Q: My daughter recently burned her hair. The amazing thing is that she did not even realize that she burned her hair except
for the fact that she had strands of hair in her hand. Two days later she realized where it burned and how badly. It is in the front
part just behind her forehead. Considering she burned her hair close to her scalp, will her hair grow back? She has long and
beautiful hair but she does blow dry and straighten daily. Any advice?
A: Given that she didn’t even realize that she’d burned her hair until afterward I would expect that she didn’t actually burn her
scalp and that there will be no problems with the hair growing back in. In order to cause the hair to fail to grow back, there would
have to be sufficient damage to the scalp to destroy the ability of the hair follicles (located just below the skin’s surface) to
grow new hair. I’m inclined to think that if the burn had been serious enough to accomplish that, she would have felt it at the point of occurrence.
As for advice, I recommend patience and remembering that the hair grows an average of one-half
inch per month, so it will take a long time for the hair that was burned off to return to a comparable length with the hair around
it. Be prepared for the hair to possibly present some difficulties as it gets to awkward lengths in styling the hair the way your
daughter normally does. (This may not be an issue depending on the texture of the hair, but is a possibility and you should be aware of it.)
Meanwhile, shampoo the hair often enough to keep it clean, condition it every day, give the
hair a deep conditioning at least once a month, use leave-in conditioners and protective balms on the hair when blow-drying and
heat styling and use a diffuser on the dryer and always test to make sure your flat-iron or curling iron is at a safe temperature
before touching it to your hair. (A dampened piece of tissue paper pressed between the appendages of the heat appliance for 5
seconds should come out clean and dry. Any scorch marks or smoking means the appliance is too hot to use on the hair.)
It sounds like this is an unfortunate mishap and I’m sure your daughter has learned a valuable
lesson about taking care when styling her hair. I wish you and her all the best.
