Natural hair isn’t the easiest to take care of, especially when it gets somewhat long. That’s one of the main reasons why a lot of girls with beautiful and authentic curls decide to go to the hairdresser to get a weave or relax their hair, which damages it a lot. While having natural hair saves a woman of color quite a lot of money, it’s not necessarily a lot easier to maintain in a healthy condition.
I always admired women, who had voluminous afros and didn’t look up to the ridiculous beauty standards and tried to attain the universal look that wipes out the uniqueness and exceptionality of everyone’s appearance. At the same time, the texture of African-American hair is quite fragile, which makes it a lot harder to take care of on daily basis, let along styling it and differentiating the looks.
The commonly found advice about taking vitamins that improve the structure of our hair and nails, changing our diet and implementing more healthy options in it and refraining from using hot tools and harsh styling products – basically eliminating any negative influence, is not quite applicable for most women, especially for those who already follow quite healthy lifestyles and like to experiment with different hairstyles.
So, if you decided to embrace your African-American curls and go back to your natural hair or simply want to improve your current hair maintenance routine, make sure to try out these practical tips to make your natural hair care struggle a little bit easier and a lot more effective.
Natural hair care tips and tricks
- If you’re transitioning from relaxed to natural hair and you’re not ready for a big chop, the thing that might help you last through the awkward state of your hair and deal with its inconsistent texture (when some of it is straight and some of it is super curly) is blow-drying it straight. Besides, if that daily styling is not for you, you may wear it in a twist out or go ahead and ask a hairdresser to do a braided or twisted protective hairstyle on you. This will help you avoid the frustration of having transitioning hair or growing it out after the big chop.
- Don’t apply too much product to your ends or roots and add a little bit at a time not to lose the volume, make your hair appear quite greasy and, consequently, wash it too often for it to remain healthy.
- Treat your hair to the leave-in conditioner instead of using rinse-out products to make sure that your naturally dry curls receive enough hydration to remain moisturized in between the washes and not to break too much. For a better result, use oils after applying the leave-in conditioner or moisturizer to lock the moisture inside your hairs.
- Define your hair porosity to be able to pick the products that comply with the structure of your hair best and provide the desired solutions to your natural hair care and styling issues. There’re a couple of easy ways to do that. Just observe the way your hair reacts to water when taking a shower or conduct a quick ‘glass of water and one hair’ test shown on the picture below. If you notice that your hair sucks the water in quite quickly and it becomes significantly dry shortly after the wash, it means that your hair has high porosity. On the contrary, low porosity natural hair takes a long time to absorb water, but retains it quite easily afterwards, while medium porosity hair doesn’t have any issues when it comes to absorbing and retaining moisture.
- Opt for lighter moisturizers that promise easy absorption to make sure that your low porosity hair manages to suck them in, but not struggle from the product buildup on its surface. Towel dry your hair and style it and apply hair care products while damp. Use heavy oils, hair butters and protein treatments to maintain healthy high porosity natural hair. If you have medium porosity hair (lucky you!), remain on the medium side of the moisturizers not to weigh down your hair and apply occasional treatments if you notice that your hair got quite damaged.
- Steaming treatments work best when it comes to helping the products penetrate into the hair, but not remain on its surface, as well as sealing the moisture inside the individual hairs, which promotes the hair growth and keeps hair stronger, healthier and less prone to breakage.
- Wear a satin sleep cap or silk scarf at night to prevent completely unnecessary hair breakage that happens when your curls rub against your bedding when you sleep, as well as excessive tangling and moisture loss.
- Wear protective hairstyles every few months to give your hair a break from hot tool styling and breakage that inevitably happens when you wear it loose. Go to HireRush.com and leave a request for local hair stylists to get your natural hair done and enjoy easy maintenance for as long as your hair stays in braids/twists/cornrows etc. nicely. Leave your request here
- Make your cute curls more voluminous and defined by rinsing your hair with cold water once you’re done washing it, detangling in smaller sections and applying stronghold twist or lock gel when twisting your wet hair, unravel the twists with fingers coated in your favorite oil only when your hair is dry.
- If you’re suffering from the itchy scalp, try to get rid of it with the mixture of coconut, jojoba and olive oil. Works like magic!
