hormones, and just how we supplement all of the minerals and nutrients that our bodies need to exist. What supplement do you take for hair health? I'm experimenting with Nutraful. I go through quite a bit, But right now I'm on Nutrafol.

Primarily, I stick with a Norkrin for women, viviscount for women. And I alternate between so many brands as I get exposed to different ingredients. And what I can say about any of the supplementations of anything that we use for hair, hair function, hair growth function, healthy scalp, the quality of the ingredients are really essential, right, those sources. So those are things right now that I am kind of focusing in on as I am expanding my knowledge and as the technology and just the biochemistry and all the healing properties of plants and mushrooms and all these amazing things that we're getting exposed to, the quality of the

ingredient, the source of the ingredients is where I'm now focused. That's the most important things I'm recognizing in supplementation, both internal and external as well. Okay. We're going to get into hair loss and underlying causes of things like that. But if you just want to have long, strong, healthy hair, the first thing. is making sure that your internal systems are functioning as well as possible because, like you said, your hair is kind of your body's last priority in a way. Like if you don't have all of the fuel

you need for all of yourselves, it's not going to be giving that fuel to your hair. Is that correct? So well put, Liz. Look at you. Such an expert already. I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to learn. And then second, would you say, would be to focus on the scalp? Absolutely. Okay. So what should we be doing there? There's a lot of talk these days about like scalp exfoliation and we have the scalp scrubbers and things like that. How do we take care of our scalp in the best way possible? And can you say why it's important? All hair function begins with the scalp.

S is for skin. C is for connective tissue. A is for apineurosis, which is another level of a connective tissue. L is for looser, more connective tissue. And P is for the paracranium, which is that muscle that connects the spina. scalp to the head. There are all these functions of the scalp as an organ as a structure. So the skin is just that first top layer of the full understanding of what the scalp is. In the skin, there's a hair follicle that exists, right? We have follicles all over our bodies, right? Different

terminal hairs, vellus hairs, but hair in itself is a protection for vital organs. Our hair technically is a protection for the brain, the scalp, the muscle part of the scalp to house the brain. So we start thinking about every cell in our body is its own little colony. We're made up of all these colonies. The hair fiber function takes place in a hair follicle, and that hair follicle resides in the scalp. That hair follicle function relies on the health and the vitality of all those different connective tissues, all of the energy, the cell that happens in the papillar or the base of that hair follicle. It relies on every organ to be operating in its most fluid way. DNA, our genetics, underlying causes, factors. The body is constantly communicating to

each other for different reasons when we're in fight or fright when we're hungry, when we're sleepy. We know all these things. The hair gets impacted in that result and when the functions of the scalp get disoriented, the hair follicle can no longer thrive. So then you get inflammation, you get blockages, you get not enough energy to even begin to draw the necessary cells to and draw the keratin to make the hair fibers so you get weaker hair fibers, brittle hair fibers, all those things take place in the hair follicle, which is housed in the scalp. That in itself is just so important. The problem with scalp and why science hasn't really cared,

in addition to it being a non-essential tissue, is that every hair follicle can have its own DNA and RNA. There's 100,000 hair follicles on our scalp. I'll use men as an example. do men lose hair at the top and then the whole ring, they have a ring around their head. I've always wondered that. Right? We don't know that yet.

It's because each hair follicle has its own genetic makeup. The realities of scalp health and maintaining healthy scalp is that you're maintaining the function of an organ. So, massaging is essential. There's blood flow, circulation, inflammation, things that we use on our scalps. And we're not using high-quality products that create build-up. There's also the skinification of the scalp, where we're finally beginning to understand, just as the skin on our face, that delicate balance of microflora, bacteria, fungus, with lipids, acid mantles, all those things.

The same thing is applicable to scalp in so many ways. We have just always treated scalp as something to be hygienic, like remove, remove, remove. So we think shampoo, shampoo, shampoo, when it's the complete opposite. It's a natural little petri dish of all these fungus and bacteria that want to get along and want to support the healthy function of a hair follicle as well as give protection to our scalps. But that is where we're going to get the ideal environment to grow and to extend the life of this fabric that we really obsess over. Interesting. It actually reminds me of what skincare used to be about in the 90s and 2000s,

where it was all about like stripping and drying and everybody was told to do the same thing. And then it's evolved now where people are like, let's take care of your microbiome. Let's recognize that everybody's skincare needs are really different. Let's nourish our skin. It seems like a similar movement might be happening or needing to happen with the scalp. It's on the way. Absolutely. And again, as identifying that hair wellness or what we now are still trimming as hair health,

but I want to challenge us to evolve that language to hair wellness is really going to be about healthy scalp function and then retaining the integrity of hair fiber, which is so exciting because it's like being in a fabric store, you see silk and cottons and boucle and twill, you see everything and that is where beauty for me with hair, it's like all these different interesting fabrics. And then evolve into understanding the scalp has a whole entire different process that has to be addressed. You and I can have similar scalp issues that have total different hair textures. Can you walk me through what an ideal scalp routine in your mind would be for somebody who's not necessarily struggling with any issues, but they're just wanting to support their scalp health?

