Understanding Your Hair Starts Here: How Your Scalp and Hair Actually Work

If there’s one thing I wish I knew earlier, it’s this:
you can’t fix your hair until you understand your hair.

For the longest time, I thought my oily scalp and dry hair were just “bad luck”. I assumed I was born with difficult hair, and there was nothing I could do about it. But the truth is, a lot of our hair issues make sense once we understand what’s happening beneath the surface.

Today, I want to share the basics because this was the turning point for me.

Your Hair Shaft: The Part You Can See

Each hair strand has three layers, and knowing them helps you understand why hair gets frizzy, dry, or weak.

1. Cuticle — The Protective Layer
This is the outer layer. If the cuticle is smooth, your hair looks shiny and feels soft.
If it’s raised or damaged, your hair looks dull, rough, and tangled easily.

2. Cortex — The Strength and Colour
This is the middle layer. It gives your hair strength, elasticity, and colour.
When this layer is damaged, your hair breaks more easily.

3. Medulla — The Inner Core
Not everyone has a medulla, and that’s okay!
It contributes to the thickness and structure of your hair.

This simple structure already explains a lot.
For example, when your cuticle is lifted, moisture escapes easily which is why your ends feel dry, even if your scalp is oily.

Your Hair Follicle: Where Everything Begins

What happens under the scalp is just as important.

Each hair grows from a follicle at the base of your skin. This tiny structure is connected to:

• Capillaries, which deliver nutrients

• Sebaceous glands, which produce oil (sebum)

If your scalp produces too much oil, your hair becomes greasy fast.
If it doesn’t produce enough, your scalp gets dry, itchy, and flaky.

For some of us including me for many years, the scalp produces too much sebum, while the ends stay dry because oil cannot travel down fast enough.
That’s why we end up with this annoying combination: oily scalp, dry hair.

The Hair Growth Cycle Matters Too

Your hair isn’t always growing. It follows a natural cycle:

• Anagen: Growing

• Catagen: Transition

• Telogen: Resting and shedding

It’s normal to lose 50–100 strands a day.
I used to panic at this, but once I learnt the cycle, I stopped overthinking it.

When your scalp is clean and healthy, the cycle works smoothly.
When it’s clogged, inflamed, or oily, it disrupts the whole process.

Why This Matters

Once you understand the basics, you start to realise:

• Your hair isn’t the problem.

• Your scalp isn’t “bad”.

• You just need to support what your hair is naturally designed to do.

This is exactly why I organised my e-book this way — to make haircare feel less confusing and more logical. When you know how your hair works, choosing the right routine becomes so much easier.

Alia AS