Tag Archives: Hairdresser Karrinyup

The Facts On Grey Hair

$The Fact On Greay Hair \ Sam Macdonald Hair | Trigg Hairdresser Scarborough North Beach Karinyup Carine Duncraig$

Firsts things first, there is technically speaking so such thing as ‘grey hair’.

We have hair that has colour and hair that goes white. When they mix together, they look all different kinds of ‘grey’. A good way to think of it is like the pixels on a screen on you TV for example.

Here’s a quick bit of science before we get to the good bit.

Within your scalp/skin there are tiny things called Melanocytes which create colour for your skin. Your hair follicle stem cells have a little collaboration with these Melanocytes, to create the melanin (colour) of your hair. When we start to go white/grey this process stops on the affected hairs and they start to grow out of your scalp white.

For the most part, white/grey hair is determined by your genetics.

Generally you will start to see some white hairs mixing in with the natural colour of your hair, sometime in your 30s. However it can start in your teens or sometimes not until your late 40s or even 50s.

Ethnicity plays a part as well. Caucasians tend to go grey sooner than Asians, and red heads before everyone. Scientists are not yet aware why this happens.

In some cases nutritional and hormonal factors can affect how quickly this happens to you. Things like diabetes, and thyroid problems can also create premature greying, but for the most part, white/grey hair is determined by your genetics.

Chemotherapy can cause the hair to grown back completely white after treatment, as well as a totally different hair texture.

In some cases of Alopecia Areata, the hair also comes back totally white and often softer in texture than it was before.

Basically the only way to prevent getting white hair is to not live past 30 and we certainly don’t want that!

Turns out there’s a great reason for these fabulous individuals called hairdressers, we can sort it out for you and know one needs to know when you start getting your sparklers coming through!

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.

Female Pattern Baldness

Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg North Beach Scarborough Karrinyup Sorrento |Trichology| Scalp Care

I’m sorry to share with you that yes, female pattern baldness, aka androgenic alopecia, is a thing!

Totally unfair but the good news is that we can prevent or at least slow it down.

The latest figures that I have read, states that approximately 50% of women will experience this issue in their lifetime so it a good thing to be aware of.

Who gets it?

There is a strong genetic link to female pattern baldness which can be passed my either parent. Its usually starts mid life with menopause being the start for many women, as it can be linked with our hormones.

This is not the only reason for possible hair loss in women. It can also be from medications, auto-immune issues or illness to name a few. Today though I’m concentrating on female pattern baldness.

So what can we do about it?

First thing as always, is look after our health. As with most things in life, what you’re fueling your body with is how you’re going to look and feel. Your diet can show up in your skin and therefore your hair as well.

Whatever your dietary beliefs all know we need to eat less processed foods, lots of raw stuff and make sure its varied so your getting everything you need. If you just ate Kale you would not be well, thank goodness for that! Vegans I have been told, cannot source certain vitamin B, so you need a supplement for this.

OK that’s the food bit sorted.

Its important to change your part every so often. Your body is fabulous at protecting you from things. When the sun hits your scalp in the same place, your skin can toughen up a bit and make it harder for the hair to get through your scalp. I myself have just had to do this because I’m starting to thin and I’m only 42, that’s still young right?

Make sure you are using a shampoo that is right for your scalp. The best bet here is to get professional advise. Even if you’re using professional products, ideally don’t pick them off the hairdresser shelf your self. Chat with your hairdresser about whats best so they can use their years of knowledge to prescribe the best thing for you.

There are specific ranges out there to help with these scalp issues. I prefer to get specialised hairdresser level products for scalp issues. I have found some off the medical grade ones that doctors prescribe, will help your scalp but can be a little rough on the actual hair. This of course is a choice you need to make for yourselves, with your own beliefs in mind.

In my business I use and recommend Activance Professional which is powered with an ingredient called Rhodanide.

Rhodanide performs several vital functions including stimulating growth, strengthening hair and fighting off damaging chemicals.

To put it simply, if you are looking after yourself with good food and health, you are nurturing your hair and scalp from the inside out. Then with the use of something like the Activance Professional, we can help nurture from the outside in. 80-20 rule at its best.

There is also a drug on the market called Minoxidil that can be topically applied to the scalp that can help regrowth sometimes. Minoxidil claims it can regrow hair, slow down the loss and sometimes have no effect at all. It’s important to weigh up all the pros and cons before trying this.

When taking any drug either orally or on the skin, we need to realise there are often side effects, so professional advise is necessary. Even though Minoxidil only goes on the scalp, the entire body absorbs it like with all medications.

As always I am not a health professional, so before taking any advise you should check in with your go to doctor or Naturopath.

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.

