*All products are not created equally! In fact, if you’re looking for products for your natural hair in your local Wal-Mart, drugstore or beauty supply, you will be disappointed in how they work. Have you ever bought a “moisturizer” in the “ethic hair care” aisle? When you get it home, you apply it to your dry hair over and over again, but it never seems to work. In fact, your hair feels like it’s getting drier than ever. You blame it on your hair saying it’s just so dry and you can’t manage it when you really should be blaming the product! Why? Because many commercial products are loaded with toxic ingredients for natural hair. How ironic is it that a product marketed as a moisturizer actually contains ingredients that block your hair from absorbing and retaining moisture?! You need to avoid sulfates, silicones, parabens, mineral oil and petroleum. If you must use products with these ingredients, choose products that have little of these ingredients lower on the list as ingredients are always listed from highest to lowest concentration. Try to look for more natural ingredients that contain essential oil and humectants like olive oil, castor oil, honey and glycerin. Grease and pink oil moisturizer (and products similar to it) are not your friends! When you check the ingredients list, you will find that petroleum and mineral oil are one of the first three ingredients. Not hot! These ingredients are notorious for blocking moisture. It’s a sealant. If you put these ingredients on dry hair, you’re sealing in dryness and blocking out moisture. Invest in quality products. The right products make all the difference. Trust me!

*Water is your best friend! Black women have been taught that water is a Black girl’s hair enemy. Maybe it is when you have a perm, but your natural hair just can’t get enough of it! Surprisingly, a lot of women still believe that water dries the hair out. I’ll never understand why since logically, that doesn’t make sense. Water is the ultimate moisturizer. Our bodies are comprised mostly of water. Our doctors are always telling us that we need to drink more water-eight cups a day! We cleanse our bodies in water. We can’t live without water. So if our bodies need water, why would we think our hair didn’t? How could we possibly think that water could be bad for us? I’m here to break the myth for you. It’s Not! If you’re not giving your hair water, you’re depriving it from growth!

*Take the kick out of your shampoo! Earlier, we talked about some bad ingredients for natural hair. Well, shampoos contain a very harsh, detergent cleansers called sulfates. Sulfates are so harsh that they actually strip hair of its natural oils and moisture. This is why conditioners were created-to restore the PH balance and replace the moisture that was loss during the shampoo process. Shampoos don’t have to contain sulfates to cleanse your hair, and if you’re using the proper hair care products, you shouldn’t have so much product build up in your hair that can’t be washed out by a sulfate-free shampoo. However, if you have used some silicone-based products, you may have to use a sulfate shampoo to remove the silicone from your hair. There are a ton of natural and organic hair care lines that make sulfate-free cleansers. View the product recommendations page for suggestions. If you do decide to use a sulfate shampoo, counteract the negative affects by trying the pre-poo treatment method. That’s rinsing your hair with oil or conditioning prior to shampooing to give the hair a moisture boost so that not so much moisture is stripped from shampooing. Add your oil or conditioner first, let it sit. DO NOT rinse. When you are ready to shampoo, apply the shampoo directly to the hair while the conditioner or oil is still in it. Try not to shampoo more than once or twice a month.

*Consider the low-poo or no-poo method. Low-poo refers to shampoo diluted with water. No-poo refers to the co-washing method created by Lorraine Massey in her book “Curly Girl.” No poo means the same thing as co-washing or rinsing (conditioner washing). Some naturals do not use shampoo at all due to the harsh effect cleansers have on hair. These individuals opt to co-wash instead of using shampoo. Conditioner has all the nourishing properties that shampoo lacks. Conditioners moisturize, replenish and repair. Co-washing is best with minimal product use, or if you use a lot of products, that you use natural/organic products with water soluble ingredients. Co-washing helped to eliminate all of the problems I had with dryness and retaining moisture. Try it, and I promise you won’t be disappointed!

