Tuesday, November 22, 2011

My Hair Care Technique (4C Hair)

Okay, so there actually is not much I do to take care of my hair. The main thing is consistency and also as little fiddling with it as possible. This approach has seemed to be working pretty well so far, so I am going to stick to it. Also, I really really really resent having to put so much money towards hair care so my approach is also very stingy when it comes to dishing out money.


I am going to begin by saying that my hair is under a wig or some kind of weave most of the time. I would say about 70 % of the time. I usually wear half wigs because they are soooo easy to handle. When it comes time to condition I just take them off. The only full wigs I like to wear are the ones made by my sister, who also does hair and has a great blog ( http://www.theabbysworld.com/ ).

-I also like to do braids, but I do them very rarely and when i do do them I make them a little rough ( they are not tight at all and also I do not try to forcibly include the hairs on my edges). I actually believe braids are one of the biggest causes of hair loss, especially when they are done tight because tightness is equated with neatness. And can you imagine, as the micro braid that is done tightly swings back and forth, it is bound to break off the hairs because there is not enough hair left out to support that movement. It's really just my opinion. But I like to follow my instinct. In the year and 7 months I've been natural, I've done braids twice.


I made a video of the 2nd time I did braids. They were actually twists.



-When that two week mark comes (sometimes one week), if I feel like shampooing before I do a deep conditioning treatment I either use regular (sulfate free if i have) shampoo or I do an ACV rinse. An ACV rince is done with regular apple cider vinegar. 



I put a little in a water bottle and then I fill the bottle with water. I pour that in my hair and then rinse it out.The conditioner I use to do my deep conditioning treatment is the 1 dollar VO5 conditioner.


 Sometimes I get a lil fancy and add 2 eggs to some of the conditioner and also extra virgin olive oil and saturate my hair in this. How long I keep it in depends on my mood. This could be from 2 hours to over night (with some kind of plastic on my head to sleep with). After the conditioner has been on my hair for an hour (I wait an hour so that the hair can really soften), I do my detangle. I use a wide toothed comb 



(tried the denman brush, even one with many bristles missing, and it damn near ripped my skull off, so I don't use that) and work my hair section by section starting from my ends to my scalp. This is the only time I EVER comb my hair. After rinsing out the conditioner, I put leave in conditioner and some kind of oil (jojoba at the moment) and braid it up in preparation for a wig. When i leave it out I make sure to moisturize the same way (and also spray with water as frequently as possible). My hair eats it up.


-When my hair is in braids and I absolutely do not feel like taking it out to co-wash (washing with just conditioner) it, I slather the braids with conditioner/olive oil and rinse it out and then put leave in on my braids. Even with the braids in, I try to wet it every morning in the shower and put leave in/oil for that day (my hair would be very moisturized under the wig). I even at times wash it with the braids in.

-One thing to emphasize is that I put PLENTY of leave in in my hair when I am braiding it, to the point that you can see it after my hair is braided and I may dab some off after finishing that braid. Some people believe this to be too much but it is not when it comes to my hair. But because it can cause a lot of build up I rinse it every morning and do the acv rinces (helps get rid of build up). I really don't believe in the whole "too much moisturizer thing". I need it. The alternative is hair that feels like its about to crack in half.

-Another thing I don't believe in is a lot of trimming of the ends. I think i have trimmed my hair once. Really, I don't think I need to, so I don't. But I do get some knots at times that I can't unravel and so I cut them off.


-Now, this next thing seems sooo trivial but I found out that it is necessasary. I always make sure my nails are filed because I have had times that my jagged nail has snagged off my hair by accident (SOOOO ANNOYING). So I file it a lot lol.


-Another thing is to pat the hair dry after washing or conditioning or whatever, as opposed to scrubbing the hair dry because that is sure to break it.


-Also i started drinking a lot of water and taking biotin a few times a week.


So, thats pretty much it. MOISTURE MOISTURE MOISTURE! lol. If this even makes things clear for just one person, that's great.


                                                   -Ivie

1 comment:

  1. i have seen a lot of videos where the hair shrinks a lot. my hair doesnt do that. i guess you could say that its a mix of 4c,4b. and when i pull it out to see the length, it doesnt spring back. is that a bad thing?

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