courtesyofjerrica The journey of discovering your natural hair and constructing a natural hair routine is an adventure that explores a part of your self-awareness. The journey may be filled with ups and downs, trial and error, but learning your hair doesn’t have to break the bank or be a laborious process. When starting my natural hair journey in 2017, I splurged heavily on products, thinking I needed EVERY SINGLE cream or leave-in.
The first thing I learned along this journey is that having an abundance of products won’t do my hair any good if I didn’t: 1.) Have a consistent regimen, and 2.) Research and find products that work for me instead of mindlessly shopping.
You don’t have to fill your cabinets with a million and one products or have a 20 step hair routine to understand your hair.
There’s greatness in simplicity.
You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to master your natural hair routine. I have gathered some tips to help you establish a simple hair regimen and maintain healthy hair in this post.
Importance of Establishing a Regimen
To see some type of results with your natural hair, one thing that must be understood is being consistent with moisturizing your hair.
To be consistent, you need to have some sort of routine or plan to care for your hair.
Being consistent with your hair regimen can help maintain moisture in your hair, which helps minimize avoidable breakage and length retention. Once you’ve had enough experience with your hair, you can begin to gauge which products work best for you.
Another tip to consider is figuring out when to do your natural hair regimen. I like to alternate between doing my hair routine every week or every two weeks based on the time of year in my regimen. I do my routine once a week in the warmer months while doing it every two weeks in the colder months.
The best thing about constructing a natural hair routine is adjusting it to better fit your lifestyle. If you work out regularly or like to refresh your curls more, you can incorporate care between your wash days.
Shampooing
The first tip to acquire healthy hair is having clean hair and a clean scalp. It is also crucial to adjust your shampooing to your lifestyle. As I stated earlier, everyone varies. We all have different lifestyles; maybe you have an active life where you work out 6 days a week or perhaps a not-so-active lifestyle.
I personally recommend washing your hair once every week or every two weeks. It’s important to remember that the products you use can influence the type of shampoo you will need.
If you use lightweight and watery products to moisturize, you probably won’t need a harsh deep cleansing shampoo. However, suppose you use heavy creams, butters, and oils. In that case, I recommend using a deep cleansing and clarifying shampoo to help remove the grime and residue of the products.
Deep Conditioning
Because shampoo will remove any residue and grim on your hair from the previous styling, it also helps to know that it strips some of the hair’s natural oils. Deep conditioners are designed to help replenish the moisture loss from shampooing by penetrating the cuticle layer of the hair shaft and depositing nutrients.
Establishing a deep conditioning schedule aids in preventing damage caused by factors caused by the weather or manual manipulation.
Even though deep conditioning provides a significant number of benefits, it’s also helpful to remember not to overdo it. Deep conditioning for a prolonged time can lead to mushy, weak hair. A hair condition is called hygral fatigue.
Deep conditioning for 30 to 45 minutes is a reasonable duration. Anything over one hour is overkill.
On another important note, there must be some sort of balance between your use of moisturizing conditioners and protein-based treatments. Protein treatments provide restorative balance to the hair’s structure, while moisturizing deep conditioners provide intensive moisture, promoting elasticity. Too many protein-based treatments can cause your hair to become hard and stiff. On the contrary, the use of too many moisture-deep conditioners can cause your hair to become over moisturized and mushy.
Balance is key!
Moisturizing & Sealing
Moisturizing and sealing your hair is another crucial step in this process. Leave-ins and creams add another layer of moisture to the hair, while oils and butters seal that moisture in. Oils and butters serve the purpose of slowing down the escaping process of water.
Although you moisturize and seal, if you find your hair becomes dryer throughout the week, you can refresh your curls. Refreshing your hair throughout the week can be as simple as spritzing your hair with water/leave-in mix, leave-in spray, or hair elixir to give your curls a little more moisture until wash day.
Low Maintenance Styling
The main goal of low manipulation styles that reduce the less touching and manipulation. This helps prevent unnecessary breakage and helps retain length. Some styles that are low maintenance that you can try are Braids, Twists, Puffs, Buns, Flat twists, Braid-outs, and Twists-outs.
My go-to low-maintenance styles are braid-outs and twist-outs. However, I love to do mini-twists and braids to protect my hair when I’m active in the gym.
Understanding your Hair
The internet is filled with a mass amount of research on caring for your hair. It can become overwhelming to try to understand. It’s essential to listen to your hair. Your hair gives you many signs of what it needs, and you have to listen to it.
Your hair journey may not be a cakewalk, but it is unique to you and only you.
If you need some help with constructing a natural hair routine, I’ve created a simple hair routine that you can follow and build upon as you continue your hair journey. You can find it here!
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