Nursing Your Hair Back To Health.
Whether transitioning from relaxed hair, or recovering from a bad case of hair straightening syndrome, building a new natural hair regimen can be pretty damn hard as it often involves a complete shift from what you’re used to. At some point, it can get really frustrating, and I frankly wouldn’t blame you for wanting to switch back.
I personally fumbled around a lot until I eventually figured it out (with much help from blogs, Jesus & youtube). All jokes aside, below are the general steps I followed that have allowed my hair to not only be the healthiest it has ever been but the longest as well.
Sulfate free/organic products
The first thing to do is throw out all sulfate packed hair products (they are literally the devil) the most common being Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or SLS, sulfates help a product foam up (which is why they’re added to shampoos) but this also causes the product to strip off all oil from ones hair, which is great if you have naturally straight hair (like type 1 hair) but if your hair falls on the curly, coily end of the spectrum, Sulfate packed products will leave your hair very dry and brittle.
Instead opt for moisturizing shampoos, brands such as Kinky Curly,Mielle organics, Shea moisture and tgin all have great shampoos (I have been using Shea Moisture’s Jamaican black castor oil since I ‘big chopped’ which I bought from Beauty Studio ) a store such as super cosmetics would carry the other brands.
Heat free
If you have heat damage you probably want to stay away from heat for a while, I stayed all the way away from heat; only stretcheing my hair with a blow drier after 3 years of no heat at all. I suggest avoiding flat irons until you have a hair regimen that works for you established & your hair is completely healthy , you can however lightly stretch your hair with a blow drier , but be sure to use the lowest temperature available (the one I use comes with a setting that produces no heat at all, you can get the same one here ) When you do subject your hair to higher temperatures, be sure to use a heat protectant to avoid damage.
Moisturizing
For the first year I barely experienced any noticeable change in length due to how dry my hair was, using the LOC method allowed much needed relief from dryness which meant a whole lot less breakage (= more length retention) , using a mix of coconut and castor oil on my scalp and hair also definitely caused a lot more growth, especially in terms of thickness.
To preserve moisture I used/ use either a satin bonnet or satin pillowcases, as opposed to cotton, satin doesn’t absorb the product in your hair. Sleeping directly on a rougher fabric like cotton would leave your hair frizzy,dry and tangled, which would lead to knots, often causing split ends as you attempt to take them out.
Split ends
While pursuing length it may be tempting to avoid cutting your split ends, but that only makes them worse as the ‘split’ slowly travels up the hair shaft towards the root. Eventually splitting one strand into two weak ones that just fall off. To avoid getting to that point, handle your hair gently : only brush when wet/damp and conditioned, avoid hair bands with metal that snag hair and trim the split ends once every three months.
That’s all for this post, I hope you found the tips on here helpful and thank you for checking it out !
Xo Alex.