The first thing is going to be evaluating shampoo routine. Shampoing by definition is cleansing with a detergent-based cleanser, meaning something that may not be sulfate-free but has some type of cleansing aspect to it or surfactant aspect to it. You can cleanse scalp and hair with rinses, with oils. It's very similar to the skin. So that part, we have to begin to separate and identify of being clear on what are your true shampooing, cleansing needs of your scalp and your hair, two separate things. And how do we begin to know that? Start with just some of a basic genetic makeup of Eurocentric-based hair, which is a tighter cuticle, fine, straight, no texture. You're going to be dealing with the amount of sebum and oil and sweat, all this are different glands

on your scalp. How often do they produce the byproduct, which is your body's natural conditioner, which we do want to retain some of that on our scalp and our hair. We don't ever want that completely removed. I'm going to take you, for example, you have thick hair, but you're high colored a little bit. Do you highlight? Yeah, I do highlight. I'm naturally brunette, so this is fake blonde. And I've been told that I have fine hair, but I have a lot of it. So tight density. Okay. So if you cleansed, that sebum, that microbiome, it wants to, like, chill out and figure out things. So minimum 24 hours between each cleansing or shampooing for straight European hair. Ideally, I don't believe that the hair should be cleansed with a shampoo more than

three times a week. I do believe that there are other aspects to cleanse. You can rinse your hair every day. That's no big deal. You can use apple cider vinegar rinses, any of these mycelor water rinses, alpha hydroxy rinses, sicylic acid. They're great things on the market. Look at them as toners for the skin, toners for the scalp that help to reduce dandruff. And again, are you dealing with any scalp issues? feel like you have dandruff, do you get itchy, do you have erythema, are you red? Start paying attention to what your scalp feels like. Whatever those signals are, try other things other than using a detergent-based shampoo to solve that. They are necessary, but they are a part of a larger cleansing regimen because shampooing is designed to strip. It's designed to remove. Shampoos were

created for European hair to create volume. They don't cleanse. the scalp, they just remove product debris and surface stuff, which if you're not careful, can overstrip and take the balance of all of your sebaceous glands, your sydifference glands, it just throws and wax them all off. And if you're not using a good high quality shampoo, you're then creating another layer of suffocating and wax buildup, and those things start to affect the microbiome of the scalp. I have this idea in my head that you're supposed to avoid silicones and hair products. Is that why? Because you're creating a layer that impacts your hair, your scout microbiome, or should we not be avoiding them?

So silicones is a touchy one. It's the derivative of what they're based off of. It's the chemical makeup of the silicone is where you get into that difficult bad versus good. So I don't like to put silicones in a bad category. There are plant-based, mineral-based silicones that can be broken down by water. And there are some that cannot be. And that is very true. So you want to be careful of that, but silicones for certain hair textures can be necessary and are needed. Okay. So we're shampooing with actual shampoo only three times a week maximum. And in between, if we want to do something else, we're rinsing with water, apple cider vinegar, something that acts as more of a toner. Are we brushing to distribute

that sebum? Are we doing those scalp scrubber things? Are we doing any exfoliation or detoxification? Whenever using a detergent-based shampoo, I'm a big believer on using pre-shampoos scalp and hair oils. To cleanse the scalp, you're going to get a better benefit by using essential oil bases that have natural properties that enable circulation, contribute to cellular turnover. But they do all of those things without disrupting the makeup of the skin barrier, and they do that without disrupting the microbiome. But as you age, a healthy scalp is going to help keep that hair fiber from becoming, let's miniaturized or shrinking based on hormones, based on future pregnancies, based on any imbalance in your thyroid. All of these preventative steps help enrich and fatten up that scalp and that hair follicle

health so that the scalp is not as impacted or the residual fact of just living your life. When stress happens, when you're overeating, when you're under eating, the scalp preventative approach is going to allow your scalp room to be able to balance out from those deficiencies that are going to exist just because we live in a human world. It's just doing that one step, using a pre-scout treatment before you shampoo. And then minimizing the shampooing ultimately improves just the organ and the function and the health of the scout microbiome. It helps keep the unwanted funguses away, which is what creates dandruff. What type of oil? How are we applying it? How long are we leaving it on? Are we doing it on dry hair? What does it look like in practice?

One of my favorite are Renee Fritterer Complex 5. It's a very intense oil. It has a tingling almost you'll feel some type of impact of almost like a menthol if you overuse it. So these oils are meant to really remove any dead skins that slothed off without something being like grainy or having an abrasive effect. Just the actual molecular structure of these oils disintegrates and breaks down all those dead cells. You want something that has an active to it. Rosemary is great. Eucalyptus are great. Citrus are great. You can put those in some carrier oils, but those types of oils have very strong.

base properties that are anti-microbial, antifungal, and they also encourage cellular turnover. They encourage circular blood flow. So those are all things that are getting that hair follicle to be ripe, ready to grow more hair. That can be massaged in with your fingertips. I am a believer in any of the massagers out there. Circulation, circulation, circulation. It's important to touch this gap. I think that's such a disconnect when you go to the salon and everyone waits for that shampoo is because we have made no connection to our scalps outside of a shampoo bowl in a hair salon. It was a great way to encourage healthy hair follicular function. And it's important to massage that scalp at least once or twice a week.

All of us should be doing that. So when you have the opportunity to approach shampooing as a ritual, use that time to really massage those oils onto the hair. And they are applied to dirty, dry hair before you even shampoo. I had the intuitive thought that we shouldn't be using our scalp massager. Like you see everybody on TikTok doing it in the shower because our hair's wet then and probably more prone to breakage. Do you agree with that?

Should we be using it on dry hair? I totally agree on dry hair. And I also like some type of lubricant to be put on the dirty dry hair fibers as well. So they're great pre-shample oils. We're going to go there. Whenever we use a scalp massage, I like lubrication from root to in for the most part. There always are exceptions to the rule when you're dealing with certain type of medical conditions or scout conditions. So again, I want to be very careful with language because I think that's one of the issues that gets people in the trouble is that they think that everything is for them and it's not.

Every tool is not for every person, but all these tools can be necessary and have a place for the right person. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes? from. Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here is the thing.

that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, Mitopure does. It contains Erolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently.

Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking Mitopure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine, it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithine A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me.

It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochondere gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our help that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep.

And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all, this mattress is so comfortable. I have the one with the pillow top, which is medium firm, and it's just a dream. I miss it when I travel. It's better than even the fanciest hotel beds. Having a mattress that supports your joints and your body and feels good is going to help you get more sleep and better quality sleep. But then, on top of that, avocado mattresses are made with certified organic cotton wool and laytank. and they are made safe and green guard gold certified.

They're also Okotech certified, which is the gold standard. I look for it in any mattresses, sheets, or towels that I buy, which means the materials have been rigorously tested for harmful substances. You can actually look for the Okotech standard 100 label right on the product, and I love this part. It includes a traceable certificate number and the name of the testing lab so you know exactly what you're getting. There are no toxic chemicals.

There's no harmful off-gassing. It does not smell like it's going to kill you when you unbox it. This is what I mean. I'm not going to swap out all of my clothing, which is that top 1% of optimization. But by making sure that my mattress and my bedding are as good for me as possible, I literally reduce my exposure during a third of my life, which is a huge needle mover for a one-time swap. I will also note, and this is a me thing, but I sleep super hot and avocado's materials are really breathable and it makes me sweat the least of any mattress that I have slept on. And avocado is a certified B Corp and a 1% for the planet member because caring for

yourself and caring for the planet do not have to be separate things. You can get up to 20% off organic mattresses and more by shopping Avocados Presidents Day Sale right now at avocadogreenmatress.com. That is avocadogreenmatress.com. No code needed. So with the oil itself, we're using maybe a little bit of roseberry, a little bit of citrus, a little bit of something like that. But the oil itself, I've heard people talk about the benefits of olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil. There seems to be a lot of debates about haoba oil, like the best type of oil to use on hair. Do you have a preference? So the oils are going to be based on what you're treating. When it comes to scalp, there are some great fatty acid oils that can go on. Avocado is one, but you have to be

careful if you have danger for psoriasis or eczoma are things where there's an imbalance of fungus, malacizia, bacteria, disruption in this microbiome, those things can cause other bacterial things that can be good but can be toxic in the wrong scalp. If you're using a scalp oil, the thing that you have to be careful of is it being too overactive, meaning you feel too tingly. You're getting too much of a reaction that is too intense. And if you have a psoriasis or dandruff or a fungus, you can be feeding it when you use some of those fatty acid oil. So in the beginning steps, I say fatty acids for the hair. You can use those for the fiber and the fabric. But for your scalp, until you know what you're really treating or you're

comfortable, be very careful because anytime people feel dryness or itchiness, they go for these hair oils, which are great for the hair, but they can exacerbate some medical conditions and make things worse on the scalp if you're not careful. If I just wanted to go try something today, would you recommend the Renee? Renée Fritterer, yes, complex phyllis. Yes, yes, yes. So start with that. And I'm massaging it in. Am I letting it sit for a certain amount of time? Or is it just like massage it in? And then I do my shampoo and then I move on with my life. Ideally, I like it to be slept in. I love these questions. Again, the normal Joe person, you're doing this once a week. I like for it to be slept in if you do have the time, ideally. But if you don't, 10 to 15 minutes is no big deal. So like you get it on, do your teeth, coffee. Like make your scalp. First, make your shampooing. a ritual, like a self-care day. Try to schedule time. Do you believe in shampooing twice?

I do not for the average person. There are very few people out there that have an enormous amount of dense, thick hair. Those people typically only shampoo once to five to seven days. Those types of hair absolutely need more than one shampoo. But if you don't have that, and you can tell because the hair won't lather, you can feel it.

when your hair feels clean and when it doesn't feel clean, you know when your hair feels overly queen and like squeaky clean. Like we want to get those ideas out of our brains too because those things are not beneficial to the long-term care of our hair fiber and our scalp health. Are the things that like have the little scrubby beads or the things that are kind of branded and marketed as scalp exfoliation? Do you like those or is your stance, you're almost oil cleansing your scalp in the same way you would oil cleanse your face and that's better for the overall balance, especially in dense, curly hair-type textures, absolutely not, because those granules do get stuck in the fiber. It's challenging to get shampoo out of people's hair right now. So some of those

earlier exfolients, I think, can be a little extreme. I just try to lean away from that, but I do believe it have been experiencing different delivery systems of granule scrubs that really seem to be just amazingly clean and residual free, but this is new to me and I'm just starting to experiment. Almost always I'm going to promote oil. And there's some creams out there too. When we're looking for our shampoo, what ingredients would indicate that that's a good shampoo when we're reading the ingredients? And what should we be looking to avoid? This is going to be so individual based on hair type and texture and scalp condition. If you're not treating some type of scalp condition. I really don't give a damn what kind of shampoo you use as long as it's clean.

I almost like just go to baby shampoo's gentle. The average person needs something gentle. If you have a gorgeous amount of hair, you do a lot of hair coloring, then we're going to start having a different conversation. You want fatty acids. If your hair is dry, you know, you want nourishing, so you want fatty acids. I do believe in SLS-free, like sulfate freeze, paraben freeze. I do think those things make a difference just because the realities of the connections we're making to the microbiome and to the skin barrier, I think as time goes on, we are going to see so many types of reformulation of shampoos as we're learning more about those things. In fact, we're learning things about just stem cell, how stem cells get stuck in the

production of hair fiber, and that's what creates gray hair. We can speed these stem cells. For many years, it's just been about shampooing. So simplify the shampoo thoughts, unless you're dealing with some true scalp conditions. which those have to be specific, and there are great tools out there. I would think more thoughts should go into what conditioners and masks you're using, what types of leave-ins you're using, what type of products, dry shampoos you're using. Those are the types of things that go and stay into your hair. Those are the things that I want people to have more impact and thought about.

