3 Benefits of Fenugreek for Your Hair
If you're experiencing hair loss, hair thinning, or hair fall, it's tempting to try anything to bring your hair back. While there are plenty of medical options to help restore hair density and thickness, many people prefer more natural solutions or aids in their journey to regrow hair. One of the more popular natural options for increasing hair growth is fenugreek seeds. Read on to learn more about these powerful little nuggets from nature, how to incorporate them into your beauty routine, and the best products to support thicker looking hair naturally.
So What Is Fenugreek?
Fenugreek seeds come from the fenugreek plant—a leafy herb that is grown throughout southern Europe and the Mediterranean. The plant can also be found in western parts of Asia. The seeds are used in certain types of Indian, Northern African and Middle Eastern cuisines, and also in complementary and integrative health regimens. To learn more about how these little seeds can benefit your hair, VEGAMOUR spoke with Trista Best, a registered dietician, as well as Lisa Richards, a nutritionist.
"Fenugreek is an herb that has been used for a wide array of medicinal and health purposes for centuries," Best explained. "Its protein, nicotinic acid, anti-inflammatory properties, and natural emulsifying agents are a few of the reasons it is used for hair health today."
Richards explained that fenugreek is a powerful ingredient to use in your haircare routine if you're hoping to grow more hair. Since it's sourced from a seed that contains these high amounts of protein and nicotinic acid, which help promote healthy hair, it's ideal not just for boosting hair growth, but increasing overall hair wellness.
"Both of these compounds are connected to hair loss prevention," she said, "with the added benefit of treating dandruff and moisturizing the hair."
Who Should Use Fenugreek
Like most natural food supplements, fenugreek seeds are safe for anyone as long as there's no related allergy to them. In many cases, fenugreek is applied to the scalp and hair topically as a mask, tea, or spray, so if you're new to using it you might want to do a patch test on the inside of your arm first to make sure no skin irritation occurs.
Best explained that there isn't a ton of scientific evidence to suggest that fenugreek will help hair growth, but if you have no adverse reaction to using it, it certainly cannot hurt. "Most of the evidence to suggest fenugreek is beneficial to hair health is mainly anecdotal; users swear by its effects," Best explained. "The protein and nicotinic acid content allow fenugreek to not only promote hair growth but strong and healthy hair. Nicotinic acid improves the blood circulation of the scalp, which is essential for hair growth rates."
Increased blood flow to the scalp can help with overall scalp health and can also help promote hair growth. A healthy scalp generally leads to healthy hair. So how can you add this ingredient into your hair care routine?
How to Benefit from Fenugreek's Essential Nutrients
There are a few ways to add fenugreek into your hair wellness regimen to increase your hair's overall health. "Fenugreek can be taken in a dietary supplement form, but can also be used as a topical compound applied directly to the scalp," Richards explained.
In order to apply fenugreek to the hair and scalp, most people make tea by mixing distilled warm water and fenugreek seeds. Once the tea has cooked, it can be applied with a spray bottle or squeeze bottle. The tea lasts for about a week in the fridge or can be frozen for future use. Other ways to apply fenugreek seeds are to grind them up into a powder form that can be mixed with your favorite hair oil, or a natural oil like coconut oil, to create a hair mask.
You can also mix your favorite natural oil, apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice with fenugreek seed extract to create a hair rinse. "If applied directly, it is recommended to leave for 30 minutes and then for the hair to be washed as normal," said Richards.
Fenugreek Benefits for Hair
Before you add it to your routine, consider these three benefits of fenugreek for hair:
Reduced Inflammation
The anti-inflammatory properties can help with overall hair health. "Because fenugreek is naturally anti-inflammatory, hair loss should decrease as a result of lower rates of inflammation at the root," Best said. Not only that, but fenugreek seeds have anti-fungal properties which help keep scalp and hair follicles healthy.
Moisturizing Properties
Fenugreek also has natural moisturizing properties and can aid with dry hair. "Lecithin is a natural emulsifying agent which keeps the hair and roots moisturized to prevent breakage," Best explained. This can give you shiny hair and also revive damaged hair. It can also help fight dandruff.
Hair Growth
Richards explained that while fenugreek seeds could lead to thicker hair and help reverse hair loss, they cannot address the reasons the hair loss or hair fall are occurring, such as genetic factors, medical or hormonal issues such as androgenetic alopecia, or even mineral and vitamin imbalances.
Where Fenugreek Falls Short
If you're experiencing hair loss and you're unsure why, the best first practice is to consult your healthcare provider to try and determine the cause. Hair fall can occur for many reasons, from genetics and the natural aging process all the way to mental and physical trauma and shock, medical issues, over- or under-supplementation, or even poor haircare habits.
"Hair loss [can occur] due to the fact that we often overlook an important mineral for hair growth: zinc," Richards explained. "Most hair loss supplements contain biotin, niacin, and vitamin C, but zinc could be the answer many people are looking for when it comes to hair growth."
Checking to make sure you're getting the right supplements is key in encouraging hair density and growth. The best practice when dealing with thinning hair is to try a 360-degree, holistic approach like VEGAMOUR GRO Full Routine Kit. This comprehensive set of all-natural, vegan hair products includes a mix of best-sellers like GRO Hair Serum and GRO Biotin Gummies as well as a few others in the GRO lineup. The kit features powerful phyto-actives and proprietary Karmatin™ (which is the first-of-its-kind vegan keratin). All the properties work together to restore and strengthen your hair health from root to tip.
GRO Scalp Detoxifying Serum blasts through scalp impurities, dirt, and product buildup to help restore and support scalp health. If you're using fenugreek for your overall scalp health, this scalp serum achieves many of the same goals.
GRO Revitalizing Shampoo and Conditioner utilize microencapsulated vegan b-SILK™ proteins that physically bond to hair follicles and remain attached to your strands even after rinsing. All of these products used in tandem can help you effectively combat hair loss naturally on the outside as well as the inside.
Takeaway
If you're after an all-natural approach to promoting hair growth, then the benefits of fenugreek may help. This powerful herb can be consumed by way of fenugreek supplements, or used topically as a fenugreek mask via fenugreek powder, fenugreek extract, fenugreek paste, or with a fenugreek tea. The benefits of fenugreek for hair loss are purely anecdotal at this point, but as long as you have no allergy to them it's safe to try.
Consider chatting with your healthcare provider before adding a new supplement to your diet or haircare routine. And if you want to further up your hair loss recovery game, don't forget to use quality, clean and safe products that are specially designed to help combat hair loss naturally.
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