Fact Checking a Few Common Hair Myths - The Hair Standard
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Fact Checking a Few Common Hair Myths

Updated December 1, 2022

You’ve probably heard these common hair facts once or twice in your life, and, you wouldn’t be alone. However, after consulting our team of stylists to find out the real deal on these common hair truths, we found out they aren’t truths at all, and in fact, hair myths. Have you heard these 5 hair myths before?

We are constantly trying to set and exceed our own standards as a salon and as individual stylists. We also strive to set the standard for hair knowledge. While not everyone knows everything about hair, there are some key things you can know to help your hair be in tip-top shape.

Below is critical information on 5 of the most common hair myths we’ve come across.

Hair Myth #1: Cut Your Hair More for Faster Growth

You might have heard that the more hair you cut off or, the more often you cut it, the faster your hair will grow.

This myth comes from the fact that when people do a major chop to their hair, it looks cleaner, healthier, and sometimes, a lot shorter. This makes it more obvious when hair is growing versus when hair is already long and you’re trying to get it longer.

We’re here to tell you this hair myth is merely that: a myth.

Client getting hair services at The Hair Standard hair salon las vegas

Our Recommendation

Chopping off 5 inches of hair doesn’t cause 5 inches or even 3 inches to grow back automatically within the next couple weeks. Instead, we recommend a trim every 6 weeks to keep your healthy. This, in turn, allows it to grow as fast as it can.

Also keep in mind that hair only grows so fast, usually about a half an inch a month. The purpose of a trim is to cut off the split ends to keep them from continuously splitting up the hair, damaging it, and causing you to need to cut off even more.

Products to Use

However, it can be hard to continuously trim your hair when trying to grow it longer. Therefore, in order to help your hair have minimal split ends we recommend using primers and leave in conditioners. Our favorites are Bumble and Bumble’s Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil Heat/UV Protective Primer.

Hair Myth #2: Coloring Your Hair Will Damage It

Another rumor about hair, specifically hair color, is that all color will ruin your hair. The root of this hair myth comes from hair color horror stories.

This comes from messing up your hair with box dye or an inexperienced stylist overestimating the strength of your hair when she does it. Both of these examples usually end with damaged hair. It’s not the color that damaged the hair, it’s the technique, inexperience, and inaccuracy of how much your hair can handle.

What also determines the damaged state is how you treat your hair after you dye it. Dying your hair every 6-8 weeks is actually normal for most people and what we recommend.

Colors Can Be Conditioning

You might even be surprised to learn that most colors have conditioning agents in them that are not harmful at all. So feel free to color your hair, just not every day, and make sure to care for it on a daily basis.

Products to Use

If you’re still skeptical about dying your hair consistently and don’t want to commit to it, try Bumble and Bumble’s Color Gloss. It revives your highlights, low lights, or full color, and you can easily use it at home. They offer Cool BlondeWarm BlondeBrunetteRed, and a Clear if you just want the shine.

Hair Myth #3: Plucking Gray Hairs Make More Grow

We know this next myth dates back to your great great grandparents because we’ve been hearing it since day one: For every gray hair you pluck, multiple grow back in its place.

The truth is for every gray hair you pluck only one will grow back in its place because there is only one hair follicle there and doing something to one follicle does not affect the ones surrounding it.

Plucking Can Be Harmful

This is one of the most common hair myths we hear, and it isn’t true. We do not encourage you to pluck gray hairs, it causes damage to your follicles and can cause hair to not grow there at all. If you truly wish to remove gray hairs, the healthiest and safest way is to dye it.

Products to Use

If you have gray hairs, you may also notice they are a different texture than the rest of your hair. This difference can make gray hair hard to manage. To help tame gray hair, we recommend Bumble and Bumble’s Grooming Creme or Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil.

Hair Myth #4: Wearing Your Hair Up Affects Its Growth

Another hair myth floating around is that wearing your hair up, such as in a ponytail or bun, causes your hair to grow faster. It’s been said that the tugging near the roots of your hair stimulates faster hair growth.

We’d like to remind you, however, about what was mentioned earlier: hair can only grow so fast, about half an inch a month; and the best way to keep it growing at this rate is to keep it healthy, and not by continually tugging on it or wearing it up.

Do Not Wear Hair Up Too Tight

Wearing your hair in ponytails, buns, or braids does not cause your hair to grow faster. In fact,  having it up too tight can damage your hair follicles which in turn may cause slower growth overall.

Products to Use

If you do wear your hair up in ponytails or braids, our stylists recommend controlling flyaways with a light hairspray such as Bumble and Bumble’s Does It All or Spray de Mode. A little of each goes a long way.

Hair Myth #5: You Can Seal Split Ends Back Together

Our final hair myth, and probably the most important one to remember is: you can seal split ends back together. This hair myth most likely started when people were discovering hair masks.

Most hair masks help hair become moisturized, this can be deceiving when you look at your hair; your hair doesn’t look dry at the ends, therefore, you may think the split ends have been sealed back together. But the truth is you are not healing split ends, you simply moisturizing your hair. Moisturizing is in no way bad, it’s just not taking care of split ends the way you should be.

You cannot seal split ends back together.

To summarize: you cannot seal split ends back together. We’ve seen many hair masks and home remedies that claim they will help seal your split ends, but that is impossible.

Elena Hansen finishing a balayage at The Hair Standard salon in Las Vegas.

Hair Masks Help, But Do Not Reverse

These hair masks, treatments, and home remedies may help the rest of your hair become healthier and stronger, but they cannot reverse the damage that is already done. The best option is to get your hair trimmed to remove the split ends. A trim will keep your hair at its healthiest and cause it to grow long and strong again.

We don’t want to discredit hair masks because they are amazing. With the right mask, you can provide your hair with the nutrients to prevent split ends.

Products to Use

We recommend putting on Bumble and Bumble’s While You Sleep Damage Repair Masque before bed and washing your hair in the morning. Follow your wash by using Bumble and Bumble’s Save the Day Daytime Protective Repair Fluid to protect your hair from morning to night.

Let Us Help You

We hope this has helped your hair knowledge and finally answered whether these long-standing hair myths were actually true. There are hundreds of hair myths out there and we plan to address them all. But for now, we will have to save them for another post. There is another myth you are curious about, leave a comment! We’ll do our research and get back to you.

Do Your Own Research

If you feel the need to get further confirmation on these busted hair myths, do some research, or better yet ask our stylists. Feel free to leave a comment or question and we’ll get back to you with advice from our very own stylists.