I would love, like, a quick rundown then of like, what should we be looking for in a conditioner? Should we be hair masking? And what should we be looking for there? What should we be looking for in a leave-in? talk me through all of those really quickly. Let's start with conditioners first. Every strand of hair fiber needs a balance of lipids, moisters, and proteins.

I don't care if you're kinky, tight, curly. I don't care of your fine, thin, you know, baby hair. You still need lipids. You still need moisture. You still need protein. So water-based conditioners are amazing. There's so many great rinse-out water-based conditioners now.

They don't have to be cream-based. You can also condition the hair of your hair of your finer with doing the pre-shamplea treatments, putting on your dry, dirty hair first, then shampooing your hair. You may not need to put anything in after because your hair might have benefited from that initial pre-treatment. And you got the moisture, the protein, and the lip it all in one step without the conditioner. So that's something to be thinking about for finer hair.

As we start going down the different types of hair types and texture as they get curlier or tighter, that midsection, glycerin is a major. ingredient that I think is so underused and undervalued and thicker coarser hair. Again, I'm always going to go to fatty acids, which I scream about and love about. Humectants, brands like Virtue are doing amazing things. I'm not a big fan of polymers, which are like the oliplexes, just natural building blocks of protein lipids and moisture. Wait, wait, wait, let's talk about that because I've switched to K-18, which I really like, but I feel like you're going to tell me that's another polymer. What is wrong with oliplex? Why don't we like that?

So remember, I think of hair as a fabric. There's a lot of pliability. The elasticity of a hair fiber can be retained in a delicate balance maintenance way without some polymer having to come in. Oliplex to me is when a bond has been chemically broken. So you're talking about a highly over-processed type of hair. And I mean highly processed, which in my opinion, as a professional colorist who was colored hair for years, that should be an issue. My concern is we shouldn't be taking hair to that limit

and their ways to be able to achieve those kind of colors without destroying the hair. In my professional opinion, so whenever there's something that is a polymer on a fabric, I think of it like super glue. It's great in the beginning, right? It has a little bit of liability, but it can have the same adverse effect.

Now, K-18, I know nothing about them except what I've been reading, and I do know they have their own patentant derivative of a polymer, but it is from what I understand based in all these great natural keratin science. I'm just beginning to be exposed to be open to that because I know that they have this science. I don't like any type of bonding capability on the hair fiber. I just know it can be mended in a better way. So you're maybe anti-oelplex or anti-getting to a place where we need oliplex. You're more open to K-18, which makes me, I'd love to hear, let's keep me updated,

Because I love it. Yes, I will, I will. I'm just really getting my hands into it and experimenting with it. I will keep you posted. And then for conditioners, you mentioned virtue. Do you have any other favorite brands? Maybe like for the fine Eurocentric hair, for the kinkier curly hair, like a few recommendations along the line?

Brio is a great line. They run the gamut. And it comes to like their moisturizers. There is a company designed essentials specifically for women of African because our hair density is so intense and we require so much product. I mean, you can go through one container. When I had a lot of hair, I could use one tub of conditioner for one service. Pattern beauty is doing some great things that are affordable, a great price point.

For scalp serum, some of the best ones. I think Barbara Sturham's scalp serums are just unbelievable. She set the standard with the skin and that way they were able to communicate and translate that to the scalp is a game changer. Daveness is a great line. I love what they're doing for like treatment-based lines or lines that have a scientific, plant-based kind of philosophy I find are leaders in that delicate balance. You mentioned hair masks and leave-in conditioners. How often should we be masking? In what circumstances should we mask? And then same for leave-ins. Do we need a leaven every time we're going to heat style? Leven should be approached like hand cream. We're talking about long, voluminous, beautiful, Goldilocks hair, those ends are just dried up fabric. Think about like your socks, like just being in the

sun all day. Then like, think about fabric just being in the sun all day. That's an extreme case. But think about that over time. Think about a little Q-tip head that you leave in your car. So the tiniest amount, a little drop, the size of a dime, emulsified in your hand and just come through your ends. That's a game changer for how long and how beautiful your hair. That's a game changer for a split ends. That's a game changer for length. You've got to keep that moisture restored because that fiber has nothing to hold on to. So you've got to replenish those ends.

We want to protect them as much as we can. So basically the hair at the bottom of our head is dry because it's been growing for so long. It's been exposed to all of these environments. And so taking care of that is just going to be this constant process of like rehydrating and then it'll dry out again. and then we'll rehydrate it and then it'll dry out again and then we'll rehydrate it. And you're doing a ritual shampooing in between. You're doing all these layering things. It's just like you're taking care of your skin.

You're rehydrating twice maybe three times a week. You don't want to make it oily, but you're going to see the difference between, oh my God, it's so dry. Oh my gosh, it feels so great. Maybe I only need my serum two times a week on the ends. Maybe I need it every day. Maybe in the winter I need more. It's all fluctuating.

And I think we have to get comfortable with knowing ourselves. Once you get that downpack, you kind of know where you live. It's not about making ourselves crazy. It's more like, oh, what steps are needed for me? If we are heat styling our hair, do we need to be using some sort of protective thing on that every time we're doing that? If you are someone that heat styles has very thick hair, curly hair, heat styles blows out once a week and lets your blow dry last, and you just touch up, not so much because you probably are really protected. If you're someone that has very fine hair, you blow out, you start from wet. Anytime you're starting from wet, absolutely.

