Sage Advice for Your Hair

By the time we’re in our 50s, one in four women and 85 percent of men experience hair loss.

Did that fact grab your attention?

While some hair loss may be genetic, you can take steps to ensure your hair and scalp are healthy, minimizing hair thinning and continuing hair growth as long as possible.

And it’s never too late to start.

We’ve explained hair loss and the hair growth cycle in other blog posts. (You can read the truth about hair loss, the many causes of hair loss, and the hair growth secret hiding in your kitchen.) But we haven’t spent a lot of time talking about sage.

Sage, or Salvia Officinalis, if you prefer a more formal name, is an evergreen herb with a lot of varieties. In fact, Salvia, from the Latin word salvere, translates as “to be saved.” And it just may save your hair.

This herb is part of the mint family along with rosemary, oregano, basil, lavender, and thyme.

Sage is a known antibiotic, antiseptic, antibacterial, and anti-fungal. Sage is loaded with vitamins B and C, and minerals like magnesium, zinc, and potassium.

This powerhouse herb helps manage dandruff, dermatitis, and psoriasis, heal the skin, reduce inflammation, balance sebum production, and prevent clogged hair follicles.

All of this improves the growth and strength of your hair.

Sage Prevents Hair Fall

Sage contains high levels of beta-sitosterol, a 5-alpha reductase compound that has been proven effective in treating hair fall, especially with male and female pattern baldness.

Unlike peppermint essential oil, which is also used to promote hair growth, sage strengthens circulation and as a result, could prevent hair follicles from being starved of nutrition from an insufficient blood supply, which would cause them to die off, and lead to hair loss.

It also helps keep hair follicles from becoming clogged. Clogged follicles cut off the supply of nutrition to your hair, which again cut off their blood supply and causes them to die off. Fewer follicles means less hair.

Sage Promotes Hair Growth

Another study of sage proved that it stimulated hair growth. This occurred when hair loss was triggered by testosterone (as in pattern baldness).

Sage can boost blood circulation in the scalp, increasing the supply of nutrients to the hair follicles. This alone would promote hair growth. Sage also helps to keep follicles unblocked with its anti-inflammatory properties, and essential compounds such as Vitamin A, B, and C nourish and stimulate hair growth.

Sage May Reverse Greying

Sage is also reported to intensify and darken your natural hair color when used regularly. (Bye-bye, greys!)

Whether this method is effective at reversing grey hair or not (we haven’t tried it ourselves), many mediteranean cultures swear by it.

We can’t say it works, but we do know that sage will definitely add shine and luster by promoting your hair health.

Softness & Shine

Sage makes a great hair conditioner. Sage is loaded with vitamins and strenghtens your hair by all the ways mentioned above.

As you know, strong hair will not break as easily, so you can kiss those split ends and flyaways goodbye. Which will also make your hair more manageable. And strong hair is softer. Light passing over strong, healthy hair, is not diverted to flyaway and split ends, so your hair looks shinier.