Having nice hair can be a great confidence booster, but there's a lot of misinformation out there about hair care. Here are a few common myths you can now happily ignore! Myth One: Cut for Growth One common myth is that hair grows faster if you get it cut regularly. To understand why this isn't true, let's look at the structure of hair. Most of your hair is hardened keratin, the same protein your nails are made of, and is basically dead — except at the base, where you find the hair root and bulb. Hair growth happens in the bulb, where new cells are made. These new cells get pushed out, making your hair strands longer. This process isn't affected by whether or not you cut off the dead parts of your hair. Myth Two: Cold Water for Shine If you've been making yourself rinse your hair with freezing water to make it shinier, you can stop doing that. But there is some logic behind this myth. The very outer layer of your hair is the cuticle, and it protects the inner parts of your hair all the way down to the root. A lot of things can cause hair cuticles to open, though, including heat, leaving your hair more vulnerable to damage. Cold water might close the cuticle for a moment — but this doesn't last, and it opens right up again, especially if you're in a warm bathroom or going to style your hair with heat. Also, the cold can damage and open up hair cuticles too! Just use a conditioner instead. Myth Three: Self-Cleaning Hair Some people believe that their hair will clean itself after a while, but this simply isn't true. Neither your scalp nor your hair can do that, and not washing will mean a buildup of oil, dirt and dead skin. This myth may have come from people feeling that their hair is in better condition after washing it less. It's true that some hair and scalp types do better with less frequent cleaning than others, but everyone still needs to wash!