Winterise your Hair - Hair Care in dry, cold conditions

When it comes to the effects of winter on hair, I think there’s a general consensus across board that the tough weather conditions – cold temperatures outside and dry indoor heating can be damaging to hair and skin. 

I digress. 

In winter, I normally shower 2 or 3 times a day in order to keep my skin adequately mosturised. I certainly don’t have to...neither do I want to have a bath or take a shower frequently while it sub-zero outside! But I have found that the best time to work on my skin is in winter. Normally I use a heavy body milk or crème in combination with body oil, although currently I use just the body oil, right after stepping out of the shower.

Back to hair…

So, winter can be a blessing if you choose to see it that way. Personally, I believe it’s the best time to not only grow your hair out, but also super-pamper it. Right now my hair is in twists – since October.  I plan to take them out in a couple of weeks and this is what I intend to do:

• Take twists out gently, finger comb all the way.
• Once twists are out, saturate hair in Amla Oil (you can get this for about €3.50 from any health store)EVOO or coconut oil and leave over night
• Rinse oil out and shampoo
• Do a heavy protein treatment – Aphogee
• Condition, condition, condition (I will be using Roux Porosity Control at some point)
• Roller-set

I intend to wait 2 weeks max before I retouch. After retouching, here’s what I intend to do for about a month before braiding again:

• Wash hair with same frequency during summer, but use more moisture based products. Hair really needs a lot of moisture in winter, because of the dry weather conditions.
• Deep condition 3 or 4 times a week
• Condition/moisturise daily
• Use heavier oils for hot oil treatments – normally I use sweet almond oil, but will be using Extra Virgin Olive Oil and/or Castor oil this winter
• Air dry at ALL TIMES! – I won’t be using any heat styling appliances this winter

Apart from the pointers above, here are some other suggestions:

• Avoid going out with wet hair, you risk severe breakage, especially in sub zero conditions.
• Stay far away from greasy hair products – pomades, hair creams, lotions etc, anything petroleum-based.
• Don’t forget your scalp needs love too
• Keep all chemical processes to a minimum
• Become BFFs with a hood dryer, or least with someone who has one!
• Invest in Extra Virgin Coconut Oil. I bought a jar from www.i-Herb.com. I couldn’t find anything in Barcelona, so I looked state-side. A 950g jar costs about $14 and shipping is $7 (airmail, unregistered). They have a promotion right now, whereby shipping cost by DHL is just $10.
• Don’t forget to take care of yourself – there’s no use having a beautiful head of hair and ill-health.

Well, I hope this article has been helpful some way. Please leave feedback.

Hair Products

Below is a collage of some of my hair products.

Transitioning

I was inspired to do a piece on transitioning from relaxed hair to chemical-free hair (I don’t like to use the term natural hair, because I believe as long as it’s growing out of your scalp it’s natural, be it dyed, relaxed, texturised etc)

How can you talk about this since you relax your hair?

Well, I have transitioned twice in the past and so am able to look at the pro and cons from the inside and out.  In my opinion, here are some of the important points to ponder when considering returning to an unaltered state of hair…

Why am I transitioning?

This is a very important question, the most important if you ask me. Just like every other thing in life, a purpose for a thing has to be established before going into it, otherwise failure is inevitable. A fair amount of people who transition do so because their hair is in an irreparably damaged state, as a result of sustained improper application of chemical relaxers and/or poor grooming habits.

Other people make the decision to transition out of the conviction that unaltered hair is part of their identity and who they are.

Strangely enough for others, the decision to transition is born out of a desire to be more adventurous and explore alternative hairstyles and grooming methods.

What do I need to know?

I am a firm believer in the need to get wisdom and understanding before embarking on any project, therefore I would advise anyone thinking about transitioning to read, read, read, especially if this is the first time/attempt.

In my case, after I got over the shock (1^st transition) of not recognising the person in the mirror, I constantly struggled with grooming. I had no idea what to do, worse still, no one I knew at that point knew what to either, not even my hairdresser.  

