WHY YOU REMEMBER YOUR HAIR BEING DIFFICULT TO HANDLE (FOR THOSE WHO FEAR TRANSITIONING)

 The beautiful Munachi Abi

Want to transition but fear that your hair would not be as soft as the Naturals around you?  Here are 5 reasons why you remember your hair being dry, hard and difficult to handle.

1. No deep-conditioning: As a child, I can't remember anyone taking the time out to deep condition my hair. At the time, the only hair type that got that preferential treatment was relaxed hair (remember placenta? ^.^). The sad part is that today, most relaxed ladies in Nigeria don't even get their hair treated (steamed) in salons or  at home by themselves. This could be the reason why a lot of us have hair that never seems to grow.

Black hair needs to be moisturised because it easily gets dry; no thanks to weather and a few other factors.

What has changed?

Now Naturals know that deep conditioning keeps the hair moisturised for long periods of time so we don't joke with this part of hair care.

2.Combing: Back in the day, the combs used to comb our hair had little spaced bristles (rat tail comb). Even with tears streaming down your face, the stylists wanted smooth/knotless hair and smooth/knotless hair they got.  Using the wrong type of combs to detangle our hair means that a lot of us have bad memories of our hair being hard and difficult to handle. Stories of black hair breaking combs and crying spells during hair grooming sessions are popular amongst Nigerian (African) women.

What has changed?

These days, we stick to using the wide tooth comb and some naturals on youtube have done a good job of showing us how we can do without using a comb by finger-detangling our hair. You can show your stylist how to do this or you can find a salon that has stylist(s) who know how to take out the knots of your hair without causing damage. Remember, less manipulation = length retention.

3.No emphasis on conditioning: As most Nigerian women know, more emphasis was and is still placed on getting the hair clean without putting much thought into conditioning. So for instance, your hair will be washed 2-3 times and conditioned once with little or diluted conditioner.

What has changed?  Now we understand that the pH of shampoos causes the cuticles to open up. If the hair is not properly conditioned after shampooing, the hair cuticles stay that way when it gets dry, causing it to feel rough and dry. With this knowledge gained, we know that we can get better results by washing our hair once or twice with a shampoo/bar and following up with a THICK rinse-out-conditioner like Vo5 to close our cuticles and end up with soft , smooth hair. Remember that to have manageable afro hair, emphasis should be placed on conditioning and not just cleansing.

4.We got re-united with black soap: Yes, we totally forgot about the benefits of black soap and fell hard for imported shampoos. While I have nothing against shampoos, I have observed that they can leave black hair feeling hard and dry.

What has changed?

Quite a number of us have found the goodness that is black soap again. I used the word 'again' because our great-grand mothers used this soap to wash both hair and skin but for whatever reason most of our mothers and salons did not use this on our hair (for those who knew black soap, it was strictly for the skin). Unlike most shampoos you will find, African black soap leaves afro hair feeling soft during and after washing.

5.Much love for the LOC method: Taking care of natural has progressed from what you used to know. Among others, you will hear terms and techniques like finger detangling, low heat tension method, and my favourite; the LOC method (click on link to read more). These new techniques have made taking care of natural hair easier and cheaper. Yes, cheaper because you can do most of them by yourself; saving you the cost of frequent salon visits.

So now that you know, please go head and take the steps you need to get healthy hair. If you prefer your hair being relaxed still do your research by visiting other natural hair blogs and sites because what most of us preach is healthy hair and most of the techniques that work for natural hair will work for chemically treated hair.

3 Months of Hair Freedom

For some of us 'free-fro-care' hours are a luxury. Type 4 hair is beautiful but as it gets longer, so does the time and effort to keep it healthy increase. See below for a brief description of what my regimen can be like...

Day 1 (Prepoo): Apply oil and put on a plastic cap, tie a head wrap and dash out of the house. Return home, wash hair, deep condition and braid. 

Day 2 : Hair is still damp so I  apply leave in conditioner, detangle, seal and braid or thread.

Day 3: Hair is dry so I loosen the thread or braids and style.

Too much? I know, but wetin man go do? *sighs.

Tired, I thought of ways that one could reduce the amount of time and money spent on our hair every week without getting bald and the solution?....

PROTECTIVE STYLING!

Want a break from your tight curls? Then get a protective style. With the right style and techniques you can expect length retention without doing much. 

But before running to the market square, I came up with a short list of tests that my protective style/regimen must pass for it to be worth sharing with others.

