3 Things To Know Before Starting Your Curly Hair Journey
- Amber Caceres
- Feb 10, 2020
- 3 min read
You can start your natural hair journey one of two ways. You can slowly transition to natural hair or do a big chop. Transitioning is letting your natural curly hair grow while trimming the ends regularly until your hair is healthy. This will allow you to maintain the length you want without cutting a large amount. It is up to you if you would like to take a more gradual approach as opposed to a big chop.
A Big Chop is a more drastic approach to natural hair. You basically cut off all of the relaxed hair and start your journey with freshly grown out roots that mimic your real curl pattern. This option is a big step and the brave ones usually go with this method.
Step 2 Research Research Research
I can’t stress enough that the research you do is important. It may seem like hair is just hair and theres not much too it but curly hair is different in all regions. Curly hair from African descent is different from Caucasian hair, it is more prone to dryness and hair damage. It’s important to know the origins of your hair so you can better understand how to take care of your natural hair.
You can start by finding out your curly hair type. These range from 2a to 4c, you can compare your hair to a curly hair chart and determine from there. This will also help you discover products that are meant for your specific hair type as well as YouTubers and Bloggers with the same curl pattern as you. You can look up websites, read books, and watch videos to get more information.
Step 3 Hair Product Approach
There are a lot of products on the market that have ingredients that don’t promote health and growth for hair. You’re probably thinking, what is there to know about hair products? Well, many people in the natural hair community like to avoid a number of different chemicals in their products because it is known for causing breakage over time.
Some common ingredients to avoid:
Petroleum-based ingredients (i.e. mineral oil, petrolatum) – these ingredients provide a barrier delaying the loss of hair moisture to the environment, they seal the hair against the environment preventing it from taking too much moisture from the air and becoming frizzy, they lend softness to the hair and they facilitate detangling. All good things I know! However, these ingredients require the use of other strong and drying ingredients to curly hair to be removed. There are better alternatives.
Silicones – Used to condition, lubricate, provide shine, help with detangling and more. The problem with silicones is that they create a strong film around the hair shaft that is very hard to remove because many of them are not water soluble creating build up on the hair and preventing hydration. Again, the solution is to use strong cleansers to remove them which causes dryness to curly hair and can lead to breakage. To avoid this issue you should choose water soluble silicones. Lucky for you I have a free PDF list of insoluble, water-soluble and curly girl friendly silicones you can grab when you sign up to my resource library. You can do it here.
Sulphates – a category of surfactants used in shampoos or cleansing hair products to remove product residue, dirt, sweat, oil or air pollution from the hair. They are very good at what they do but they’re also drying to our hair. The best solution is to avoid strong surfactants like Sodium Lauryl or Laureth Sulphate, Ammonium Lauryl or Laureth Sulphate, Sodium Cocoyl Sarcosinate or Ammonium or Sodium Xylenesulfonate or TEA Lauryl Sulphate. Instead, go for mild surfactants like Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate, Sodium Cocoyl Glycinate. Read this post for a more in-depth discussion and list of ingredients.
Alcohols – there are good and bad alcohols and the good ones help your hair stay moisturized. The ones you should avoid evaporate quickly and are drying to our hair. Look for and avoid Alcohol, SD (Denatured) Alcohol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Isopropanol or Propyl Alcohol, Ethanol Alcohol and Propanol. Good alcohols (fatty alcohols) to have in your products are Cetyl, Cetearyl, Stearyl or Lauryl Alcohol.
The ingredients listed above are known to cause problems with curly hair. It is good to keep these ingredients in mind when shopping for new products.
If you’re thinking about going natural or you are starting your hair journey I hope these steps help you to prepare for what’s to come. Don’t be afraid to try new things if you think they will work for you. Everything is trial and error in this journey so don’t feel discouraged you got this!
Comments