Curly girls understand any natural hair journey is dependent upon finding the right hair care products and routine. Properly moisturizing kinky or curly hair will make wash day a breeze, while forgetting to apply leave-in conditioner will leave you feeling like you're picking comb pieces out your hair!
Finding a routine that works for your hair has everything to do with how you moisturize your hair, protective styling, and regular trims to reduce those split ends. Natural hair is all about putting in that effort and seeing those results.
Working with stretched hair can also improve length and moisture retention by preventing your hair’s delicate ends from shrinking up and drying out quickly, meaning less hair shedding. Styling your hair in a stretched state can help cut down hair styling and drying times considerably, and even extend the longevity of your styles, especially in a healthy, low-maintenance style.
To preserve your hair’s moisture throughout the week, you should use a satin scarf or hair wraps. If you’ve properly moisturized and styled it, then it’s time to give your hair a break. This could mean waiting a two or three before restyling. During this time, be sure to oil your scalp from root to tip and massage your scalp anywhere between 5-10mins, 2-3x a week. Remember, over-manipulating your hair can be just as harmful as not caring for it at all.
Going natural or growing your hair that hasn’t been treated with a relaxer, can get sooo frustrating. From transitions of multiple hair textures, to running trial-and-error experiments with products, to the breakage you’ll unfortunately encounter along the way, can be tempting sometimes to just throw your hands up and grab your flat irons or even run off with a tube of relaxer. We get it!
Living a natural hair lifestyle can be life-changing and empowering, but it’s also complicated, challenging and needs patience. With a few of these products in your cart, some of your time and a lot of self-nurturing, you can likely achieve the natural hair you’ve been aiming for.
The less you have to manipulate, comb or brush your hair the more length you will see. This is because every time you have to touch your hair you are welcoming an opportunity for breakage to occur.
Protective styling, protective styling, protective styling! Keeping your hair moisturized while styled or taking down that style is ESSENTIAL! Take your time detangling your hair. A great way to detangle without breakage is to hydrate and damp your hair with warm water. Water should be your hair’s best friend. One of the keys to maintaining healthy natural hair is water, consuming it as well as applying it to your hair.
Take down your protective style every 2-4 weeks depending on the style. You want to keep the area around the roots of your hair clean to avoid build up. Feed and nourish your scalp with a vitamin and protein rich hair treatment like the Hair Repair Treatment. Remember, the goal is less manipulation and more growth!
Choosing the right products for your hair can already be a little tricky since so many different formulas are made and targeted toward different hair textures, but you’ll want to look out for harmful ingredients such as sulfates, parabens, triclosan, and phthalates!
Using a shampoo and conditioner that are paraben- and sulfate-free keeps hair much more manageable.
Here are some fun facts:
- Parabens are chemical preservatives that help fight bacteria and fungus. You can identify them by their prefixes methyl-, ethyl-, propyl- and butylparaben.
- Sulfates are also preservatives that hair products utilize to reduce the spread of funky mold. Sodium lauryl sulfate may thicken your hair but it and other sulfates can also irritate and dry your scalp and hair and can keep moisture from your hair.
- Tricolsan can cause scalp inflammation, dryness, and hair loss.
- Alcohol act as a harsh, drying agent that can strip your hair of its protective hair capabilities and lead to scalp dryness and dandruff.
- Phthalates can cause hair loss due to disruption of hormones that function to regulate your hair cycle.
This is why you should care about your hair care products and be more aware of the products you’re using, not only do great hair care products keep your hair and scalp healthy, they can also prevent split ends, add volume naturally, and improve your hair’s natural shine.