TikTok Hair Trends Demystified
TikTok is a treasure trove of all manner of things. Whether you’re looking for comedy skits, baby animals, baby animals doing comedy skits, or something else entirely, you’re sure to find it on the social media platform. What you can also find are all kinds of tips, tricks and hacks for your everyday life. One of the most plentiful things you’ll find are TikTok hair trends.
TikTok hair trends can include anything from cool, new haircuts to hair color combos to try. But in this corner of TikTok, you’ll also find “hacks” for growing your hair longer, making it shinier and more. The thing about TikTok, though, is you can’t always count on it being true.
If you’ve been scrolling and wondered, does brushing my hair before I shower prevent hair loss or can I bleach my hair with toothpaste? Let us help you get to the bottom of these TikTok hair trends and find out if they’re fact or fiction.
1. Brushing Hair Before Showering Prevents Hair Loss
One of the biggest hair trends we’ve seen on TikTok is the idea that brushing your hair before a shower can prevent hair loss. Here’s the thing, though: Brushing your hair before a shower has no real bearing on hair loss. Brushing your hair gently can stimulate your scalp and increase sebum distribution (all positives in the healthy hair handbook), but doing it before a shower doesn’t matter. You could do it after a shower, in the middle of the day or before bed, and it’s all the same. One thing is fact: Your hair is most vulnerable when wet—so brushing strands when they’re dry (curly hair excluded!) is best for avoiding breakage.
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Verdict: Fiction
2. Hair Slugging Hydrates Hair
The art of hair slugging is similar to skin slugging in that it is believed to hydrate hair (like it hydrates skin). So, what is hair slugging? This TikTok hair trend involves loading your strands up with oil (or conditioner or hair butter if you prefer) before bed and wrapping them up in a T-shirt or microfiber towel—any soft cloth will do, actually. By morning, your hair will have absorbed the moisture from the oil you put in it and be super hydrated. Remember, the more hydrated your strands, the less prone they are to frizz, breakage and dullness.
Hair slugging is basically a leave-in conditioning method. It’s very similar to using a hair mask or other moisturizing technique on your hair—this is just giving it another trendy name. There’s nothing wrong with hopping on this trend, as it can definitely add moisture to your aging hair. Just be cautious with the products you’re using and make sure you use the right ones for your hair texture and type—and if you have fine strands or thinning hair, keep the product away from your roots! You could also go in with our Hair Redemption Restorative Butter Masque instead of a common oil to reduce frizz and add silkiness and shine.
Verdict: Fact
3. Onion Juice Makes Hair Shiny
After Cardi B shared on Instagram that she uses boiled onion water on her hair, the trend picked up across social media. The rapper claimed that soaking her hair in the odorless water made it shinier. She may be onto something here, though, as wild as the idea may sound. Studies have shown that onions can impact your hair positively. The vitamins and minerals in onions may help to moisturize brittle hair—and we all know that keeping hair moisturized is one of the secrets to shinier hair.
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Bonus: The benefits of onion juice for hair don’t stop with shine. Onions are also anti-inflammatory, which means they may help with any itchiness on your scalp as well. And studies have also shown that for hair loss that’s related to inflammation (as is the case with alopecia areata), onions can be beneficial in helping to stimulate hair growth.
Verdict: Fact
4. Blow-Drying Hair Is Less Damaging Than Air-Drying
We’ve talked a lot about using hot tools on your hair and how much damage it can cause over time, especially if you’re not protecting your strands with a heat protectant. So, when a trend started making the rounds that claimed air-drying was worse than blow-drying, it got us thinking.
Some say that when you let your hair air-dry, you’re leaving it wet (and vulnerable) for longer than if you just blow-dried it immediately. However, blow-drying can be hard on your strands if you’re not careful. There’s an argument for both sides on this one, and the important thing to remember is that you should treat your hair carefully and properly according to its texture and type so that you’re doing everything you can to prevent breakage and hair loss.
Verdict: Fact and Fiction
5. Rice Water Nourishes Hair
You may have seen the TikTok hair trend where people wash their hair with rice water and claim that it makes their hair strong and shiny. But while this just recently popped up on TikTok, The Every Girl points out that it’s an ancient practice—and it does work!
Rice water—which is just water that’s had rice soaking in it—absorbs the nutrients in rice that can help regenerate and enrich hair. This juiced-up water is also known for boosting shine, increasing manageability, smoothing, detangling and promoting healthy hair. So feel free to start washing your hair with the water you soaked your rice in. One word of warning: If you are prone to a dry scalp or hair, the high concentration of starch in rice water may be too drying for you.
For a popular alternative to rice water, rice bran oil found in our Second Chance Repairing Shampoo for Dry or Damaged Hair offers similar nourishing and strengthening benefits for your hair—plus it has superior hydrating benefits to rice water for beautiful, healthy shine!
Verdict: Fact
6. You Can Bleach Hair with Toothpaste
Bleaching hair with toothpaste is a TikTok hair trend that really threw us for a loop. Bleaching your hair with toothpaste on TikTok? Plenty of things can be faked on TikTok and this felt like one of them. So, we looked into it.
Whitening toothpastes have the power to whiten teeth, right? So why not hair? As Healthline points out, if you leave toothpaste on your hair long enough, it could lead to whitening, but it’s not really proven (or recommended). Toothpaste isn’t formulated to be used as a hair lightener (it’s quite sticky!), and it could actually cause damage to your hair and follicles if you’re not careful—so better to not tempt it.
Verdict: Fiction
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Better Not Younger is in the business of offering safe and effective hair-care tips and solutions for your mature hair needs—and we know fact from fiction. So, when it comes to TikTok hair trends, we’re here to help you decide which ones are OK to try and which ones aren’t worth the risk. Plus, we always share our favorite products specially designed to offer safe, proven results your aging hair will love!