So began the trial and error phase:

Error 1 – trying to get it to look ‘relaxed’/straight

Error 2 – constantly applying heat

Error 3 – washing only once a week and keeping water/moisture based products away from the hair – that’s the worst thing you could do.

Error 4 – using products meant for relaxed hair

Error 5 – constantly combing and brushing hair

Error 6 - not getting enough information before starting

Error 7 – thinking since hair is in its absolute state, it can be treated anyhow (afro hair is extremely fragile and should be treated as such)

Error 8 – hoping and praying it would ‘sleep’/lay down at some stage in the future (don’t even think about it if you have type 4b/4c hair like mine)

Error 9 – thinking your type 4b/4c unaltered hair will be the same as someone with 3a/3b hair type

Error 10 – cutting off your hair as a result of some live changing experience is not the same as transitioning – just means you want to cut off your hair!

Error 11 – applying just a little relaxer or texturiser to ‘help it along’. Once you do that you are back to square 1.

To chop or not to chop?

At some point, those who wish to transition will have to cut off their relaxed ends. Some wait till the hair’s grown to a certain point, other go ahead with the big chop as soon as they can. I believe the big chop is best option – get it over and done with and start getting used to the new hair. You grieve, you move on.

I think a lot of people who go the other route, i.e. growing out the hair and then cutting off the relaxed ends are complicating things. Some people have been known to change their minds after seeing all the new growth and how much hair they would have to cut off. I would definitely do the big chop and then lovingly care for my hair and watch it grow.

What should I be prepared for?

Hang-ups.

A lot of women of African origin have never wore their hair unaltered and so do not know how to react when they see someone with hair that has not been chemically treated. Folks will say what folks will say, so it’s best to develop a thick skin. In the words of my mother, who by the way has supported every hair change I have ever been through - ‘emphasise your cheek bones, embrace colour and wear earrings’ – I have to admit this advise was specifically for me as I am petite with a square shaped face…yeah I know.

I did a big chop during my first transition; actually, it was more like a big shave, and looked like a 12 year old boy. But with blush, bold eye shadow and earrings (normally I don’t wear them), I managed to pull off a look that inspired many people and produced copy-cats.

Last words

I love healthy natural hair in all states…to each her own. No one has a right to make anyone feel inferior because of their hair texture or how they choose to wear their hair. It’s what’s underneath the head, not what’s on it that matters.

Homemade Hair Lightener

When I started my healthy hair journey, I knew one of the first things I would have to stop using is hair dye. This was the most agonizing part of the whole process as I LOVE colour. I have dyed my hair blonde, red and everything in between. The only hair colour I never tried is indigo or blue-black. I never wore this colour because I didn’t think it was a shade that would accentuate my hue, given that my undertones are warm and not cool (blue or pink).

There’s a really cool trick to find out undertones if you have visible veins. Have a quick look at underside of your wrist; if your veins are greenish in colour, then you fall into the warm category. If they are bluish to violet in colour, then you have cool undertones.

Anyway, back to hair. Just a few months into my healthy hair regime, I find myself fantasising about colour and I knew I had to find homemade/natural remedies because I wanted to eliminate the temptation of chemically dyeing my hair. A lot of prominent hair-dressers specialising in hair of African origin advise against dyeing relaxed hair.

After several hours of deliberation and pouring through alternative beauty books, I decided to go the lemon juice and honey route. Here’s what I used:

• 1/2 medium sized lemon (juiced)
• 80g Honey
• 150ml distilled water (you can use bottled water with low mineral composition)
• 1 bowl
• Shower cap

Here’s what I did:

• I mixed the honey and lemon in the bowl, stirring until the honey appeared to have ‘dissolved’ (it never really does and will settle at the bottom once you stop stirring)
• Then I added the water – you don’t really have to add water, but lemon juice is very acidic and tends to dry out hair, so I added the water to inhibit the process.
• Then I added the mixture to my hair, which was already shampooed twice. I did not condition after shampooing, but before I added the lemon-honey mixture I added coin sized portions of Roux porosity control corrector & conditioner (to keep the tangles away and to help with even distribution of colour) and a protein hair solution to balance out the acidity of the lemon juice.

