On daily basis, all kinds of hair styles are evolving. It is very common now to see corporate female executives wear their natural hair. Some of them no longer bother about adding relaxers to their hair or adding hair extensions. This affirms that the natural hair is back for real.
Women are more conscious of who they are and how they carry themselves. Hence they take pride in their Africanness. While they love to wear their natural hair otherwise known as Kinky hair, some women don’t know how to maintain it.
Natural hair maintenance, just like the artificial one comes with its enormous challenges. What therefore matters is how every lady that decides to go natural can healthily maintain it.
The hair makes up a very crucial part of every woman. It says a lot about who a woman is. Her beauty, social class, religious status etc. can be obvious just by the way her hair looks.
Natural hair in the black community has been a hot topic for sometimes, with discussions ranging from its care to the debate surrounding its exclusivity. But one thing we can say for sure is that not everyone has the same experience with their own manes.
“Natural is natural”, everyone has their own natural hair but that is not to take away from the part of our journey that is specific to being a woman of color, and what it means is accept who you are. We tried for a while to measure up to a level of beauty that we see depicted in the media and so do think that is a very specific journey and experience for women of color, when you are natural.”
Mayowa Olawole, a student, describes going natural as challenging. She says she had once admired a woman wearing her natural.
However, Nneka Onuchukwu, who works at Cyber Space, describes her experience going natural for the first time is a horrible experience. “I see all my friends going natural and it looks good on them and so I decided join the bandwagons and go natural. She is learning to transit from her chemically relaxed hair to Kinky.
The impression most people have about going natural is that it is a lot of work, and that you constantly have to play around with your hair. On the contrary it is actually very simple. The trick is just to get out of the mindset of dealing with your hair when it was relaxed, and work with your kinks in a way that won’t make them rebel. You cannot treat natural hair the same way as you treated relaxed hair. I can’t stress this enough. But once you figure out the basic rules, you will have come up with a routine that works for you in no time and will actually start really looking forward to wash day so you can play with your hair .
Of course, everything has to be tweaked to each individual, and what works for one person will not necessarily work in the exact same way for the next. And we all know rules are made to be broken. But if you are at a loss about where to start, these tips may come in handy when caring for your natural hair:
Tips
Decide how often and on which days you will wash your hair. Obviously you must keep your hair and scalp clean and to do so, you need to have planned out days when this will get done. Everyone is different—the average natural washes her hair once per week while others who work out often may wash 2-3 times per week. It all depends on your lifestyle.
Moisture, moisture, moisture, is all our hair craves, and the best way to get moisture is from water itself, so make sure you are wetting your hair at least once a week. However:
Washing does not always mean shampooing! Most commercial shampoos contain sulphates- sodium laurel/laureth sulphate (SLS), or ammonium laurel sulphate (ALS). These strip your hair of natural oils, leaving it dry and brittle. Check the ingredients list to see if your normal shampoo contains these, and try and limit their use to only when you are experiencing heavy build-up. Switch instead to natural sulphate-free shampoos or clarifying cleansers such as Dr Bronner’s (make sure you dilute, and add an acidic substance such as lemon juice, to bring down the pH) or black soap, but even better, try ditching the shampoo every other wash and “cowashing” instead. This consists of washing hair with a cheap conditioner, such as Herbal Essences Hello Hydration, V05, or one in the Suave Naturals range.
Try and deep condition once a week, or once every two weeks, with a cone/mineral oil-free conditioner. If you feel your hair needs an additional boost, add honey, olive oil, shea butter or any other natural oil to your conditioner. Apply to hair, cover with plastic cap for at least 20 mins with a hooded dryer/hot towel/heat cap, or for an hour using just body heat (towel wrapped around your head to keep this in).
Never comb hair dry! The best method of combing hair is when wet or damp, and loaded with conditioner.
Keep hair moisturized between washes. There are many ways to do this, and many products to use, but my favorite is to mix a little leave in conditioner in a spray bottle with purified water and some oil (e.g. castor). Shake up, and spray on hair daily.
IJEOMA OMENI ASIEGBU
