Having late-night conversations with your family and friends becomes more exciting when you drink an ice-cold glass of red wine. This luscious alcoholic beverage made from the fermented extract of crushed grapes does not only make you feel relaxed, but it is also used for cooking and treating health problems. Since time immemorial, red wine has been touted as medicine for cardiovascular diseases, thanks to its rich antioxidants. What makes red wine more impressive is its capability to help grow your tresses healthily. Because of its lauded benefits, red wine is now added as a primary ingredient in hair growth shampoos and rinse solutions.
How can your hair benefit from red wine? Should it really be included in your hair care regimen? Discover how red wine’s divine power can contribute to healthy hair growth.
Haircare Benefits That You Can Get from Red Wine
1. Red wine has antioxidants that can keep free radicals at bay.
Heat, pollution, and radiation from the environment are the most common catalysts of free radical formation, which can harm your hair follicles and cause hair growth problems. What you need is an ingredient loaded with antioxidants, with red wine being an excellent example.
According to research, red wine contains high resveratrol levels, a powerful antioxidant that reduces the oxidation of various chemicals in the body. Studies also show how resveratrol can inhibit the oxidation of your blood platelets. As a result, your blood pressure becomes stable, and your blood can successfully carry nutrients to your hair follicles.
2. Red wine’s resveratrol can elongate your hair follicle’s lifespan.
Hair follicles follow a cycle, starting from the growth or anagen phase up to the resting or telogen phase. Once they reach the resting stage, they may undergo hair shedding. However, resveratrol’s anti-aging properties can help elongate the anagen follicles. According to a group of researchers from Hong Kong, they have found resveratrol’s power to restore stem cells and delay their aging process. This finding means that hair stem cells can stay active for a long time, thereby growing longer and healthier hair strands.
3. Red wine can also protect your tresses against sun damage.
Despite plants requiring sunshine to survive, they also need protection against sun damage. For instance, grapes and berries contain resveratrol that keeps them safe from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Based on a 2015 study, resveratrol can reduce ultraviolet radiation penetration on epithelial cells, thereby preventing oxidative activity from happening. This potent antioxidant’s protective effect is very beneficial for your hair cells, especially when your locks are exposed continuously to sunlight. Thanks to red wine’s antioxidants, you can also prevent the sun from dehydrating your tresses.
4. Red wine also helps reduce stress levels, which is good for hair growth.
When you are pressured or endangered, your body releases stress hormones to fight the anxiety. However, being stressed all the time also puts your health as well as hair growth at risk. An increase in your cortisol levels (a type of stress hormone) can disrupt the hair growth cycle by pushing the anagen follicles to shift into the telogen phase, a condition known as telogen effluvium. But with a glass of red wine, you can get rid of your stress in the meantime. Red wine also has anti-stress properties that inhibit the stress-inducing enzyme from triggering your brain. Thus, resveratrol has been seen as an effective ingredient for drugs that treat depression and anxiety. Therefore, if you want to keep yourself calm or enjoy a good night’s sleep, you can always indulge yourself with a glass of red wine, but still, do it in moderation.
Enjoy the Superior Haircare Benefits of Red Wine.
Red wine does not only keep you healthier, but it also aids in preventing hair growth problems. Yet, despite red wine’s health and haircare benefits, you should drink it moderately. Remember that red wine contains alcohol, which can also be dangerous for your liver and kidney if taken excessively. Instead of consuming it daily, you can use red wine as a hair rinse or buy hair growth shampoos with red wine as an ingredient. Through these methods, you can still reap red wine’s divine hair-boosting powers without jeopardizing your health.