NOTE: Hair in its natural state is acidic and relaxers are alkaline, some more than others, so the occasional acidic rinse is helpful.

After putting the mixture in my hair, I covered it with a shower cap and sat under a dryer for about 30 minutes. It can be kept on for longer, but since this was the first time, I decided to rinse it out after 30 minutes.

After rinsing the mixture out, I used the Aphogee 2 minute reconstructor. After combing through for even distribution, I put the shower cap back on for about 45 minutes without heat and then rinsed it out.

Styling was done as usual – water based moisturiser, leave-in conditioners, then an oil based moisturiser or oil (sweet almond oil or hemp oil) to seal it all in.

Results:

There were no drastic changes, but I noticed a slight lightening, with gold tones. That’s good enough for me right now. I hope to repeat the process in 2 weeks time. Will keep you posted.

I hope this has been helpful. If you do decide to try this, please let me know how it went and what results you got. Thanks.

Hair Wash Day pt. II

Before I start, I would like to deal with several well-known myths:

• Our hair is difficult to wash/manage, so should not be washed often
• Greasy hair is good, so our hair should only washed once every two weeks
• Moisture is not good for our hair (biggest myth out there, because our hair loves and needs moisture)
• Heat makes our hair behave (wrong! Frequent use of heat on relaxed hair further weakens it)
• The hotter the hair dryer the better (wrong again! Too much heat literally fries hair! – if you get the burning smell at any time when drying hair, STOP IMMEDIATELY)
• If it works for caucasian hair, it’ll work for me (not necessarily true)

As we all know, our hair is completely different from other hair types, not only because of the shape and texture, but also because its needs are very different.

For example caucasian (white) hair tends to get greasy and sometimes smelly when dirty, which is why most of them wash daily. Our hair in contrast tends to get very dry after a few days wash, because our hair produces less natural oils than other hair types. So daily washing is certainly not advised, neither is fortnightly washes; our hair needs moisture.

So where is the balance?

I’ll take you through what works for me and I expect should work for other with my hair type, 4A or 4B.

Normally, I –

• Wash my hair twice a week – condition, shampoo, deep condition (DCi-ng affects the cuticle, the outer layer of hair);
• Use a hair reconstructor weekly or fortnightly, depending on what my hair needs (with time, you’ll realise your hair will tell you exactly what it needs) and
• Do a heavy protein treatment every six weeks.

Every other week, I use Roux Porosity Control Shampoo and conditioner. It would be impossible to explain the purpose of these products in a few sentences, so I will dedicate an entire write up to them.

Here’s how I do it:-

Some people pre-poo their hair overnight before they wash using EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), I think this is ok; I sometimes include this step, but not all the time.

The first thing I do is condition, if it’s a little tangled, I may run a wide-toothed comb through it, if not, I do not comb. I use Revlon Flex conditioning crème; I let it saturate. At this point I comb the hair and if it’s still a bit tangled, I don’t force the comb through my hair, I leave it.

Hair is rinsed after about 5 minutes. During this process, I comb the hair in sections. I find that when water runs through the hair, it’s easier to comb. Water is the best detangler for our hair type.

Next stage is the shampoo stage.

Our hair is naturally dry, so should stay away from shampoos that’ll dry out your hair this means stay away from shampoo specially formulated for caucasian hair as almost all of them strip hair of natural oils. I always read the ingredients on hair product before I buy them; I suggest you do the same.  

Later on I’ll do a series on shampoos and what to look out for, but for now do not buy shampoos which contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (please note that this is different from Sodium Laureth Sulfate)

I alternate between Crème of Nature Kiwi & Citrus Ultra Moisturizing Shampoo for dry and brittle hair and Dove Intense Damage Therapy Shampoo (your hair doesn’t have to be damaged for you to use this; relaxed hair needs all the help it can get!) The shampoo is applied just once and I concentrate more on the scalp with a gentle massage. I don’t let it sit on hair for too long before rinsing.

After the shampoo rinse-out, the next step is a deep-condition with a mild protein treatment/conditioner/mask. I alternate between Dove Therapy Reviving Mask, Nelly Hair Mask (native to Spain) and Xheken Capilar - I use this in combination with Elvive Smooth Intense Anti- Frizz conditioner. Another great DC-ing product is Hair Cholesterol.

