Gosh, I can still remember sitting in between my mom legs every morning before school and feeling her grease up my hair, braid it up and put barrettes, beads, ribbons in my hair. Below are hair grease I grew up on....
I use to HATE the smell of both of these products. My mom was heavy handed to so I would go to school smelling like a hair grease factory lol. ( MOM IF YOU ARE READING THIS...., I LOVE YOU! lol)
Don't get me wrong, my mom took care of my hair. Making sure it was washed every 2 weeks, deep conditioned and stayed away from perms and harsh chemicals. But the ingredients in these products just seemed to just slip our minds.
Natural hair comes in all forms and packages. Very tight coils and kinks, to a more looser and wavier curl pattern. Either way, all curls are BEAUTIFUL, but there are things we must know to keep it healthy and strong and moisturized. In order to have long healthy hair, we MUST keep it moisturized daily.
Have you ever wonder how some sistas with long hair and WHY it is so long? Well, the answer is: They keep what they grow!
Natural hair is naturally dry. Moisture (H20) is very hard for our hair to keep a hold of it because our hair strand is so curly and zig zagy and not straight to where moisture can stick on to. There are things you can do to help achieve soft moisturized hair.... Remember moisturized hair leads to LESS breakage. And less breakage leads to MORE hair.
1. Ingredients to avoid:
ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL
MINERAL OIL & PETROLATUM
PEG
PROPYLENE GLYCOL (PG)
SODIUM LAURYL SUFATE (SLS) & SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE (SLES)
Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)
CHLORINE
DEA (diethanolamine) MEA (momoethnanolamine) TEA (triethanolamine)
FD & C Color PIGMENTS
FRAGRANCE
IMIDAZOLIDINYL UREA and DMDM HYDANTOIN
If these ingredients are in the first 5 list of ingredients in your hair products, try to keep away from them. These ingredients are known to dry out your hair if you are not careful.
2. Ingredient to ADD (MOISTURE!):
WATER!!!!!! huh?.... wait what? Water?? noooooo. lol YES gurl, back when we were permed and pressed, we thought it HATE water. We would do all in our power to not get it sweated out, can't go swimming with my friends today cause I JUST got mah haur did... lol all that, but actually our hair LOVES it and NEED it! When you are picking moisturizers for your hair, make sure the first ingredient says: Water, Aqua, or H20.... trust me, your natural hair will love it! :D Moisturized hair = LESS breakage.
3. Protective styling/ less combing and manipulation:
Remember in my first blog where I stated... " ...my hair NEVER grew past my shoulders..." the reason being is not enough protecting my ends from elements and hands: ALWAYS combing and brushing my hair hard and roughly, my ends rubbing against my clothes (shoulders) which caused breakage, not keeping them moisturized, not trimming off damaged ends, having them exposed with too much to the sun and cold winter air..... which all of these caused BREAKAGE. And breakage leads to damage, which leads to hair breaking off, which leads to... welll yall get it lol.
There are styles to avoid manipulation and protection from nature elements. Example: braids, updos, weaves (this one is a bit hard to add if you don't take care of your natural hair under them), etc. There are a lot of cute, funky fun protective styling, but we will get to those later.
4. Avoid heat:
Before I went natural, I would get my hair washed and pressed out FAITHFULLY every 2 weeks. Not realizing all this heat was damaging my hair for YEARS. Now I know.... your asking.... being natural SUCKS! You can't straighten out your hair AT ALL. Not necessarily true.... some naturals do straighten out their hair to change up their look sometimes and some have decided NO MORE HEAT... PERIOD, but those who do straighten out their hair time to time, they use heat protectants and use little heat as possible to avoid heat damage. Me personally, I do plan on wearing my hair straight. My goal is to have hair DOWN MAH BACK YALL! WHOOT WHOOT! hahaha but I decided to NOT put any heat to me hair AT ALL at least until I reach my goal. That is "my" goal. But the key in growing long natural hair is LESS heat. Blow dryers, curling irons, pressing combs, flat irons, hot breath.... lol.... nah.... just kidding on that last one. :D
5. Drinking a lot of water, eating healthy and daily exercise:
Dang! I can't have my McDonald's burger and fries and ice cream everyday!? Eating healthy and making sure you drink alot of water really contribute to your hair growth. I mean when you think about it, hair is part of your body and whatever you put in will show on the outside. Our body needs the good vitamins, nutrients and exercise to keep it healthy PERIOD.
6. PATIENCE!
MY HAIR IS TAKING FOREVER TO GROW. HELP! This society thinks: Oh you black?? Your hair NEVER grows past your shoulders! This is a myth that needs to be corrected! Going natural, you have to have patience. All hair grows at about 1/2 an inch to an inch about a month. No matter if you are Caucasian, Asian, Bi-Racial, or African American. Like I said, kinky hair is naturally dry, so WE have to do something about it to keep it moisturized daily. Hair will not grow 12 inches in the next week and there is NO magic potion that will grow your hair 5 inches tomorrow. So patience is a must. Kinkier hair needs a bit more attention so as long as we give your hair TLC it needs, you will see a difference in NO TIME! :)
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