Will Biotin help your grow hair faster?

Biotin, the myth is the newest super vitamin that’s claim to fame is that it makes your hair grow longer and stronger, faster.

What we like: Biotin is essential to cell growth, healthy hair, nails and skin. It’s a natural nutrient found in foods like salmon, almonds, Swiss chard and beverages like dark beer (woohoo!)

BUT: Ladies, before you order that keg, you should know that your hair grows at a fixed rate so chances are biotin alone will not make your hair grow faster. However, If you’re experiencing brittle nails and thinning hair there’s a chance you might be biotin deficient, and adding biotin to your diet might cut down on your hair loss.

The Verdict: Since biotin is a natural vitamin that promotes healthy hair and growth, adding a bit of biotin to your diet can’t hurt. But don’t expect to grow a foot of hair overnight. Keeping a balanced diet rich in growth promoting vitamins, in addition to getting exercise and beauty sleep are all needed to optimize your hair’s growth.

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Natural Hair Lighteners: Do They Really Work?

A common beauty myth out there is that foods like lemon and tea can naturally lighten your hair by themselves. Zelo has been dedicating quite a bit of time to blondes, researching the latest tips and how-tos to enhance and preserve those golden locks, and one of the biggest foux pas I’ve seen are tutorials that only require combining the incredients to the hair with a 15 min shower cap. These tutorials are missing the most important element: the sun!

Here’s a quick anecdote: A friend of mine has been volunteering in for Peace Corps in Peru for a little over a year. When she left America she had dark “dirty” blonde hair. When she came home this Christmas, she had bright, golden, ultra blonde surfer girl hair!

While we all know a year of sunlight can lighten your hair like a bottle of 40 vol developer and powder bleach combined, understanding the science behind it can save you A LOT of time and money. Simply put, Sunlight breaks down the melanin (color) in your hair.

So where does lemon juice come in? And what about chamomile tea? “Lemon juice contains citric acids that open your hair cuticles up,” (Health Mango). This makes the hair more receptive to sunlight and basically accelerates the suns natural bleaching process (oxidation), giving you months worth of sunshine in about 30 minutes.

This is why natural bleaching methods don’t work without sunshine. They’re accelerating what the sun does naturally. BUT, lemon is really bad for your hair and terrible for the skin in the sun. So if you’re planning on having a lemon sun bath, PLEASE, for goodness sake, deep condition and make sure you don’t get ANY on your scalp and skin. Can you say blisters, sunburns, and dark spots? Not cute at all.

Last tip: Squeeze your own natural lemon juice for best results. If lemon juice gives you patchy or overly bright results, try 100% brewed chamomile tea which has been known to give a more natural, all over, lightening affect.

This also works for brunettes too!

Zelo Keratin and African American Hair

Zelo Keratin On Natural "Black Hair" Before and After Results

Since Zelo’s airing on HSN this monday, ladies of color have been asking us one thing: “That girl doing her Happy Dance and whipping her hair back and forth, how do I get that?”

No doubt, keratin has been one of the best kept secrets for African American hair, and with that comes a lot of questions. Is it like a relaxer? Is it permanent? What will it do for my natural, afro, relaxed, mixed, curly, or kinky texture?  As an African American myself who is transitioning from relaxed to natural and also has about 5 different textures of hair on her head (lol), I’m going to do my best to address these question/conserns right now.