Apply the DC in sections and comb through hair from the roots to the ends.

After this, I put on a shower cap and sit under a dryer for about half an hour, sometimes more. When I come out from under the dryer, I rinse my hair generously with tepid water and style as usual (will do a write up soon on styling and the need to minimise heat)

I hope this piece has been helpful and that you enjoyed it! Please leave a comment.

...part 2 of 2 

Hair Wash Day pt. I

I decided to blog today about how to wash African hair (unaltered or relaxed) because I think it is extremely to know how to wash our hair and keep it in tip-top condition.

As a lot of us already know, this matter is one of great controversy and most times confusion. Over the years a lot of wash theories and methods have been bandied – wash once a week, wash every fortnight, co-wash (shampoo-less ‘washing’, done only with a conditioner), pre-poo (pre-shampoo), and dry washing (washing without water – don’t know how this was achieved, but I reckon it’ll be fun to watch!),  to name a few.

While I understand that everyone has different hair needs and that there will always be exceptions, what I intend to do today is give you an idea of what I do and how it works for me and for other people I help out.

Because of the wealth of information available, I’ll split this into 2 sections starting with how to wash natural hair.

Washing Miss Boo’s hair

My beautiful niece is 5 years old and has natural 4B type hair that's grown past her shoulders (check out your hair type here.) Thankfully, her parents intend to keep it that way – natural.

I got to spend a couple of days with them, and was asked by her mom to help with her hair. Here are the steps we took:

• The first thing we did was release the hair from the afro-puffs she had. I did not comb her hair at this stage because it was very dry.
• To start the wash, I made sure the water was tepid, and not too hot, as too hot water could further dry out the hair. I ran the water over her hair several times to remove the residue and dregs.
• Then I conditioned gently using Revlon Flex Conditioner. I applied this in sections allowing it to permeate the hair, while lightly massaging the scalp.
• After rinsing out the conditioner, I shampooed the hair with Crème of Nature Kiwi & Citrus Ultra Moisturizing Shampoo once. I worked it through the hair from the roots up, starting with a light scalp massage.
• I rinsed out the shampoo, gently squeezing out excess water. Then I applied Elvive Smooth Intense Anti- Frizz conditioner. I mixed this with a light/mild protein treatment  - I used Xheken Capilar, but any ol’ mild protein treatment will do. I divided her hair into four sections and worked the conditioner and protein treatment into her hair gently. When a section was fully saturated, I used a wide tooth comb starting from the roots and working my way up to the ends. After combing through each section, the hair was held with section clips.
• After the conditioning/protein treatment process, her hair was rinsed generously with tepid water.
• Subsequent to the final rinse, I applied several water based moisturisers generously to her hair, starting from the roots and working my way upwards.
• Then, I applied sweet almond oil to her hair, to seal in moisture.
• Her hair was then left to air dry a little bit.

She had her hair plaited after that and it was very easy to manage because it was fully moisturised. Half way through when it started to dry out, I applied JOHNSONS® BUDDIES™ Easy-comb Detangler, which kept it adequately moisturised and without tangles.

...part 1 of 2

Why Michelle's Hair Matters

Below is a link to great article on how Michelle Obama wears her hair and what it signifies.

Why Michelle's Hair Matters

Traction Alopecia

Traction Alopecia simply means hair loss resulting from traction (deliberate and prolonged pull). See Picture 1

Unlike other causes of hair loss – shifts in hormonal levels (menopausal or pregnant women), heredity, poor diet and hygiene habits, outstanding health issues, e.g. thyroid maladies, stress induced illnesses, traction alopecia is self-inflicted.

Traction Alopecia is a major cause of hair loss among women of African origin. It's due to the excessive stress and tension applied to hair while executing several cultural hair practices or procedures, such as hair braiding or threading.

These practices when carried out properly are fantastic hair growth tools, but when this is not the case, hair loss is inevitable, sometimes to catastrophic proportions.

How do I identify traction?

