Skin

Skin on and beneath your scalp is where your hair begins. A healthy scalp, means healthy hair.

The skin has 3 main layers, (there are many layers within these layers, but we’re keeping this simple):

The epidermis:

This is the outside part, the part you can touch. This layer provides a waterproof protection and barrier.

The dermis:

This is found beneath the epidermis and contains connective tissue, hair follicles and sweat glands.

The hypodermis:

This is below these first two layers and contains connective tissue and fat.

Within hairdressing and beauty, we generally pay attention to the first of these two, the epidermis and the dermis.

The skin begins inside your body and slowly pushes out to the outside of your body. It then flakes and falls off. This means that your dermis, becomes your epidermis as it works through the body.

This process takes 27-28 days. This means the skin you feel now, is at the end of its life cycle.

Get to the point already right, whats this got to do with hair?

Because our skin is constantly shedding in this way, when it comes to our hair we need to give it a bit of a hand.

On our body’s it can just fall off. Sometimes we need to give it a bit of an exfoliate if we’re under moisturised, but generally it can will look after itself.

With our scalp however, the skin can get caught in the hair and cause a few different issues. Things like dandruff and itchiness can simply be there because we haven’t helped our bodies to remove these dead skin cells.

Think about the exfoliation of our skin, using scrub gloves or body/face scrubs. We can do the same thing by scrubbing our scalp, whilst shampooing or even just with water or conditioner, if shampoo is not your thing.

Once we have dislodged this skin, our scalps can breath again and often the sensitivities will disappear, at least on a health scalp. Things like Psoriasis and dermatitis are a different thing entirely.

As always, I’m not a doctor, I simply have an interest in all things hair and scalp. Always make your own mind up and seek medical advice when needed.

Any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Photo courtesy of Pexel & @daria.shevtsova

If you’d like to book an appointment to give your hair or scalp some love. I’d be happy to talk through it’s current condition as part of your initial consultation. All the details to make a booking can be found here.