Do you have a memory of having nice, shiny, bouncy hair? Do you look at teenagers and envy their beautiful, youthful hair?
I do…constantly. When I was a teenager I had really long hair. I didn’t need to do anything to it, I just washed it in the morning and let it dry on my way to school. Without any work my hair looked beautiful…oh how I miss those days. It was in my twenties that things took a turn. The combination of a terrible diet, a lot of stress, and a very unfortunate highlighting catastrophe (my hair was turned an odd shade of green) took its toll on my hair and it never bounced back. Well, until now.
Now it’s 15 years later and with a wonderful stylist and along with a healthy diet I have nice hair again. It’s not long, but it behaves. Gone are the broken, frizzy, put-it-into-a-bun-all-day days. But it was lacking the strength, bounce, and shine it used to have…again, until now (I will tell you why in a moment).
My stylist diagnosed the problem—I’m an “excess shedder”. Some of my hair falls out when its only a few inches long, which makes my already fine hair look a tad “see through” at the bottom. If I keep it short it’s okay, but as soon as it reaches my shoulders it gets very wispy. But I’m a nutritionist and hair issues are usually only a mineral or protein problem. This I can fix! (They also can be due to a thyroid issue, so get your thyroid levels checked if you have a similar problem).
So I started a search—how can I eat to fix my hair.
And I tried everything—my iron levels were low, so I supplemented. That helped a bit. I made sure my dietary protein level was good and made sure I was digesting it properly. I noticed my hair would fall out faster when I was under stress so I (tried) to manage my stress level better. That also helped…a bit.
But what helped more than anything else was the simplest thing I did—I started taking FloraSil (US/CA). FloraSil is a silica supplement that’s sourced from horsetail. Silica is an unsung hero in the mineral world. It helps build strong bones, nails, and hair…and keeps your skin looking amazing. I took it for vanity reasons. I’m about to turn 40 and was hoping to turn back the hands of the aging clock, so I was pleasantly surprised by its effect on my hair. It only took a few weeks before I felt my hair had more bounce and felt thicker. A few weeks later I noticed that I was having more good hair days than bad. I felt it was helping, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I was just imagining it. How could it have worked so fast?
Then my stylist confirmed everything.
I didn’t tell her that I had changed anything, although she knew I was looking for a way to combat this problem. Then, at the end of my haircut, a mere three months after starting FloraSil she showed me the difference. She pointed out that my hair seemed fuller in a particularly sparse spot. That the shorter pieces were getting longer (instead of just falling out like they normally did), and that there was a lot of new growth everywhere. It really had made a difference! And in only 3 months! 3 capsules per day of FloraSil was all it took to take decades of abuse off my hair!
About the author: Lisa Kilgour
Lisa Kilgour is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (RHN), Founder of LisaKilgour.com, and a faculty member at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition.