You must have a heat protective end. Depending on hair type and texture, if you are curly and you blow out straight and you can use heat, there may be a need to reinforce that. You can go to something a little bit lighter like a lightweight serum. It can be cream-based. It can be oil-based. So it just depends on what the preferences and how. how the hair responds to the desired look that you're looking to achieve.

This is a little nuance, but I know that wet hair is more fragile. And what I do is I let my hair dry naturally and then I use a curling iron to like very quickly throw in some curls. And I tell myself that that's better than blow drying it because I'm not kind of manipulating or applying any sort of heat to the wet strands of hair. Is that true? Is there any advantage to letting our hair dry naturally even if we're going to heat style it after that? Absolutely. Yes. Your hair thanks you for that. That is such a smart approach.

Because basically, the less we can do to our hair when it is wet, the better, because that's when it's the most fragile. It's not about the hair being more fragile when it's wet. It is by you allowing your hair to dry naturally. And for you, your hair can dry naturally. You can put your curls in and you get a desired look. A lot of women can't do that, right? So you recognize that that's a gift that you have and you recognize that you're in that category, so you can remove that low, dry step. But it's not so much about the wet state as much as the steps that it takes

to get that desired look. Whenever you can minimize heat to get a look that you like, that's a beautiful thing, right? That's the more advantageous approach to keeping the integrity of the hair fiber. Okay. And do you like a wet brush? In certain circumstances, yes.

Okay. What circumstances do we like it? And what circumstances do we not? Love it for, younger kids because it gets them to understand the importance of combing through from the ends up. When I see people use wet brushes, they just use it so improperly. I just see them ripping through their hair. So the brush sometimes gets used so inappropriately that it causes some unnecessary pulling. And using them properly is to start at the bottoms and just sort of work your way up.

Exactly. I want to hit hair masks before we get into some causes of hair loss. Do you have any favorite hair masks? How often should we be masking? You have frizzy, dry, thick, curly, any of those hairs that the cuticle is prone to moisture, not really laying flat, mask are the way to go. You need more richness than conditioners. I think the conditioner for someone that has thick dits hair should be more like a reinforcement thing. When you're really cleansing and doing a ritual and you have thick, heavy, coarse, dry hair, I think. The mask should be what goes on after the hair after a shampooing ritual.

One of the things I do like to suggest for fine hair who are afraid of mask or creams, put them on dry and dirty, let them sit in the hair, shampoo them out. A lot of masks have great lilyly systems of different humectins, proteins, and lipids. And any time you can get that in the hair, it's always going to be beneficial to the long-term respect of the hair fiber. So use them dry and dirty and rinse them out. the hair will get what it needs. So those are my kind of tips for hair mask, but I think at least once a month, every hair texture should be having some type of hair mask in their hair. Let's talk about hair loss. I got so many questions about hair loss. I know that you believe strongly in all of these

different sort of individual reasons for it and that ideally we should probably be working with a practitioner on our specific causes. But can you walk through some of the common causes that that you see for people who are experiencing hair loss? Nine times out of 10, there are nutritional deficiencies in the body, such as low iron, ferritin, vitamin deficiencies, Ds, E's, Bs, you'd be surprised. And the challenge with this is the way that Western medicine measures those things in our body is we have these huge ranges. You could be from like 60 to 400, that's normal.

Well, for hair, it's a whole different ballgame. And as tracology, we are getting closer to pinpointing what your vitamin D levels should be if you are this age and this and this. If what your vitamin B levels should be to retain a healthy functioning hair growth cycle. When the body is thrown off of anything, you can't identify. It's like this guessing game, like what is throwing the hair off when your hair starts falling out? we start going into the stressor factors. The cortisol is kicked up. Cortisol is the number one stressor that's going to throw everything off.

So everyone's obsessing. They're buying things. They're using everything on their scalp, creating more problem. Your hair's falling out. You know it wasn't something immediate because it would have been a shocking moment to you, right? So there's been something going on. And then we have to start to calm ourselves and walk ourselves back. When did we begin to see this happen?

Did you see your ponytail getting shorter? or smaller. Are you pregnant? Are you on medication? May you be pregnant? Are you dieting? Get the brain to kind of calm down and then we can start to attack it by addressing what may be going on internally. And as we're figuring that out, start going back into what things we need to change. What are some topical things? Are you overly coloring? Are you pulling? Are you wearing your hair up? Your eye, things about people's glasses, people don't even recognize this. The way you put your shades and you think my hair is falling out around my hair line as a tension from the glasses or little things like that can make us more empowered by recognizing just all the external things we can change.

We talked about these serums, topicles, these actives, this preventative approach. All of those things are going to directly impact hair loss because we're directly impacting the hair follicle as we then make these discoveries of what's happening internally. something is going to give at some point because the body responds. It's a brilliant machine. Once we can identify what those underlying root causes may be internally, it's easy for us to identify those root causes externally and how to change that. It's always the internal root causes that require a little bit more effort and discipline to get to where is my hair falling out. And is it a true hair shedding or is it the beginning of a true loss, which is it a

very different. So a hair shedding is a more temporary situation? Exactly. It's a temporary situation, which means the hair cycle is off for whatever reasons. The shedding phase is happening faster. So we just want to control that. Some of that preventative stuff we talked about with the scalp oiling before shampooing. Those types of oils can help regulate those things as well. So that's another benefit you get from doing those type of preventative steps. Because when you are dealing with hair loss, all of those preventative steps that we spoke about become almost mandatory into your life, at least for 90 days until we get the body and the hair going in the right direction. So it sounds like working on one's cortisol levels is probably a good place to start

with the nutrient deficiencies. You said that if we go to our primary care physician, we get a full micronutrient panel, whatever, they're probably not going to recognize the ranges that you're going to recognize for ideal hair health and support. So what should somebody be doing to know if their nutrients are in the optimal ranges and if that's their underlying root cause? That's a great question. I've had success with an increase of vitamin D across the board. I think now I just went to the doctor's office, dentist's office, and they're like, root cause, increase your vitamin D. I was like, oh my gosh, I've been talking about root cause since like five years ago, increase your vitamin D for hair. So those are something that we know.