1.Time spent on daily styling must not exceed 10 miutes

2 month old twists

2.Wash day must not be a 12 hour event
3.Because a healthy scalp will produce healthy hair, the scalp must be accessible,and
4.Hair must be healthy after take down-with a reasonable amount of shedding of course

If any of this points gets a zero...as in if I so much as suffer from a dry and scaly scalp during this time, the trial would get a big red X 

BEFORE STYLING

Hair was washed, deep conditioned, sealed and stretched, ready for styling.

AFTER STYLING

The first week was relatively easy. All I had to do was tie the twists at the back of my hair in a big knot during the day and tie a satin scarf at night. The good thing about this easy every day style was that I could control how much tension the twisted extensions put on my hair line and it took me seconds to tie the twists up.

Weekly maintenance: By the third week, I needed to moisturise my hair so I used that opportunity to wash it and clean my scalp (using NN black soap). When it got a bit dry, I applied castor oil to the roots and sprayed on the hair a mixture of Natural Nigerian leave in conditioner, water, and coconut oil.

SECOND MONTH

By this time, my hair had started looking frizzy but it did not look bad at all. I still got compliments and random strangers asking what and how many extensions I used. (See picture above)

Weekly Maintenance: Hair was kept clean (as stated above) and moisturised. To protect my edges, I took down the extensions and loosely re-twisted each section without using extensions. I don’t think anyone could tell the difference because my hair texture and that of the extensions were not that far apart.

 

Twists get swollen when wet.

THIRD MONTH

By the third month, the parts at the roots were beginning to close-up. To be sure that my hair was not breaking, too dry, or shedding unnaturally, I took down a few twists and noticed something…length! Nice!!

Because the twists were now super frizzy I began brushing my hair with a soft brush (almost daily),and to keep those strands down,I used eco styler gel. But this meant that I had to wash my hair more often.

SOLUTION: Spritz  hair with daily moisture mix (NN leave in, coconut oil and water), smooth hair down with my palms and then tie a satin scarf. 
No more worries about time, damaged hair cuticles, and sticky edges.

By the second week of the third month, I began hearing snapping sounds whenever I had to take the twists apart to oil my scalp. 

What was happening? O_0
The new growth at the root of one section was getting entangled with the sections closest to it. Matting had begun.

SOLUTION: Take down :(

TAKE DOWN MADE EASY

To reduce breakage, I put some olive oil in a spray bottle and sprayed each individual twist from the root to where my hair stopped before loosening . This helped, especially with the hair strands that had begun to get entangled with the extensions.

 

 End Result

So did I get all I wanted? Yes, I did not loose hair (#4), did not suffer from dandruff and dry scalp during and after this time (#2 and #3), and best of all I had 3 months of mane freedom! (#1)

Did I encounter any problems? The only problem worth sharing is that I had to trim off some new growth at my edges-twice. This is because the free hair was growing longer but I was not brushing it (for fear of breakage) and so it began to matt, forming into a small fine lock (dada)

Did I learn anything during this period? Yes, I learnt that...

-Type 4 hair is better off with little manipulation

-Natural hair does not need to be time and money consuming

-Travelling for long periods at a time or having a busy life in general does not have to be more stressful because you have natural hair and

-I think I'm going to get my hair locked at some point in my life :)

  
Lets hear from you, can you carry a style for more than 3 weeks? If No, tell us why and if yes, please share your hair type and regimen .

Chimamanda Rocks Thread on GuardianLife!

 

More Hairinpiration Ms. Chimamanda...

 

Now, how can people look at her mane and call it boring or ugly? Lord knows I'm at a loss of which style to copy...

Pictures From Capital Naturals

Registration...

The attendees

Can you spot the creator of Bino and Fino in the pic above? ^_^  that should be easy.

Shopping, shopping, & mingling....

...bad girl, to your room this instant! ^_^

the cutest Naturalista in the Booj

 I love those braids...

Faux fro put up in a bun

The vendors

It was great having you lovely ladies and gents attend the first natural meet-up in Bee-You-Jay!!!  Thank you for coming. Honestly, I was scared that no one would turn up.
Much appreciation also goes to the vendors  who supported  CN, and the Manager and Staff of Casalinda.  It was a joy meeting and working with you..
Hope to see you all very soon at the next meet-up.
Peace, Heart, Natural.
Bye!

P.s: Stay tuned for a post on the vendors.