Stable Condition? Critical Condition?—Deep Condition!

What is the state of your hair? Is it suffering from trauma due to being over processed or heat fried? Is it dehydrated and feeling dry or brittle? Are you recovering from emergency surgery because of severe split ends? Well, don’t fear. Help is here!

With a mixture of water, humectants, oils, and maybe some protein extracts, you could be well on your way to injecting life back into your hair.

Why Condition and How

“Wash-n-Go” that’s one of the latest trends in hair styling. With less and less time in the day, many women are opting for styles that require less time in front of the mirror. But does that mean you should be spending less time caring for your hair? If anything, it’s the opposite. The time you save in styling your hair should be more time allotted to nurturing your tresses. It really only comes down to an hour a week. Can we take an hour out of our busy schedule to pamper our hair? That’s what deep conditioning involves.

It's a critical step in your healthy hair journey! And there are several benefits to conditioning your hair on a regular basis:

 ·         Maximize moisture intake

 ·         Repair cracks and holes in the hair strand

 ·         Increase strand luster or ability to reflect light

 ·         Make detangling less stressful on the hair by providing slip

 ·         Provide more hands-on time with your hair

So please, never just wash and go. Wash, deep condition, relax, relax, relax, and rinse. You won’t regret it!

Keep It Clean People

Do you remember the feeling you got when you purchased your first car? It didn’t matter if it was a Beater or a Benz. You wanted to keep your “new” car looking just like it did when you drove it off the lot—shining like a new dime!

Now think back to the first time you went to the beautyshop. Remember coming out  with your hair bouncing and feeling light as a feather? If your hairdresser was on point, your hair was looking just like that car—shining like a new dime!

So what did your hair and that new car have in common? They both just had a good deep-down clean. There’s no substitute. A little soap and water can go a long way to making you look good .

Shampooing: Why & How

As mentioned in your SOLH consultation, you can cleanse your hair with shampoo or conditioner. The most important point is to remember to cleanse often. It takes away the dust, lint, dirt, and of course left over product that can weigh the hair down. Thus causing it to loose it’s shine and ability to retain moisture. And remember moisture is the Master Key to unlocking the secret to long healthy hair.

Shampoo is the better of the two when it comes to a deep cleanse. It’s chemically designed to take dirt away from the hair. The co-wash is a fortified rinse that can take away surface pollutants while leaving the hair less stripped than the shampoo.  During your consultation we determined how often and in what proportions you should use each. As mentioned in your SOLH Hair Plan, switching the days are fine but switching the frequency will greatly hinder your progress.

The best way to cleanse your hair is in the shower. You have less opportunity for tangling your strands. Plus you're better able to access your entire head. Remember BE GENTLE. You should never come out of a cleanse with a soar scalp or headache!  If you’re unable to cleanse in the shower, your next best option is to braid the hair in loose plaits and cleanse in the sink. The plaits will decrease your detangling time afterwards drastically.

So when it comes to supporting hair growth and maintaining healthy hair -- KEEP IT CLEAN!

The Master Key--MOISTURE! (Video)

To unlock the secret to long healthy hair, you must have MOISTURE! Moisture keeps the cortex (the tootsie roll center) of your hair strand pliable and less prone to breakage. The best and most readily available moisturizer is water. I KNOW! I KNOW! We’ve been taught all of our lives that water will “dry your hair out.” And most of us have lived this summertime scenario at some point in our lives:  

After swimming (or splashing with style!) in the coolness of the pool, you hear the dreaded whistle, “REST BREAK!” Everyone scurries out of the pool to dry off and make a dash for the nearest refreshments. In the rush of it all, you forget to pull your hair back into a ponytail. By the time you finish your Choco Taco and orange drink (in a plastic water barrel, of course), your hair is on its way to looking like you just stepped out of the pool--holding a light socket! You try desperately to ponytail it now. But it’s of no use. It’s as parched as a savanna during dry season. Not to mention your legs look like you’ve been kicking flour. What happened?!

Some might say it was the water. But was it truly? Can water—the quintessential thirst quencher and re-hydrator—make you dry? Plain and simple, NO. WATER DOES NOT DRY OUT YOUR HAIR! It’s been proven time and again that water is our hair’s master key to length.  Ask any SOLHSista with long healthy hair. They will tell you that it was impossible to get any kind of length without regular moisture. Does that mean all you need to do is throw some water on your hair and go? No, you’re not a houseplant. The best way to keep the water in your hair is to team it up with other substances that will hold the water in place. That is where your water-based moisturizers come in. Whether in a spray or cream these products help your hair stay moisturized longer. We discussed these at your consultation and all SOLH Hair Packages contain either one or both.

The other key to keeping your hair moisturized is sealing in the moisture with natural oils. These oils keep the air from “sucking” the moisture out of our hair. We discussed these as well and every SOLH Hair Package contains some natural oils for sealing the hair.

So what made us so dry after being out of the pool for only 20 minutes? The same chemical that kept you from catching “Snot-nosed” Sally’s summer cold—chlorine. Chlorine is one of the many chemicals that can come in contact with our hair and cause it to dry out. Some other culprits to dryness include hard water (too many minerals), heated hair stylers, wind, and high manipulation. We’ll discuss these at length on a later date. But in the meantime, we hope you start looking at water as it truly is—a gift from heaven, for our bodies and our hair!

SAY WHAT?!!!

Entering the world of healthy black hair care can be an enlightening and fulfilling experience. There’s a plethora of pictures, stories, product reviews, and videos that can take you to the next level of hair growth. But as you begin your healthy hair journey you’ll realize the existence of a whole new language—a healthy hair language- that you were not privy to before your journey began.  