I know for a fact that my vitamin D is on the lower side. I think I mentioned earlier from my condition, I take 10,000 IU vitamin D across the board every day. I take 5,000 in the morning, 5,000 at night. For me, the vitamin D is essential. That's one that I would say off the top of my head. That range needs to be at a minimum of 60 to see any benefit of healthy follicular growth. Now, you can get in more specific as we talk about.

about specific blood types, as we started talking about then my zinc ranges, my magnesium. But from a basic level, we look at ferretin, what you want to see at 75 for women, your iron storage, which is so essential to hair. And the vitamin D at 60, those are two things that I think every person could kind of look at their information and see where they fall in that range. Are you a fan of taking prenatal vitamins when you're not pregnant or trying to conceive as a way to support hair health? No, because that has to be very focused. A good trocologist, a good nutritionist, functional medicine person, we know you're dealing

with hair. We know for a fact there's certain minerals that we're going to be looking for based on a number of factors that go down your health history. So I don't think that prenatal is a great way to approach it. You can be more direct. You can be more specific and be more targeted. I love that. What can we do to prevent that hair shedding or to promote hair regrowth postpartum?

That's just hormones that we cannot control bottom line. So the first thing is like relax. Your body has just built a whole human being. And I think it deserves some time just to like, okay, great. There are topicals that I believe in. A lot of them are natural. And I do believe these things are great to just help act as vitamins to the hair follicle. Again, I'm going to just push Renee Fritterer because I know the brand so well and I use it so much.

they have a topical serum called trifasic reactional where women who breastfeed and women who, even in their later parts of their pregnancy, later trimesters, their doctors have allowed them to use them. And they're just vitamins for the hair follicle. It kind of regulates the hair follicle, not going into these crazy cycles as the body is figuring it out. And again, these pre-scout rituals are ways to help self-regulate, minimizing shampooing, not overly doing anything or the basic.

tenets of what's going to allow your body to kind of normalize. It is going to go through so many changes that we really don't even have all the answers to, but what I believe has been successful, has been adjusting to shampooing as a ritual, like making that time, releasing the stress, and then just using topicals. There's a mushroom-based topical called Grow. I know that some clients have used that in the past. Feed the scalp nutrients when you can. Take care of your body. It's going to balance out because those hormones, there's just nothing we can do about that. Yeah, I love the idea of recognizing that it's like, it's a temporary time period and to, yeah, acknowledge this incredible thing that your body's done and stop, like, beating it up. You're maybe losing a

little bit of hair, but yeah, you grew an entire human. Even though I know and can appreciate the feeling of when your hair doesn't look good, you feel like shit. Like, I know that feeling. But we're more empowered when we really recognize we want beautiful, gorgeous hair. It's such the opportunity and the permission to give to ourselves to take care of ourselves. And that's my exciting kind of mission with women and beauty to like not from a fear-based. We are magical, uniquely beautiful. Our hair is uniquely ours. And we're finally getting tools and products out there to deal with us the way we need to

deal with us. And so let's really recognize how we have beautiful hair. And it's like with the body. And then once we get the body together, there are so many things that we can mix and match and use and heal everything and manage everything. So you want to be able to have these good practices because for the rest of my life, I have to know that when I'm stressed, when my body's this, my body is going to take from my hair. And I still get these patches, but they don't last as long. they come back. And I know I do other things like red-like therapy, micro-needling.

We can go into all the other therapies that are out there. But the reason that is able to come back is because I keep my blood and my body at a level knowing with all of my deficiency. So if you keep the body healthy, it gives it the more momentum to be able to counteract when our bodies are highly stressed or highly have cortisol going through it

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stem cells. I just read that article like this week or last week. So I was like, oh my gosh, that's so exciting. So these things are really happening in real time. And I know science is going to catch up, technology data. Look, we're going to be able to take a pill, whatever. Great. For those of us that still want to be like feet in the soil and see the magical things that our body can do, like I'm all for different phases, but I still will love to know that at the end of the day, it's so empowering to know that you can make conscious choices of what you put into your body and literally get a result. Without impacting the stem cells, is there anything we can do about gray hair? We don't know anything. No. We don't know. There's some great

studies being done. They actually created an entire science for the study of the aging hair follicle called Gerontobiology, G-E-R-O-N-T-O-N-T-O-B-I-O-L-O-G-Y. So this should be interesting, this group of like trachologists and scientists, and they are committed to understanding the aging hair follicle specifically for gray. I love that. Can I just say how refreshing it is? Some of my favorite people on this podcast are the people who say what we don't know. and what we know rather than kind of just like postulating. Like I love so much when people say what they don't know. It makes me trust everything that they're saying that they do know so much more.

It's a complicated organist study. And it's an exciting time to be studying because for the first time, hair is being explored through cosmetologists, through biochemistry, through trichologists, through medicine, through technology. So we're going to get so much of an exciting understanding. And we all can work together because it's a collaborative opportunity for us to offer solutions for people. With hair, it's going to require all aspects of medicine, nutrition, beauty. So I love that too because it's just collaborative.

There is no right or wrong. It is going to be about, hey, these are facts, these are science. And how do we customize this for each individual person? And that is even more exciting because each one of us is so uniquely designed. And dealing with our hair is such a unique space. It is just not about a shampoo and conditioner. And I'm so glad that we get to disrupt that thought. I love that.

