Baby Steps

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So I wanted today’s blog to be about protective styles, but how can I talk about protective styles if you don’t know the basics of taking care of your hair? The first thing you need to know when it comes to taking care of your hair is that you need to create a HAIR CARE REGIMEN. This regimen will make or break your hair growth. There are five things every regimen MUST have:

1. .    Shampoo (Moisturizing and Clarifying)
2.       Conditioner (Moisturizing)
3.        Deep Conditioner
4.       Moisturizer (Leave in Conditioner or Distilled water) 
5.  sealing Oil (Coconut Oil, Castor oil, etc)

Shampoo

When you wash your hair you need a moisturizing and clarifying shampoo. The clarifying shampoo is  when your hair is LOADED with GUNK and just needs a fresh start, but if it doesn’t then you’ll be mostly using your moisturizing shampoo [that’s what I rely on]. Wash your hair once a week; this keeps your hair clean and nice. You can have your wash days on Fridays or whenever, mine are on Fridays or Saturdays.

(EX. Soft Sheen and Carson Break Thru)

Conditioner

After you wash your hair you must condition your hair…this is what’s going to tell how soft your hair will be after the washing process. When you go to choose a conditioner you want something that’s creamy, milk looking, and thick. Sometimes you still can’t tell how ‘moisturizing’ a moisturizing conditioner is so it could be a trial and error thing.

(EX. Giovanni Smooth as Silk Deeper Moisture Conditioner, Herbal Essences Hello Hydration)

Deep Conditioner

This is going to be something you do twice a month or whenever your hair needs a real pick me up. When you do deep condition treatments you need to leave the product in for 20 minutes - overnight. You can add to heat to help the product penetrate. This can be anything from a hot towel to sitting under a hair dryer.

(EX. Cholesterol)

Moisturizer

Leave in Conditioners are the best way to keep your hair moisturized after your hair is dried. Leave in Conditioners keep the hair strand moisturized without excessively weighing down the hair. If you run out of leave in you can put distilled water in a spray bottle and spray a little of that on your hair. [This doesn’t work too well with relaxed tresses so for flat ironed tresses, so I recommend using a small amount of leave in]

*A tip for Relaxed Tresses: If you want your hair to have a little extra shine to it put a dime size amount of leave in, in your hair and add a dime size amount of sealing oil. This will give it that just from the salon shine!

(EX. Direct Leave-In Weightless Moisture, Neutrogena Triple Moisture Silk Touch Leave In)

Sealing Oil

If you do not use sealing oil after the leave in/ or distilled water your hair will just dry up and out! So right after apply a dime size amount of coconut/castor/jojoba/olive/whatever you like oil evenly through your hair and on your scalp.

*Relaxed Tresses if you want to keep your hair light use coconut or grape seed oil! If you have areas or ends that are thinning apply castor oil to them. Castor oil helps increase new growth in that area (I can testify to that!)

(EX. Coconut oil, Jojoba oil, olive oil, Grapeseed oil, Avacaso oil)

I know this is a lot to take in and may be very overwhelming but once you get the products and start using them, things will smooth out!