Hair is a remarkably strong fibre. A single healthy hair is stronger than a steel wire of the same diameter, and can stretch up to 30% of its length when wet before breaking. However, if your hair is dry and/or weathered, it will be less strong and stretchable, and more prone to breakage.
Why is Your Hair Breaking?
Your hair’s strength and elasticity depend on its moisture content. This is because moisture allows your hair to swell and contract, meaning it can stretch without breaking and then bounce back to its original length. But when your hair lacks hydration, it cannot stretch so becomes brittle, often snapping during brushing, blow-drying and styling.
Factors that reduce your hair's moisture content, causing it to break more easily, include:
• Colour processing (such as bleaching and highlighting)
• Keratin straightening treatments
• UV exposure
• Perms
• Heated styling tools (such as hair dryers, tongs, curling irons)
Chemical processing is probably the worst culprit. It can damage the protein structure of your hair, and the bonds that hold your hair together. It also raises each hair’s cuticle, leaving your hair more vulnerable to moisture evaporation. While you can never completely close the cuticle again, daily shampooing and conditioning, as well as deep-conditioning masks, can do a good job of smoothing and sealing it.
Banish Breakage with Treatments
We recommend a targeted treatment that reinforces and reconnects those bonds broken by chemical processing, to help hair become stronger and healthier once more, and able to retain moisture for longer. Step forward: our Bond Builder Restructuring Treatment. This intensive, pre-shampoo mask works beneath the surface of the hair to rebuild damaged strands from the inside out. In fact, it's proven to arm hair with 3X more resistance against damage*.
*MEAN INCREASE 2.79X AFTER 5 TREATMENTS COMPARED TO A SINGLE TREATMENT - INDEPENDENT INSTRUMENTAL TEST RESULTS / ^AFTER 5 TREATMENTS COMPARED TO A SINGLE TREATMENT – INDEPENDENT INSRUMENTAL TEST RESULTS / **NDEPENDENT USER TRIAL – AFTER 4 WASHES
Bond Builder Restructuring Treatment strengthens existing bonds inside the hair while reconnecting broken ones, helping to restore hair health and reduce breakage. With weekly use, your tresses will be left stronger and more resilient against damage, with a visible reduction in breakage. Use it once per week and you'll notice the strength of your strands will improve use after use.
Alongside Bond Builder Restructuring Treatment, we recommend using our cult deep-conditioning treatment Elasticizer, which is especially helpful in restoring stretchability (and therefore strength) therefore helping to reduce breakage.
Unlike most other hair masks, which are intended for use as ‘leave-in conditioners’ meaning the product simply sits atop the hair, the active ingredients inside Elasticizer (like Castor and Olive Oils, and Hydrolyzed Elastin) deeply penetrate the hair cuticle, with any residue rinsed away as you shampoo. A pre-shampoo treatment applied to wet hair, Elasticizer greatly improves hair’s stretchability and in turn strength against daily breakage. Softness and movement is recovered and tresses look healthier and shinier with every use!
Our Top Tips to Prevent Hair Breakage
- Apply a pre-shampoo conditioning treatment, such as Elasticizer and Bond Builder Restructuring Treatment, to your hair at least once a week.
- Blow-dry your hair gently and use a heat protectant spray or serum, such as our Daily Damage Defence Leave-In Conditioner or Polishing Balm.
- Try not to wrap hair ties too tightly around your hair. These can cut into the hair shaft and cause breakage.
- Protect your hair from the sun in the summer, using a UV spray such as our Swim Cap.
- If you bleach your hair, try not to overlap previous applications.
- Trim split ends — if you leave them, they can extend further up your hair shaft and cause your hair to break off. Bond Builder Split End Remedy temporarily seals split ends for multiple wash cycles and prevent future damage.
There is a lot you can do at home to help your hair become stronger and more elastic. But if you prefer to seek help from the professionals, our Clinics in London and New York specialise in hair and scalp care and treatments and will be happy to welcome you.