*Be gentle with your hair. The curly/coily nature of natural hair makes it prone to tangling and knotting. Detangling is probably one of the processes most naturals complain about the most. For some it can be easy, and for others it can take a lot of time and patience to get through. First, NEVER take a comb to your dry hair. You’ve probably noticed by now that your hair is most pliable and easy to manipulate when it’s wet. So things like detangling need to be done while the hair is still wet. At least, dampen the hair or apply a moisturizer before you get to picking and combing. Please realize that it is not necessary for you to have to comb your naps daily. YOUR HAIR IS NOT STRAIGHT ANYMORE. IT’S NOT NECESSARY TO COMB NATURAL AHIR. I don’t care what anybody tells you. If you’ve tried to comb your dry hair, you already know about the snap, crackle, pop! That’s the sound of your comb snagging on the bends of your hair and breaking it off trying to make its way through. On the contrary, detangle your hair while it is still wet, preferably loaded with conditioner. Let the conditioner soak into your hair for a minutes, then separate your hair into four or more sections with your fingers and pin them up. Finger part out a small section out of one of the big sections. Take a wide tooth comb (never use a comb with small teeth-disaster in the making) and gently work it through the section. Start from the ends of your hair holding the root as not to cause stress from jerking motions. Slowly wok your way up the section of hair until the roots. Do this with the rest of the large section. Take the finished detangled section and pin it up or twist it then move to the next section until you’re done. There are lots of detangling products that have lots of slip to aid in detangling. Check out the product recommendations page.

*Having a hard time working with thick hair, consider sectioning. When you have thick hair (unless it’s wet), that whole rub the product in your hands and rub all over just doesn’t work. You really need to manipulate your hair in sections, especially when applying product. For products to be effective, you need to get full coverage. When you just attempt to rub all over, you will probably miss sections of your hair. Sectioning can also make shampooing, detangling and styling much easier. When hair is sectioned, it is easier to get the product to every section of hair and your scalp. Having a hard time getting your hair saturated, lathered or water to your scalp when shampooing? Dilute shampoo with water in a spray bottle and spray directly on scalp and hair.

*Never wet and loose. I frequent a sight called Nappturality, and I first heard of this technique on that website. A member posted this suggestion, and for those who tried it, it seems to work quite well. I will provide a link to that topic momentarily. The gist is for your hair to never be wet and loose at the same time on the premise that when natural hair is wet it will shrink more and be prone to tangle. So you detangle your hair very well once, then put your hair in a protective style. You only shampoo or wet your hair while it is still in a protective style. Then when your hair is completely dry, you take down your protective style and wear it loose. Then repeat the cycle. It is explained in much more detail here: link. Night Time/Baggy Method/Stretching. I used to wet my hair daily, which took care of dry, smooshed curls, but not everyone can wet their hair daily. And honestly, nobody wants to deal with wet hair all the time-especially in the winter months. So preserving the hair at night becomes an essential part of the hair routine. First, you want to make sure your hair doesn’t dry out over night. This is where the baggy method comes into play. The baggy method consists of leaving a leave-in conditioner/moisturizer in your hair over night. You put a conditioning cap on to seal in the moisture and prevent leakage. Then you may cover your head again to prevent that from coming off while you sleep. Or you can just make sure you moisturize your hair well at night, then cove with a satin cap or scarf. Another method you might consider is stretching. Stretching allows you to naturally stretch out the hair strand so it doesn’t shrink too much, tangle or mat while you are sleep. The easiest and most popular way to stretch is with twists or braids, but you can also stretch hair using the banding technique. Banding is just taking snag-free hair ties/rubber bands and spacing them out on sections of hair. Cover with you satin cap or scarf. In the morning, all you have to do is loosen your twist, braids or bands and fluff to style.

*Use your hands. A lot of times, you don’t really need a comb at all except for detangling. If you use your fingers first, detangling will be a little easier also. However, your hands are the best tools you have for apply product, sectioning and parting. When applying product, instead of rubbing it all over with your hands, use your fingers to rake the product through your hair from roots to ends through each section. When twisting /braiding your hair, part with your fingers. It looks more natural and more full. Exact parts can look artificial and scalpy.