Natural Approaches to Minimize Dandruff

More aromatherapy
In addition to using aromatherapy at bath time as highlighted in a previous post, a leading herbalist Jeanne Rose (Director of the Institute of Aromatic Studies) suggests a more direct use of aromatic oils as  natural approaches to minimize dandruff.  Her suggestion is that after washing your hair, you should let your hair dry completely before massaging a few drops each of lemon and rosemary oils into your scalp.
These oils have natural antifungal characteristics, meaning that they will fight to keep the amount of yeast on your scalp to a minimum.

Ayurveda
It is suggested by leading expert, David Frawley, that dandruff is a condition caused by poor or blocked circulation. He has suggested a couple of possible solutions to this problem.
The first option is to massage sesame oil into your scalp for 5 or 10 minutes once or twice a week immediately before taking your evening shower. After massaging the oil in, allow it to ‘sit’ for a few minutes before washing it out in the shower.
Alternatively, Dr. Frawley also suggests that fenugreek is a recognized treatment for dandruff in Ayurvedic medicine. It is also a spice that is widely used in Asian cooking, so you can either add it to your own home cooking or you can take it as a powder mixed with honey.

Homoeopathy
According to one of the UK’s leading medically qualified homoeopaths, Dr Andrew Lockie, there are quite a few homoeopathic treatments that can be very effective for combating dandruff.
According to Dr Lockie, you should try using sulphur if you find yourself persistently scratching your head at night or if your scalp burns and you have thick, heavy dandruff. Try massaging sulphur into your scalp three or four times a day for a period of to two weeks, and you should find that your dandruff eases considerably.
On the other hand, he suggests that sepia will soothe your scalp if it is greasy, moist and sensitive to the touch around the roots.
However, when you are massaging these soothing substances into your scalp (or any other substances for that matter), do take care that you do not massage it into your skull too vigorously. Studies have indicated that if you are too vigorous and energetic, you will damage your hair around the roots which can speed up your natural hair loss process.
Consequently, you should try to avoid significant amounts of contact between your fingernails and your hair, particularly around the roots, because it is your nails that are likely to cause most damage, and damage makes your hair fall out much more quickly.
A third option that is propounded by Dr Lockie is to use oleander if you feel that the palpable irritation from your dandruff is worsened by heat, or if you feel as if your head is covered in insect bites.
All three substances suggested by Dr Lockie can be obtained at health food stores and possibly some pharmacies as well.

According to some research, adding flaxseed oil to your diet can help to significantly reduce the amount of oil that your skin secretes, and as we have already seen, it is the sebum that your skin secretes that provides the Malassezia yeast with something to feed and thrive on. It is believed that two or three teaspoonfuls of flaxseed oil every day (or the equivalent amount in capsules) will significantly reduce the amount of sebum you secrete, thereby reducing the ‘yeast food’ on your scalp which should in turn reduce your dandruff as well.
Vitamins and minerals for a healthy head

Earlier I highlighted the importance of eating a healthy balanced diet in your efforts to reduce or get rid of your dandruff problem.
Unfortunately however, for many people, eating a healthy balanced diet every day is extremely difficult or impossible, primarily because with work and the day-to-day demands of living, it is simply not feasible to eat a healthy balanced meal at every meal time.
It is also true that in the modern world, many of the foods that we eat do not contain the vitamins and minerals that they should do because far too often, those vitamins and minerals have been removed in the process of getting that food from its origin to your table.
For instance, unless you buy only organic vegetables, many of the vegetables that you are eating will have been grown in soil which is lacking in the minerals that form a very important part of a healthy diet. This is a natural side-effect of the fact that the demands on farming are increasingly heavy, meaning that the farmers who are responsible for growing the vegetables that you eat are forced into growing vegetables in soil of increasingly poor quality.
Taking these different factors together, it becomes an unavoidable conclusion that there are many people who will not take on board the necessary vitamins and nutrients through their food, whether they are conscious of this (i.e. if the knowingly eat a poorer quality diet) or they
are not. Consequently, dandruff sufferers who are not taking on board a healthy balanced diet are aggravating the severity of their problem internally.

For this situation to be turned round, supplementation of your diet with vitamins and minerals is therefore necessary.
The vitamins and minerals that you need to add to your diet if you suffer from dandruff are as follows, with an indication of what each of these vitamins and minerals will do for you:
• Vitamin B12 is believed to increase energy levels at the root level of your hair;
• Vitamins B3, B5 and B6 stimulate healthy hair growth and stimulate the scalp;
• Vitamin C. encourages and growth and improves circulation throughout the body, including on the scalp;
• Vitamin D. helps to control inflammatory conditions such as dandruff and psoriasis;
• Iron helps to maintain the basic health of your hair, particularly the roots;
• Zinc is an antibacterial that can help to fight the yeast on your head;
• Folic acid helps to minimize hair loss.

All of these nutrients stimulate the blood supply to your scalp, which in turn helps the top of your head to stay healthier, and are natural approaches to minimize dandruff. In effect, by making sure that all of these vitamins and nutrients are included either in your diet or in supplements, you are ensuring that you are dealing with your dandruff problem from the root (in more ways than one).

You are combating the problem internally by providing your body needs to fight your problem completely naturally, so the importance of supplementing the kind of poor diet that many of us simply have to live with it cannot be underestimated.