• Does your scalp hurt while you are getting your hair braided?
• Does the part or your scalp with braids already in feel sour and tender?
• Do you experience a mild throbbing while and/or after getting braids done?
• Do you experience a constant tingling feeling while and/or after getting braids done?
• Are you unable to smile or move facial muscles after getting braids?
• Are you unable to sleep after getting braids put in?
• Do your braids feel too heavy?
• Do your braids start exactly from your hairline?
• Do the braids at the hairline pull out hair follicles from their roots? (you know its pulled from the roots if the end of the  hair is white)

If you answered yes to any of the questions, then you may be a prospective candidate for the self-inflicted hair loss a.k.a ‘Mama Eko’ syndrome.

How can I avoid traction?

Very simple, do not apply excessive or disproportionate force/tension to hair while braiding. If you do not do your own braids, school your hairdresser or braid specialist on how to handle your hair and scalp. Even if she tells you ‘ah auntie, the hair will not be neat o’, let her know a ‘not so neat’ hair style is better than hair loss.

Other Dos:

• Do lovingly deep condition hair before and after each braid service (the common practice is applying a chemical relaxer to the hair after taking out braids – this is VERY VERY bad!)
• Do wash scalp and braids at least once a week (not washing braids because they go bad is a myth – I will do a special in the near future on braid care)
• Do tease out hair along the hairline if you are getting individual braids; apply gel to keep it down. (If the gel is too thick or tends to get flaky, mix it with a little water and oil or you can use aloe vera pulp instead)
• Do keep hair adequately moisturised
• Do wear a scarf when going to bed
• Do use an oil based moisturiser, a.k.a Pink Oil to base the scalp when getting your hair braided instead of the normal hair food or hair cream as we know them in Naija (most hair creams contain petrolatum and mineral oils which do hair no good whatsoever; they not only clog the pores, they also make hair greasy…no, greasy hair is not good)
• Do resist the urge to pull hair tightly in a ponytail. Pulling hair tightly in a ponytail a.k.a The Croydon Facelift also causes Traction Alopecia
• Do stay away from the use of alcohol or ‘spirit’ on the scalp. I know this is a common practice in Naija to use these to ‘clean’ the scalp while with braids, but this dries out the scalp; next stop dandruff.

Ok, so I think I already have Traction Alopecia, what do I do?

Well the first thing you have to do is take those braids out if you have you hair braided right now. Yes, I know you paid good money for them, but I would advise you to take them out for your own good.

Secondly, give your hair a break! Let your hairline recuperate. How? By wearing your own hair for a while, no braiding with extensions a.k.a attachment or attach and no weaves. If Traction Alopecia is not addressed quickly, it can lead to permanent hair loss. Wearing a wig in Naija is just not imaginable, believe me I know.

Thirdly, try to minimize hair pulling or excessive combing or brushing. Also try to minimise the use of heat on the hair.

A daily massage of the area with hemp oil is highly recommended, as this stimulates hair growth…no, not ‘igbo’, Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) is completely different from Cannabis/marijuana (Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica). Hemp is rich in Omega 3, Omega 6 and Omega 9, amino acids (both essential and nonessential), vitamins and minerals.

I am not sure how readily available this is in Naija, but if you can't get hemp oil, you can use olive oil a.k.a anointing oil instead. Now I know we have an abundance of that!

Honey is another great hair stimulant and because it has antibacterial properties, it can also be used to combat dandruff. Simply apply to the area in question, scalp, not hair (I would advise using sparingly or in combination with your normal conditioner to avoid a sticky outcome - no pun intended) leave for about an hour and the rinse off. You can use this with a shower cap.

Cucumbers are also great. They are rich in silica, which is really good for hair. You can incorporate it into your diet...I know, I know...salad jokes...dem cook ya own? Another way to use it is to make into a paste and apply to the area in question.

Last words – Braids are beautiful and very creative, they aid hair growth and also serve at times as protective hair styles, but they are also the number one cause of Traction Alopecia in women of African origin. So where is the balance? Scalp conscious braids and a new attitude to hair care.

¡Hasta la Otra!