Everyone can achieve those gorgeous curl patterns in their natural hair the problem comes when you have damage hair. To make progress, you have to reduce the damage to your hair by creating a hair care routine that contributes to long healthy hair. When you wash, style, detangle or even touch your hair you have to be careful. Other factors can affect the health of your hair and cause damage as well. Lucky for your brittle hair you can help minimize damage in these areas and see hair growth.
Learn To Minimize The Manipulation
Manipulating your hair with styling and touching is an easy way to damage your hair. It would not be ideal for you to style your hair every day because you would be causing damage on a regular basis. Hair types like 4b and 4c have more textures and curls; that means more weak points that will break off easier. Particular fragile hair needs a little more time away from being manipulated with styling. The best practice is to keep your hair in a protective style about 80% to 90% of the time in twist or braids. Finger combing your hair instead of using a comb or brush helps to minimize damage from breakage. The protective style you choose all depends on your lifestyle and skills that are practical to you personally. I will sometimes braid my hair for a month and wear a wig over it at work. Other months I will do single braids with yarns and leave that for about a month. With these styles, I can keep my scalp moisturize and clean it every week.
Be gentle and have a routine that works for your hair. Causing damage to the hair is unavoidable, but you can minimize how much damage you cause on wash day, detangle, or when you want to style your hair. Keeping your hair protected from damage is the first step to preventing damage.
Keeping hair Moisturize
One sure fire way to contribute to hair breakage is allowing it to go dry; you will start to see split ends and slower hair growth. An excellent moisture routine is one of the key steps to maintaining healthy hair. You need more than water to moisturize your hair, it starts on the inside and protecting the outside. You have first to understand how to moisturize your hair to see results. Your moisturizer needs to be a water based solution; they need to penetrate the hair follicles to add moisture. You have a few oils like coconut, avocado, and olive oil that can penetrate the hair. Water and Aloe Vera juice and gel are great to hydrate the hair. What you must focus on is drinking water to keep your body hydrated. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%. Start with moisturizing your ends first because they are the oldest and most delicate part of your hair and usually the dry part of your hair. Move on to moisturize your roots add a little moisture just to damp the hair and massage the scalp for at least five minutes. Be sure to use sealants like butter and oils after moisturizing your hair to keep the moisture in. It all depends on how fast your hair drys on how often you should moisturize. You may have to moisturize every day, every other day, or just once a week, just makes sure your hair is not going dry.
Retaining Length of My Natural Hair & Moisturizing My Scalp
Keeping Heat Damage at Bay
Your natural hair is versatile, and you can style it in any way you want, but make sure you are protecting your hair along the way. Using heat is one way to achieve a new look and style, but it does dry out your hair considerably. No Mather the type of natural hair you have, minimize the amount of heat you use to see healthy hair growth.
Heat can do more than dry your hair out as a natural, frequent usage of heat styling tools on natural hair causes damage it in more than one way. Continue usage of heat tools can cause permanent loss of your natural curl pattern with the current growth you already have. Now this does not mean you can't use heat; it means not using it on a monthly basis. It will help to minimize damage and protect your curls. Help your hair stay healthy by using heat tools on a six month period. It is especially important if you are transitioning from relaxing to natural hair to avoid heat so you can see the new growth. If you are interested in stretching your hair, try using braids, twists, and African Treading. All these styles do not require heat and give you a gentle stretch to your curls. The improvement of your curls can show in as little as a month.
Avoid Harmful Chemical Damage
If you are using chemicals in your hair like Relaxers, Texturizers, and Hair Dyes they cause severe damage not only to your hair but scalp as well. The chemicals in these products cause your hair structure to change drastically. Each curl bend in your hair strand represents a weak point just waiting to break off. The ends of your hair are your oldest part so adding more damage to them only cause them to weakened and break. Talk to a hair care specialist and make sure to read any instructions provided with the product. Stay committed when transitioning, but make sure to continue practicing the same healthy hair habits to keep your healthy hair. Learn to, of course, leave your hair alone by putting it in protective styles, minimize heat usage along with moisturizing.
The End results It is important first to have patience with your hair to get it back to its healthy state. You have a consistent hair care routine to avoid along with preventing damage to your scalp and strands. Find a method that not only works with your schedule but one you have the patience to practice to see results. Even using all these tips will not help if you are not consistent with the products and routine you use. Take care of your hair for a few months before you start to worry about results. Before you know it you will have a head of long healthy hair you can style to your heart's content.