Whats A Toner Anyway?

What’s A Toner Anyway

Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg Scarborough North Beach Sorrento Karinyup Carine Duncraig City Beach Wembley Downs | Hairdresser

A toner is used in typically used in two ways on blonded level hair.

1. To counteract unwanted colour. For example if your hair is brassy, we can neutralise it.

2. To change the shade of the blonde in a playful way, we might want to put pastel tones in, or a soft gold or beige. There are way too many options to write down here but you get the idea.

Typically I try not to use a toner to counteract unwanted colour. Toners typically only last between 1 and 15 washes, depending what product you have used and more importantly, the condition of your hair.

I prefer to try and get the tone right without the toner, so your colour will look good between visits. Then when we put the toner on at the end, its makes it look AMAZING!

In the salon I offer a range of toning options.

We start out by doing one on your colour visit to start you off looking the best you can. Then ideally you take a home toning option, to keep it looking great as the salon toner slowly eases out of your hair.

If you prefer to come back in between visits, we can re-tone for you. I even have some incredible treatments in the salon now, where I can customise the tone within the treatment service.

If you have any toning questions please just ask me.

Educating you guys is what I love to do!

The Oily Hair Series Part Two, The Non Traditional Approach

Sam Macdonald Hair | Trigg Scarborough Karrinyup Sorrento Carine North Beach

Last post we went into how the scalp produces oil and how in oily hair, its overactive. If you missed this part and are interested, please look at my last post.

This time I would like to share with you why we even have oil on our scalp and an alternative approach to keeping extra oil at bay.

The oil our skin and scalp produces is called sebum. Sebum is produced all over our bodies as a natural protection from things like sun and UV.

So why do we keep removing it?

If you have normal hair or dry hair, this is totally a legitimate question. Its hard to imagine what it feels like to wake up and see flat, lifeless and oily hair when its only been washed the day before.

Trust me, the struggle is real as any oil person can attest to!

The big problem with removing all that oil is that your body is trying to protect you. When you remove this protective layer, your body goes into overdrive trying to reproduce it. You end up on this cycle of you removing it and your body hurriedly replacing it.

An alternative to shampooing all this oil out is finding something that doesn’t actually remove all the oil. If your body doesn’t feel like its being stripped of its protection, it will calm the farm of oil production.

This process can be a tough one because it can take a few months for your scalp to get the message and slow production. The upside here of course, is dry shampoo helps!

I have personally been trying this technique for 2 months now and I can finally say the oiliness is under control.

I have been using a cleanser that is a one step product, more like a conditioner than a shampoo. It doesn’t remove all the oil but helps pull it through my hair, leaving my hair shiny, healthy and would you believe it, with more body than before.

The process keeps my scalp clean because I scrub like its a shampoo and this help to remove dead skin cells, leaving my skin being able to breath.

This way of dealing with oily hair will not be for everyone but its great to have another option. If you would like further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me for a chat.

The Oily Hair Series Part One, The Traditional Approach

Sam Macdonald Hair | Trigg Scarborough Northbeach Karrinyup Sorrento Carine

Oily hair is caused by an over active oil sac (known as a sebaceous gland), that lives in your scalp.

To simplify the process, picture a hair magnified (right to the area underneath the scalp), and then imagine at the base of it a little tiny sac of oil on each side of that hair.

In oily haired people this is the sac of oil that causes all the greasiness in your hair, when its being overactive and having a little party beneath your scalp.

Traditionally the way we deal with this oil, is to find a good quality astringent based shampoo to remove as much of it as possible, and leave your scalp free of oil and therefore with more body and life in it.

If you don’t have a shampoo particularly for your oily hair type, it may be too heavy and not remove as much of that oil as possible.

So once we have removed this oil, how long do you think we can expect to have an oil free scalp for?

For some people like myself, it can be as little as 6 hours until you see that oil start to seep through at the root area. This is because that how long it can take for the body to push more oil out of the sebaceous gland, and then to be released onto the scalp.

This is why some people wash their hair everyday, although a lot of hair professionals will tell you daily is too much.

Being an oily haired individual myself, what do you do on day two when the oils been coming through for hours? You’re feeling better suited to work in a fast food restaurant than an office or like me a hair salon?

Well I for one don’t think daily shampooing is bad. You wash your body at least once a day, well at least I hope you do!

The important thing is what you’re using to cleanse your scalp. Inferior products will potentially take too much oil away leaving your scalp open to irritation.

Another option on day two is a dry shampoo which is a must have in my routine. I have actually been known to shampoo daily AND use dry shampoo. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!

As always my recommendation to you is to speak to your hair professional about what right for you.

