Not everyone knows that the sun can damage not only the skin but also the hair.
Here’s a reminder of how the sun affects your skin if you’re intentionally exposed to it for a long time without proper protection.
What is hair made of?
The structure of hair is fairly simple. It originates and grows inside the follicle, a sort of small sac attached to the skin. The follicle extends deep into the dermis, where we find the hair bulb, supplied by small blood capillaries and lined with connective tissue.
At the top of the follicle is the sebaceous gland, which affects the quality of our hair, and below it is the arrector pili muscle.
Hair is composed of keratin, a fibrous protein, and 65–95% water, lipids, trace elements, and pigments, including melanin.
Hair plays a vital role in regulating body temperature and protecting the scalp.
If you want to learn more about the hair’s life cycle, read our #beautyblog.
How does sun products radiation affect the skin and hair?
At the epidermal level, UVB rays trigger the formation of free radicals, leading to cell death. At the dermal level, UVA rays trigger the formation of free radicals, resulting in premature skin aging. Read all about photoaging here.
On the hair, UVA rays cause color loss due to photo-oxidation reactions within the cuticle, affecting both natural and colored hair.
UVB rays penetrate deeper, causing the degradation of keratin and melanin.
UV rays also cause damage at the level of the hair follicle: hair bulbs play a fundamental role in hair metabolism and growth. When exposed to prolonged radiation sun products, they transition from an active phase to a passive one, losing strength and vitality. As a result, the hair weakens and may eventually fall out.
What Happens to Hair Exposed to the Sun
It is well known and now widely accepted that the period of greatest hair loss is fall. In reality, fall marks the culmination of a process that began during the summer, due to the hair’s exposure to the sun, known as Actinic (i.e., solar) Telogen Effluvium.
Numerous other stress factors during the summer can compound the damage caused by radiation sun products to the hair, such as increased sweating, frequent washing, chlorine, salt, and wind. As a result, some people begin to notice occasional hair loss as early as summer, which then intensifies with the arrival of fall.
In addition to hair loss, numerous other forms of damage to our hair can occur: discoloration, dryness, and brittleness, resulting in a dull and damaged appearance.
If the damage reaches the hair’s keratin layer due to free radicals, it makes the hair more vulnerable to chemical treatments (coloring, perms, bleaching) and mechanical (styling with brushes, flat irons, curling irons, and hair dryers), reducing its resistance to breakage and thinning the hair shaft.
Some tips for protecting our hair from the sun’s rays sun products
Let’s look at some tips
- Limit your time in the sun, avoiding the hottest hours of the day.
- Don’t use harsh shampoos
- Instead, use products with gentle, SLES- and SLS-free surfactants
- Follow a complete sun protection routine for your hair: Body Shampoo, nourishing after-sun body wash + Recovery Mask, after-sun hair mask + Defence Fluid, protective hair fluid by Napura; or use Monoi Fluid MTJ SUN, a sun protection fluid for hair.
- Drink plenty of water and follow a complete, balanced diet
Remember that you don’t need prolonged exposure to UV rays to have beach waves all year round.
Watch the video and discover Beach Waves
Beach Waves is a wave-effect hair spray that adds volume and body to your hair, ccreates soft, natural, and gorgeous waves, perfect for any occasion. Its formula is vegan.
It’s ideal for wavy hair, to add definition, and for straight hair, to add volume and body.
And now that you’ve discovered that even your hair can be damaged by the sun, start your hair sun care routine with sun products Napura and MTJ.
