Body and Beauty and Living-Naturally

I am no hair expert, but I have had natural Hair for about 7years. I also have two kids with natural hair. 

I suppose it would be useful to describe our hair so you can compare our routines to yours.

For ease of description, I’m using the Andre Walker system:

My own hair is somewhere around a type 4b…or z, my daughter has maybe 3b-ish type hair and my son has something similar to type 4a .

1a Straight (Fine/Thin) Very Soft and Shiny, Hard to hold a curl, hair tends to be oily, hard to damage.

1b Straight (Medium) Has lots of body. (i.e. more volume, more full)

1c Straight (Coarse) Hard to curl. (i.e. bone straight) Most Asian women fall into this category.

2a Wavy (Fine/Thin) Can accomplish various styles. Definite “S” pattern. Hair sticks close to the head.

2b Wavy (Medium) A bit resistant to styling. Hair tends to be frizzy.

2c Wavy (Coarse) Hair has thicker waves. Also resistant to styling. Hair tends to be frizzy.

3a Curly (Loose Curls) Thick & full with lots of body. Definite “S” pattern. Hair tends to be frizzy. Can have a combination texture.

3b Curly (Tight Curls) Medium amount of curl. Can have a combination texture.

4a Kinky (Soft) Tightly coiled. Very Fragile. Has a more defined curly pattern

4b Kinky (Wiry) Tightly coiled. Very Fragile. Less defined curly pattern. Has more of a “Z” shaped pattern.

We all do not use shampoo, instead, we wash with conditioner, this is popularly known as no-pooing.  You just wash as you normally would  using just your regular conditioner. Sometimes when the hair is very dry, we would do a deep conditioning treatment or hot oil treatment using virgin coconut oil, or even extra-virgin olive oil  or other Conditioning hair treatment:

 While washing, I’d comb thru with the wide toothed comb as this means there aren’t as manytangles later. After washing, IF i am not leaving hair loose, I’d immediately make it into a plait. At night, we also tend to have our hair in plaits if it isn’t in a weave or braided already.

After washing hair we use a hair oil, or butter to seal in moisture and keep hair moisturised….My favourite hair treaments include sheabutter, Virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil. I mix these with a my preferred essential oil. Essential oils I use include any combination of lavender, teatree, rosemary, ylangylang, peppermint. This butter or oil is also used on the scalp  as a moisturiser.

Once in a while, we do a clarifying rinse using diluted acv. You can also use soda-bicarbonate in water.

To be continued…

If you have any questions in the meantime, please ask in the comments section of this post.(ie below)

Tags: The Gist // 1 Comment »