If you don’t have one you trust right now, I’m happy to do a consultation for you and I have a trichoscope (microscope for hair and scalp) if we need to get a closer look.

Purple Shampoo

Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg Scarborough North Beach Carine Sorrento City Beach | Purple shampoo

I would say that every blond out there knows that they need a purple shampoo to keep the colour looking fresh between visits but is it that simple?

Have you ever used a purple shampoo on your blonde hair and it’s gone a flat kinda greenish colour?

Let’s start with a bit of simple colour theory that we all learned in primary school. Before I go on if you don’t remember it, don’t worry, primary school was how long ago and like trigonometry, only those of us that need to know it have remembered it!

Do you remember in art class mixing certain colours together and they neutralised each other, effectively turning them brown?

Still don’t remember, don’t worry because I’ll explain it.

There are 3 primary colours, yellow, blue and red. Primary means you can’t make them from another colour.

There are 3 secondary colours, which come from mixing together 2 of the primary colours, purple, orange and green.

When we mix together yellow and purple, they neutralise each other. The same thing happens when we mix blue and orange together and also red and green.

With all this in mind it makes sense that a purple shampoo will keep light blond hair toned and neutralised but what about when the purple shampoo we are using starts going that flat greenish tinge?

Not all purple shampoos are created equal.

Let’s go back to the 2 colours that makes purple, red and blue.

When the ‘purple’ in the shampoo is actually more of a purple with extra blue in it, what can happen is the blue from the shampoo mixes with the yellow of the hair and makes it…… that’s right green!

Have I lost you completely?

To simplify, some purple shampoo is just purple and will gently tone out the yellow in your blond hair, whereas some of the stronger stuff has blue pigment which with extended use can put a slight green tinge in your hair.

The good news is that shampoo colour isn’t permanent and you can simply wash with your normal shampoo until the overtones colour is gone.

Not sure what kind of purple shampoo is right for your needs? Check with your hairdresser as that’s why we do the 3-4 year apprenticeship, so we can help you look and feel amazing!

The Sneaky Truth Behind Hair Extensions

Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg Scarborough North Beach Sorrento City Beach Carine Sorrento

Hair extensions are such a big thing these days and today I want to share with you the sneaky truth behind hair extensions…

Have you heard the word Alopecia before?

Well basically it simply means hair loss and there are many kinds. The most common one we hear about is called Alopecia areata, where patches of hair on the head disappear commonly from stress, but there is a less talked about version called traction Alopecia.

Traction Alopecia develops from continuous pulling of the hair and can be caused by a few things. Wearing your hair in a very tight ponytail all the time, as well as some braiding can cause traction alopecia. The tension causes continuous pulling on the root area of the hair which can cause the hair to fall out. Sometimes it’s possible to undo the damage simply by styling the hair differently and waiting for it to grow back, though can be permanent.

Traction Alopecia can also happen from poorly fitted hair extensions.

If the extension is not put in by a stylist who has had the proper training, pieces of hair that are being pulled, can stop growing permanently because of the extended tension to the hair follicle. If one or more bits of hair stop growing it’s not so bad but over time this can become a form of permanent baldness or thinning of the hair.

My best advice if your thinking of getting extensions is to get an expert to put them in and maintain them. Going to the cheapest you can find is often not going to be the best idea with a service like this.

Ever Wondered How Fast Your Hair Grows

Ever Wondered How Fast Your Hair Grows?

Ever wondered how fast your hair grows | Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg Scarborough North Beach Carine Duncraig North Beach Sorrento

Ever wondered how fast your hair grows?

On average its 10-15ml per month, so 12 -16cm per year.

Have you been trying to grow your hair like forever and feel like its just not getting there?

If you’re not having regular trims, (6-10 weeks depending on the health of your hair), your ends could be fraying faster than the roots can grow, giving you that feeling that it just not growing.

So darn frustrating!

If you have roots from your last colour, that’s the proof your hair is in fact growing, yay, except that also means you have regrowth, not so yay…

The best way to get your hair as long as it can grow, is to have regular trims, but only cut off half what has grown. So if your hair has grown 20ml in 6 weeks, simply take of 10ml, easy!

Eventually your hair will get as long as it will grow.

One thing to keep in mind is not everyone can be a Rapunzel, as your hair will stop growing usually somewhere between 4 and 7 years. There is what I call a growth memory that is individual to us. A bit like some people get amazing long eyelashes and some people short ones.

If you get to that point where you find it simply won’t grow anymore, you have a couple of options.

Firstly, hair extensions. They have come such a long way over time and they are great for giving you more hair for thickness or longer hair for length. They are time and money consuming but if you really want that length and cant make it happen for yourself, this is a quick fix option.