How should people with curly hair be treating their hair differently? I think we've talked a lot about sort of the more Eurocentric, finer hair. And I would love to give our curly-haired girly some tips as well. So first curls almost always shampooing in a, applicator bottle. So anytime you're using a detergent-based shampoo, curls specifically, I'd like to give this generally to everyone, but curly thick hair. Shampoos should be applied. When you're doing your proper shampooing with a detergent-based cleanser, apply your shampoo into an applicator bottle, anything with a nozzle. You can apply that

to your scalp dry, dirty, and just go in sections and massage that in. You're using a high-quality, My curly girls, you do need a quality shampoo. You do need a quality fatty acid, clean shampoo that works for you. Not stripping, Shea, avocado, all love those fatty acids. That shampoo is going to go to your scalp, right? So your ends are going to not have any shampoo on them. You're going to either take a heavy conditioner or a heavy oil of your choice and protect those ends. You're then going to go into the shower.

That's where you're going to do your shampoo. Amosify. You do not need to do two shampoos, as you all know that, unless it's been more than seven days and you've cleansed, co-washed, whatever your routine is. Secondly, I think it's important for curly girls know how to moisturize. They typically have their suctiony down pat. Steaming treatments, I think it's important for all curly girls to be in the salon at least three times a year to get true steam treatments. I think that is so important for curly hair. Again, remember, it's something. like dealing with fabric. You want elasticity in it. And I find that getting regular professional steaming treatments are game changers and helping to retain that.

And I think that every curly girl should have some type of protective rest hair style as well. What's an example of a protective style? So it could be just putting two braids in the hair. You know, a protective style could be just pulling it back but not using an elastic, like using hair pins or different types of clips just to kind of let it be loose. tension-free. You're not combing or brushing. That can be in this style of braids that are left in over a long period of time, but taking care of properly. Just something where you're letting the actual tendrils of the hair fiber just relax and not be manipulated at all. Curly girls need to do that every now and then. Okay, I love it. I have a speed round for you. And I just want your

quick thoughts on a bunch of things that are sort of trendy that people talk about, that people wonder about. We touched on rosemary oil, but rosemary water, rosemary oil, huge trend online right now. A lot of people say it really helps with hair growth. Do you agree with that? I love it. It doesn't help with hair growth. It is amazing for the scalp microbiome and the skin barrier. A great antimicrobial, antifungal, love it as a pre-scalp oil, pre-scalp treatment oil. And just to put a very fine point on that, it's not going to help with hair growth directly, but is a side effect of taking care of our scout microbiome better hair growth? No, we can't say that.

We can't make our hair grow. You can't make your hair grow. Okay. And that's important to realize, but the hair that's growing out is going to be healthier, less likely to break, and thus you will end up with more hair as a net result by taking care of your scalp, likely. Anytime we're making any improvement to the scalp microbiome and the hair follicle, you are going to be improving the result of your hair fiber.

Is that going to be growth? We can't say that. It can be thickness. It can be density. Anytime you're doing something advantageous to the scalp, you are directly impacting the quality of that hair fiber that's going to grow out of your scalp. Be it longer, thicker, whatever, but you are making some improvements for sure. Okay.

What about a silk pillowcase? Necessary. Can't live without them. So necessary. What about a cold water rinse at the end of your shower? So this is interesting. Let me tell you how I use cold water rinses as a practitioner. When I'm a colorist, I can't help but sometimes use cold water rinses because I want that cuticle to be so tightly sealed so that my color is so shiny.

As a trichologist, sometimes I do so much work to get circulation stored up. I don't want to calm down everything I just spent time getting up. So it just depends on the conditions. It depends on what the scenario is. is there are times when I see some scalp work like some psoriasis or some even some sunburned scalp. I'm going to put some cold compresses. I want to slow some things down. So it's just depending on how I'm using it on the scalp.

The texture itself is going to be a benefit for sure because it just really clot locks in that cuticle. When it comes to treating the hair, though, I am starting to recognize how I work against myself sometimes by wanting the hair to be so shiny. but totally knocking out all the work I just did in terms of healing and getting the scalp activated. I would still use an apple cider vinegar rinse because I could still get shiny hair. Like there's so many other options, right? To get shiny hair, you can still close the cuticle with apple cider vinegar and the scalp loves that. Okay, wait, so talk to me about that. That was one of my speed round things was apple cider vinegar.

So apple cider vinegar is a great way to get shine on the hair after color and the scalp loves it keeps it nice and nourished. It respects the microbiome. I love apple cider vinegar for the scowl. I mean, there's not one condition really that it's going to negatively impact, and the hair fibers love the vinegar. And what are we doing there? We diluting a certain amount in water? It could go two ways.

You can use it as a dilution, a spray that's diluted, and you live stay in. You can use a less diluted amount, and it gets rinsed out. It's a preference. There's so many different ways to use it being left in or rinsed out. Do you have any other shiny hair hacks? Yeah, black teas are great. I love tea. Like, chamomil teas are great. The camomills for like the lighter hair and the black teas are really great for the darker hair. And spray knit on or I use them as actual rinses, like almost like as giving a tea bath. I do like it to be like in the median like tepid water after the it's boiled. You just use it like a nice rinse. Some people find they want to do a little rinse after. Some people don't. Again, it becomes a preference depending on if you blow dry, air dry, find all those things make those little new. wants is a little different. Oh, that's fun.

I'm going to try that one. Dry shampoo. There has been a lot of controversy about dry shampoo lately. Can you give us some guidance for how we should be using it, what we should be looking for? There's always controversy in the beauty space with some type of product some way. So I'm going to say this. I do believe in dry shampoos. The delivery systems, there are so many out there.

