Nails, Hair & TLC

When I was in 7th grade, I started growing my nails.  I grew them so long, that most people could not believe they were mine.  They would literally perform an inspection to confirm that I was being truthful when I said they were not fake.  I don't wear my nails as long now as I did then, but I still have long nails and even now, some people do not believe they are mine.  Why?  Because we have grown accustomed to people wearing fake nails and most of the time when you see someone with long nails, they're acrylic.


Ok, so why am I rambling on about nails?  Because I just had a random thought.  I LOVE random thoughts!  Especially when they allow me to understand something more clearly.  Anyway, when I was in 7th grade, I learned that if I polished my nails and took really good care of them, they would grow.  I also realized that when my nail polish would chip and I didn't take care of the chipped polish, my nail would break near the chipped polish.  It was as if the uncovered section of my nail was weaker than the section covered in polish and that area became an automatic breaking point.  So I always kept my nails freshly polished and if I didn't have time to redo my nails when they started to chip, I would touch up the chipped area until I had time to redo them completely.  My nails thrived under all that TLC and grew like weeds.  I didn't need any special nail polish or any particular routine.  I just needed to understand what my nails needed (through trial and error and paying attention) and I needed to spend time taking care of them.

Now years later, I realize that the same way my nails grew when I took care of them, my hair grows when I take care of it.  I have a posting of my favorite haircare products (which I need to update), but now, I realize it's not really about a special product or even a certain homemade mixture.  I think we sometimes over-complicate things by thinking we need to practically become chemists to give our hair what it needs.  When in fact, I believe it's very simple.  My nails primarily needed polish to protect them.  My hair primarily needs water to keep it moisturized and haircare products that will not dry it out.  Also, understanding how fragile my hair is makes me treat it with the ultimate care and I do everything I can to avoid unnecessary damage.

Each one of us need to understand our hair and what it needs.  Once we learn that, then we need to consistently give our hair what it needs along with a healthy dose of TLC and it will thrive.