Secondly clip in extensions. These can be a great option that costs less and has much less commitment in terms of looking after it.

Lastly and my personal favorite, rock the hair you have.

Quest To Create Optimum Health

Quest to create optimum health | Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg Scarborough North Beach Karinyup Sorrento Carine Duncraig

I shared with you all last time that I am on a quest to create optimum health in my body following a mini health scare.

On top of that we all know by now, that to have amazing hair and scalp, we need to be looking after our insides, which is why I feel it’s OK, to share food knowledge, on a hair page…

So this week I wanted to share with you, some of what the amazing Nat from Invigorate Naturopathy taught me when I had a consult with her.

https://www.facebook.com/invigoratenaturopathy/

I have always had an interest in natural health particularly around food, as it’s what we fuel ourselves with. When I was younger (pre-internet), I had so many books telling me what foods could help with what in the body and I loved reading them, fascinating for me, I loved it!

I remember having a boyfriend many moons ago who suffered from the worst hay fever I have ever seen. Call me selfish if you like, but his suffering turned into mine as I had to listen to him complain , sneeze and sniff!

So I looked in my books and they told me vitamin C worked well for hay fever so I got him some and it actually disappeared. Hooray, no more noises! I actually think he was disappointed he had nothing left to complain about… sorry Duncan…

Please note at this point, I am not a qualified naturopath so don’t take my word for it, I’d be connecting with Nat or another qualified professional first.

Anyway Sam, get to the point already!

So it turns out that because of my interest in all things food, my diet is pretty good, but I did learn one thing that blew my mind and that is about fresh herbs.

Hold that thought, have you heard about free radicals and anti-oxidants?

Well just in case you haven’t and to make it simple, free radicals are all the bad stuff floating around your body from lifestyle, medications and disease. Antioxidants are the little guys that balance the free radicals creating a inflammation free environment in your body which allows your body to heal itself and for you to feel amazing.

So the information Nat gave me is that herbs have buckets loads of antioxidants so I have been adding them to everything!

Welcome to my everyday breakfast, (the pictures), full of antioxidants and probiotics.

Broccoli sprouts, full of sulforaphane thought to boost your body’s defended against cancer, heart disease and more.

Lindseeds, contains protein, and fibre.

Home made coconut Kefir, a great probiotic with around 30 strains of bacteria and yeasts.

Chia seeds, contains omega 3 fatty acids, fiber, antioxidants and calcium.

Silver beet, vitamins A, C, B6 and K.

Spinach, Vitamin C, Niacin, Riboflavin and Potassium.

Ginger, great for inflammation

Mint, antioxidant

For good measure, a bit of frozen mango and pineapple, though last week it was strawberries.

I know there are so many breakfast shakes we can buy with heaps of good stuff in them but I love making mine this way and I think that list of benefits could rival any shake!

Also so you know, everything above is organic as I have a phobia about drinking a glass of pesticide.

At this point I would like to add, I am not a health care professional so maybe I missed some benefits out though hopefully didn’t add any that shouldn’t be there. The point is that I could be slightly off the mark with a piece of information here and there, but I DID do my research so make sure you do yours before you jump on my bandwagon…

Quest to creat optimum health | Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser Trigg North Beach Carine Duncraig Trigg Scarborough

Looking After The Inside Of Your Body

Looking After The Inside Of Your Body |Sam Macdonald Hair | Hairdresser | Trigg Scarborough Sorrento Karinyup North Beach

Looking after the inside of your body is super important when it comes to hair and scalp health.

No matter what skin and hair care products you use on your body, if you’re not looking after the inside of your body, the products you use on the outside, can only do so much…

I recently had a mini heath scare, nothing major but it made me take a look at my lifestyle and realise I need to stop inflammation in my body. I organised a visit with the lovely Kat from Invigorate Naturopathy and she helped me to realise, most of my inflammation is caused by self inflicted stress.

https://www.facebook.com/invigoratenaturopathy/

Its not a big surprise to me, or any of you that know me but what to do about it…

The picture is of me in an infrared Sauna at Skin Deep in Mullaloo where I sit for 40 minutes and meditate or simply relax.

There are supposedly a big list of positive things that happen to your body when you do this, including detoxing, healing, weight loss (fingers crossed) and reducing inflammation. For me I get enough out of it by simply stopping and relaxing for this long with nothing to do, (although they tell me you can take your phone in). You sweat for 40 minutes, then have a quick shower to wash it all away, in and out in 1 hour.

I wanted to share this with you as I think a lot of people I know would benefit from this. They do bunches of appointments at a discounted rate. so if you love it as much as me, why not buy 10?

https://www.facebook.com/Skindeep.Medi.Spas/

I always say I’ll try anything once, how about you?