There's some that are just like powders, some sort of just like blushes. I typically have always loved chlorine. I think the oat milk is great. I like oat on the scalp. I think oat is an essential necessary option for people that have psoriasis, eczema, dandruff, any scalp conditions. I think there's a benefit for dry shampoos. I think that dry shampoos should be used with natural bristle brushes to be navigated throughout the hair. Dry shampoo is designed to be brushed throughout the hair, not just to be sitting on the scalp.

And you don't want to get crazy with it. I'm not saying a dry shampoo should be used every day of the week, but I do think there's a place for it. I think people scalp's benefit from not being shampoots are regularly in certain conditions. And a high-quality dry shampoo is a great option to give clients the aesthetic confidence that they need, while yet retaining and not over-cleansing or over-shampoing the hair. What about red light therapy? The future.

Everything's going to be red light. the future. Can you say in a nutshell what that's actually doing for our scalp or our hair? It's anti-inflammatory. It produces collagen. It's like the zapper of all zaps when used with topicles, it pushes the ingredients further into the derma of the skin. So I love red light. Do you use one of those helmets? I have a helmet. I have a little wand. I can get specific areas. You can use your facial ones. Any red light you have for your skin, that can be applicable to your scalp as well. If you're using any type of topical on your scalp, throw that red light on top of it to let it penetrate deeper. I love red light. A big fan for red light across the board. What about

microneedling? Big fan of microneedling. I think this is a future as well. Trichology and scalp hair and loss is so new that just how the states are going to regulate this is going to be so interesting. So be on the lookout to see how this is going to transform because the medical community is now. getting in and is all this interesting capitalism at its finest is happening when it comes to the benefit of microneedling for scalp and hair loss. Very interesting. Okay. And then last one, biotin and collagen are kind of the most commonly cited like supplements for hair. What do you think about those two? Biotin we know is unless you're biotin deficient, which most people in the Western world are not. You're just wasting money. Biotin is needed for the body to process

certain minerals and vitamins, but just biotin in itself, there's nothing for the hair. We know that. Collagen, those are early studies that we're seeing as we age as a belief that the breakdown of the collagen is what creates some of the anti-aging impacts of the hair follicle. Collagen is something new for me that in the last seven or eight months, like really being committed to putting people on and kind of seeing what differences we make. And I'm still kind of on the jury for that. Myself personally, I just started taking collagen supplements or collagen shots, I guess. I'm drinking it. Like, I've done it for three months now. So this is new. Okay. So maybe on collagen, no one biotin. Absolutely. Love that. Can you just leave us with

one homework assignment, something we could all do today to start getting hair that we feel really, really good about. In the next three months, choose a day where you really make a shampooing routine a ritual. Whatever day you do of your beauty, in the next three months, choose one day just to truly make shampooing like a whole ritual for you. And if you could even, while your hair is in oils, like your pre-scout oil treatment, your oil on your ends before you shampoo, sit in the tub, like do a great bath, then shower with your shampoo on your scalp. massage it through, just give yourself that benefit to see what difference that really does. And in that week that you do do that, just one day put a little bit of extra serum or something

on your ends when you're not drying your hair and see what benefit you get and how that feels to you. I love that. Can you tell us a little bit about where we can find more of your beautiful wisdom on the internet? So full disclosure, I don't know if you know this, Liz. I'm in the rebuilding. I tragically, after the pandemic and we came outside, I tragically lost my husband of 25 years. It was been crazy. So I am just rebuilding my entire world. But it's all a great thing. I'm so sorry.

Thank you. I pushed back a lot of my practice and some major healing. But I had all this opportunity to be learning and speaking and engage in other projects that were kind of ongoing. And I'm glad that I had this slowdown because science, from what? was available to me from 2020 to where we are now is just a game changer. So right now I'm focusing on Instagram at the Scout Therapist. I'm in a major rebuilding project and I'm going to have some exciting things coming out this summer, July, August, and September. You can follow me at bridget hill.com. But I'm very much in a rebranding position on how to best serve the community

of getting people to understand how these things are coming on the market. Well, I'm so excited to follow along and let me know if I can be of aid in any way in that journey for you. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. I love the conversation and your approach to this. And this is all about wellness. It really starts from what's going on inside the body, right?

We can never get away from that. Yeah. Yeah, it's all connected. I certainly believe that's true. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today, Bridget. I just thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you so much for having me. I look forward to talking again. Do not worry. I have already ordered some scalp oils to try and I will share my reviews with you in the next few weeks and

months. I am so excited to try a routine where I oil and I balance my scalp and where I treat shampooing is more of a ritual and where I think about nourishing myself as the secret to nourishing my hair. So I will keep you updated. I cannot wait to hear what you loved or you learn. So do not forget to tag me on Instagram. And if you know someone who isn't thinking about their hair is fabric or doesn't know yet how critical scalp health and whole body health are to hair, please, please send them a link to this episode. There are so many ways that we can be getting the hair that we want. And also, so many of them are incredibly affordable, like the tea and the ACV rinse and all of that. So please text a friend or tell your workplace bestie

or send a link to your mom or your aunt. I love you all. And I so appreciate you spreading the word. And if you're new here, if you're one of the recipients of that link, welcome. I am so glad that you're here. Make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you listen on. Just go to the main podcast page. That's the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes, and you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page

on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of the new episodes will show up right in your feed so you never miss one. And you are definitely going to want to have those notifications on because we have some amazing episodes coming up, including one that will make you rethink everything that you thought you knew about productivity and an interview with one of the top circadian rhythm experts in the world. So make sure that you are following so you do not miss out. Okay, I love you and I will see you next Wednesday on the next episode of the Healthier Together podcast. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier.

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