Are you curious about the different benefits caffeine can provide you?
Coffee is among the most popular beverages globally, with over 1 billion people drinking at least a cup per day. Most do this because it helps them kickstart their day or focus on essential tasks.
Most are aware of the effects that caffeine has on the body. However, did you know it provides some notable benefits for your hair, too? Learn all about the different caffeine benefits for hair below and see how it can help you today.
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Beneficial Hormonal Suppression
As people age, their brains signal the different glands in the body to produce hormones. These promote the growth of different sectors in the body, as well as help other processes function better. Among these hormones, present in both men and women, is testosterone.
Testosterone helps improve muscle mass and promotes efficient body fat storage. For men, it also enhances the size of their reproductive organs and improves their functions. As good of a hormone as it can be, testosterone aids in the production of DHT.
DHT is an androgen that has the unfortunate side effect of having you go bald. The hormone does so by damaging hair follicles, causing them to shrink and for hair to fall out. It’s the primary cause of androgenetic alopecia, which affects 30 million women and 50 million men.
Caffeine suppresses the effects of DHT on your hair. It helps prevent the death of the follicle, allowing you to avoid male pattern baldness. Women can benefit from this, too, as their DHT production peaks during menopause.
Note that it only blocks the effects of DHT on your hair, not prevent its production. You need not worry about caffeine causing you to suffer the effects of low DHT, such as gynecomastia and the development of prostate tumors.
Stimulates Hair Growth
Not only does it prevent hair loss, but caffeine also improves hair growth. Blocking the DHT in your scalp allows your hair follicles to flourish. It causes them to stimulate the hair’s shaft to become longer.
Doing so improves the hair’s roots. Longer and wider roots mean your hair is stronger and won’t break as easily as before. Caffeine also stimulates hair growth because it’s a stimulant itself.
Stimulants cause the cells they interact with to become active. When exposed to hair follicles, the stimulation improved the hair’s anagen stage and prolonged it.
Other people call the anagen phase the active phase of the hair. It’s when a new bulb forms and pushes the hair out to grow at a rate of one cm every 28 days for three to five years. With the aid of caffeine, the anagen phase can last up to seven years before resting.
Hair also grows at a sped-up rate during this phase. Thanks to caffeine’s natural stimulation, the matrix cells that form the keratin in your hair divide faster.
Promotes Hair and Scalp Health
Caffeine also benefits your scalp. Coffee washes and caffeinated shampoos often have coffee grounds incorporated in the mix. When rubbed on your scalp, the grounds exfoliate your scalp.
It’s a great way to remove dead skin cells on your head. These dead cells often stick to your scalp until enough of it builds up to fall off as dandruff. The grounds are gentle on your skin, too, so you need not worry about scratching your scalp from doing this.
The coffee will also stimulate blood flow around the scalp. It’s a great way to provide your follicles with the nutrients it needs to sustain the health of your hair. Through this, the follicles produce more keratinocytes, which help your hair become stronger and more elastic.
Another great thing about caffeine is that it’s acidic. Its natural acidity is helpful in balancing the pH levels of your scalp and hair.
Improves Texture and Helps Retain Hair Moisture
Dry, brittle hair is often indicative of poor hair health. People often use moisturizers to make their hair look shiny and smooth, but it’s only a temporary fix. Among the best caffeine benefits for hair is that it can act as a natural moisturizer that lasts much longer.
As mentioned above, coffee balances the pH levels of your hair. Doing this improves its texture, making it smoother and even less frizzy. Caffeine does so with the help of the natural antioxidants that it has.
Your hair has its own antioxidants, called flavonoids. Promoting the production of these antioxidants improves hair regeneration. It’s a surefire way of avoiding brittleness in your hair.
What’s great about caffeine as a moisturizer is that it doesn’t strip away your hair’s natural oils. It does the opposite, in fact, and locks the moisture in. It helps your hair become shinier, softer, and smoother than it has even been before.
As an added bonus, coffee can help you hide your gray hairs. Coffee heavily stains anything that soaks in it. A quick fix is having your hair soak in the coffee wash you’ll use to hide gray hairs.
Combats Sun Damage on Hair
Most wear sunscreen to protect their skin against the harmful effects of prolonged exposure to sunlight. The unfortunate thing is that there isn’t a sunscreen equivalent for our hair. That’s if you disregard caffeine-infused products.
Aside from flavonoids, caffeine also contains other vitamins, like polyphenols. Polyphenols are natural agents that have a hand in protecting you from the sun. What’s great is that you can get polyphenols the traditional way, by drinking a cup of coffee.
If you want more intense effects, though, applying it directly to your hair is best. Your hair absorbs more of the essential vitamins like polyphenol this way, instead of having it absorbed through the body.
Learn About the Different Caffeine Benefits for Hair Today
Your hair need not miss out on what coffee brings to the table. Improve your hair’s health by rinsing it with coffee or using natural products with caffeine. Reap the other caffeine benefits for hair to give it the best sheen, thickness, and glow today!