You might come across a comment like this, “After my BC I became a PJ. I thought I had a good regimen because I went from EL then NL and finally SL in only a year. I would DC regularly and CW twice a week. Then I reached a plateau.  I didn’t think I’d ever reach APL.”

Confused?! Not for long! After reading this post you’ll be able to translate comments like these as if you just finished Rosetta Stone.

Here’s a list of common hair growth jargon to help you keep up with veteran SOLH Sistas!

APL – Arm Pit Length
BC – Big Chop

BSL – Bra Strap Length

BSS – Beauty Supply Store

CW- Conditioner Wash

DC – Deep Condition

DIY – Do It Yourself

EL – Ear Length
EVCO – Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
EVOO - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
LOTD - Look Of The Day

MBL – Mid back Length

NG – New Growth

NL – Neck Length
PJ – Product Junkie

SL - Shoulder Length
WSL – Waist Length Hair

Braid-Out/Twist-Out –braiding (3-strand) or twisting (2-strand) your hair in sections using a moisturizer, then unbraiding/untwisting it after at least an hour and wearing it as a style
Breakage – when the hair breaks along the hair shaft (no white bulb)

Cowashing - washing your hair with conditioner instead of shampoo
Deep conditioning – leaving conditioner on your hair for at least 20 minutes

Dusting – a trimming method that takes a small amount of hair off the ends
Low Manipulation -  styles that don’t require persistent combing or brushing
Over-lapping – applying relaxer to new growth and previously relaxed hair
Moisturizer/Leave-in – applying a water based product to your hair without washing it out
Prepoo – preparing your hair prior to applying shampoo
Protective Styling – styling your hair in a way that protects your ends
Regimen- your hair care plan that includes products you use, when you use them and how you use them

Seal– using an oil to lock the moisture in your hair
Shedding – when the entire hairstrand (with white bulb) detaches from the follicle and comes out

Stretching – extending the time between relaxers
Texlax – using a relaxer to loosen up the curl pattern in the hair without making it straight

My Hair Story

The eighties were good to me! During my early childhood, my hair was always at least arm pit length (APL). 

When I was 10, I talked my mom into getting me a jheri curl. I finally had the walk-and-swing hair I envied in my classmates! Unfortunately that ended with my brother and a lighter—nuf said. We decided on a safer alternative—creamy crack a.k.a. a relaxer. It shed and broke off like crazy! But I figured it was normal.  And at shoulder length (SL) it was still longer than most people I knew. 

By the time I went to college I was ready to reclaim my natural self. I noticed there were a lot of young black ladies on campus with beautiful long hair. So I began asking questions. I found that a lot of them were natural (no chemical processes) and those that weren’t went to the salon regularly to get their hair shampooed and styled.  Since weekly visits to the salon were out of my budget, I decided to go natural.

I grew my hair out four about 8 weeks then did the big chop (BC). I loved it! I felt so free. I hadn’t realized how much time I was spending worried about my hair. It was truly liberating! I decided I was going to get to know my hair. It was about an inch long and curly (3C/4A). 

Since it was the late 90s and I wasn’t aware of any black hair blogs or websites back then, I just listened to my hair. If it was crying out for moisture-- I oiled it. If it felt dirty-- I washed it.  It became a habit to wash my hair at least once a week.  I noticed it would dry out easily so I was always applying oil or pomade.  In hindsight, the frequency of my shampoo - pomade - dirty - shampoo cycle was due to the mineral oil or petrolatum in the pomade. But it worked! My hair was healthy, strong, and growing like a weed. As it grew, I kept it in two-strand twists for a few days then I would wear it untwisted until wash day.

A year later my hair was back to shoulder length. It was amazing! What took me years to achieve with relaxed hair I achieved in one year with natural hair. So logically I stayed the course.  By the following year my hair was arm pit length (APL).  A couple years later I was mid-back length (MBL).  

But I was tired. I was spending at least three hours washing and twisting my hair—with help twice a week. I was not happy. I felt like I had become a slave to my hair again. Now that I knew my hair and what it needed I felt I could maintain it better than before. So I decided to go back to the creamy crack.

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST!

I was MBL and silky straight. Back to an hour a week-wash and go. I stuck to my moisture routine. (Though I didn’t need as much) I was maintaining my length. 

Then came the fateful day at the hairdresser. I said ¼ inch all she heard was 4 and inch. Yep back to shoulder length.  And thanks to too frequent trims and relaxers (oh I see why they call it creamy crack—an unhealthy addiction to the flat edges and an aversion to new growth). My hair went back to thin and struggling. I knew I could grow long beautiful healthy hair and I didn’t want to do a BC again.

I had my first HAIR INTERVENTION when a friend (THANKS RYNA!!) introduced me to the black hair world on the internet. Long Hair Care Forum, Hairlicious Inc.,  and Keep It Simple Sista became my road maps for my new hair journey.  She showed me where to buy all my products and how to look for ingredients instead of names and descriptions. She opened up a whole new world to me when we ventured outside the ethnic hair aisle to find products. I was hooked. I made a hair care regimen and stuck to it faithfully. I stretched my relaxers 17 to 20 weeks. I moisturized and sealed day and night. I deep conditioned twice a week and wore protective styles constantly.  It was working!!

My hair is now arm pit length (APL). It’s strong and healthy. I have to yell it from the rooftops!

That’s why I started SO Lovely Hair (SOLH)!

SO Lovely Hair

SO Lovely Hair (SOLH) provides black hair maintenance information for anyone interested in growing lovely long healthy hair. Through a face to face forum (SOLH hair party/consultation) women can share their experience and get educated.  

The SOLH After Party is a simple way to continue the conversation. It’s here to encourage personal growth through knowledge. The After Party is for women to reconnect after a SOLH hair consultation or hair party. It’s a positive forum where women can chat about what they have learned or would like to learn in the future.

Enjoy!