Hair loss stinks. It’s scary, and it’s made scarier by the fact that it’s hard to identify the true cause. It can be subtle too. By the time you realize it’s happening, your hair has probably gotten so thin that it’s undeniable. Unfortunately, a lot of women with thyroid disease experience hair loss at some point.
I noticed my hair thinning recently when it seemed like more of it was falling out in the shower. Whenever I run my fingers through it while washing and rinsing, I wind up with several strands between my fingers each time. I am one of those people who puts hair on the shower wall and then I clean it off when I’m done. Over the course of a few months last year, I felt like the collection of hair on the shower wall had grown.
I didn’t do anything about it right away because I kept second guessing myself while also hoping that it was going to get better on its own.
I asked my hair stylist about it and she said that my hair appeared to be healthy. She asked if it felt thinner when I pulled it into a ponytail. Maybe? I wasn’t sure.
I know we’re supposed to lose 50-100 hairs per day so I counted the strands on the shower wall. I also counted the hair that landed in the sink after I combed or brushed it. The total was pushing 100 just during and after my shower, and that doesn’t account for all the strands that come out throughout the day.
Diet and Stress
Nutrition and lifestyle are always the first places I start when checking in with my Hashimoto’s health plan. I talked to my functional medicine doctor who suggested I take my Vitamin B complex more consistently. She also asked if I had increased stress lately. Stress can play a big role in thyroid hair loss and I’ve heard more women complain about it in general since the pandemic started.
OF course lifestyle triggers can be hard to identify, especially when you feel like you’re doing things right. AND it takes a lot of trial and error to get things back under control whenever thyroid symptoms creep up.
Because of this, I knew I also needed to address the hair itself.
The Hair Queen
That’s when I found Jasmine Rae on Instagram, otherwise known as “The Haircare Queen.” Her page can be overwhelming because there’s a lot of information. Plus it’s not that well organized, but I went down the rabbit hole to figure out how to get started. You can find links at the bottom of this post to some of the more helpful stories from her profile.
But here are the three key strategies I adopted for my journey to healthier hair.
1. Train Your Hair
Hair training lets you go longer between washes. Apparently shampoo dries out your hair and destroys your scalp’s natural ability to produce its own oils. The more you wash, the more you need to wash. When you go longer between washes, however, you are giving your scalp the chance to do what it’s meant to do.
Jasmine’s advice for hair training is to ease in. You can’t jump from washing every day straight to once a week. Let your head get used to the time between. She recommends starting with every other day and then adding one additional day every two weeks.
In other words, give yourself two weeks to get used to the new cadence. After two weeks of washing every other day, do two weeks of washing every three days, and so on.
She says people with fine or medium hair might find that 5-7 days between washes is ideal. I fit that category and can’t seem to get past 5 or 6 days. So I am going to settle with that for now and see how it goes.
2. Brush Your Scalp
Apparently, brushing your scalp might be more important than brushing your hair. It encourages the flow of nutrients and helps to stimulate natural oil production.
The idea is to just brush the scalp but not run the brush through to the ends of your hair. You’ll brush the ends when you’re done with the scalp. I basically go around my entire hairline. Then I brush the middle, flipping hair over and out of the way to get the under sides.
There is information about how to find Jasmine Rae’s scalp brushing tips at the bottom of this post.
She recommends the Rock & Ruddle brush. It’s affordable but I already have a fake boar bristle brush that seems to work fine too.
3. Use Product
Jasmine Rae recommends serums, heat protectant, and more. I don’t often use heat on my hair since I am lazy (which has nothing to do with the pandemic) but I did start using some products that I’ve found pretty helpful.
Here’s what I do:
Every morning, I put a “satin nectar nourishing gloss” on the ends after brushing it. To be honest, I plan to switch to a cleaner plant-based product but wanted to try what Jasmine recommended first. The satin nectar makes my hair look a little greasy at first and leaves a bit of reside behind on my hands, which I don’t love. But I do think it helps to protect my ends.
At night, after I do the scalp brushing, I put Orange essential oil drops in my palms and then run my hands through my hair. It smells divine and gives my hair a healthy shine.
I also spray my hair almost every day with “mermaid spray,” which is a DIY recipe that I make using essential oils from Young Living (recipe below). This contains essential oils that help promote healthy hair. It can also help tame frizz.
I spray it on my girls’ hair too as the tea tree oil helps deter lice. While lice is not a big concern during the pandemic it will be once schools are back to normal.
Finally, on the days I wash my hair, I run a “botanical smoothing balm” through it while it’s still wet. I also ordered a microfiber towel because that’s supposed to make a difference too, but I can’t vouch for it yet.
The Results
I don’t expect my hair to become magically thick and full, but I am absolutely, positively losing less. I have substantially fewer strands on the shower wall (like 10 instead of 60) and I am losing less throughout the day.
Plus, it feels and looks healthier, and that helps me feel more confident about it.
The Haircare Queen
If you are good at navigating a lot of info, I highly recommend Jasmine Rae’s page. Here are links to some of her stories that I found most helpful.
- Get Started: Just as you would guess, this is a good place to start.
- 20-wash cycle: This story has a lot of gems if you stick with it. Skip the first 9 or 10 slides to get to where she talks about how to brush your scalp and why it’s important.
- Washing: she takes you into the shower to show you exactly what she does.
Mermaid Spray
And finally, here is the recipe for that Mermaid Spray I make using Young Living Essential Oils.
Combine the following in a 4 oz spray bottle
- 10 drops rosemary oil
- 10 drops lavender oil
- 10 drops cedarwood oil
- 10 drops tea tree oil
Then fill the bottle halfway with witch hazel and the rest with water.
Environmental triggers account for 70% of autoimmune cases. In an effort to reduce those triggers in my home, I use essential oils to make non-toxic versions of cleaning solutions and beauty products. Visit MichelleValenti.com to learn more.