What makes hair fragile? There are many things that can damage hair or can cause hair to not be strong in the first place. If you want to keep your hair from breaking when you apply and rinse out henna, we recommend you use “Rarity,� our most finely sifted henna.

These two images are at the same magnification. The henna on the left is Ancient Sunrise® Rarity Henna; the finest sift henna from Ancient Sunrise®. The henna on the right is a henna brand available in most natural food stores; it is full of chunks and sand, is difficult to apply and to rinse out of your hair. You can see that Rarity’s particles are one hundred times smaller than the other brand. Rarity will put less stress on your hair when applying and rinsing. It will be easy to apply to your hair, and easy to rinse out.

Graying 2a hair at 100x magnification

The above 100x image of 2a (wavy) hair shows strong, healthy hair. The hair has an unpigmented cuticle over the hair’s cortex; gray hair does not have pigment in the cortex. The scales in the cuticle perform a function for the cortex like shingles on a roof. If the roof is flat, shingles do not lift up, and the house is protected from rain. If the roof is wavy, shingles are apt to lift up, and the roof is going to leak. Gray hair grows faster than pigmented hair because making pigment takes metabolic energy, and tends to be more structurally robust. The gray hair in the image above has intact cuticleand little disruption in scale. Babies with fair hair and grandmothers with gray hair often have fast-growing, lush, strong hair. Tightly curling hair is more fragile than straight hair because the scales easily lift up on the curves of curling hair as shingles on a curved roof.

Graying 4c hair at 100x magnification

The 100x image above is of 4C hair, the most tightly curled hair. 4C hair is fragile. You can see scales are lifting up from the cuticle. These lifted scales will cause hair to dry out, fracture, and break. Where scales open up on the cuticle, the cortex of the hair will begin to dry out and the hair will become weak and prone to break at that fracture. Rarity is ideal henna for people with 3b – 4c hair; it will strengthen the hair and be gentle to apply and rinse. Rarity is especially good for locs.

Your environment can also damage your hair and make it fragile. Extremely dry air dries out the cuticle, so the cuticle fractures and the cortex dries out. Hair in an arid climate is prone to breakage. The ultraviolet light in sunshine can damage your hair, and this damage will also begin the scale lifting, fracturing, and breakage process. Some health conditions and medical treatments take up so much of the body’s energy that the production of hair diminishes..Your hair can also become fragile and break easily from damage you do in your daily routine.

Chemical processes applied to hair damage the cuticle, leaving hair likely to fracture, dry out, fray, and break. Bleach and toner chemically damage hair and the damage cannot be reversed. Heat from a blow dryer can not only sear the protein in the hair scale, it can heat moisture inside the hair fast enough to expand as steam and break the hair from the inside. If you comb your hair and pull on the tangles, the hair will stretch and begin the process of opening up cuticle which will later become a fracture. Combing and pulling wet hair stretches the hair. This stretching creates fractures in the hair. Most conditioners contain glycerols to make the hair easier to comb and to feel ‘moist,’ rather than dry. However, because glycerols are hygroscopic, they attract moisture from the air into your hair, over time they contribute to breakage. If your hair is fragile and breaks easily because of its curl pattern, damage, styling, or groominghabits, use Ancient Sunrise® Rarity Henna. It will not damage your hair further, and will make your hair stronger.