Many naturals complain about their dry, short and tangled crown hair. Believe me, I had the same issue with my eldest daughter’s hair, especially as her hair grew longer. As her hairdresser, I sought to find a solution for this problem and this is what I discovered.
Her hair lacked moisture
Though I was deep conditioning* and moisturising her hair, I needed to pay more attention to the crown. Most of us, including myself, just focus on what we can see through our mirrors and ignore what we can’t see.
The crown was very dry and did not really get any tender loving care (TLC), which it needed desperately. To change this I started regularly moisturising the crown of her hair deliberately.
Placing her ponytail in the same spot every time we washed
I used to stretch her hair by putting it in a ponytail while it is wet and then braiding down the rest of the hair. The hair in the center where the ponytail started, was being compromised and not getting the care it needed. Further more it did not stretch instead it was a tangled mess.
I fixed the issue by doing what I called the obsolete technique
Instead of tying my daughter’s wet hair in a pony, as usual, I separated the crown hair, detangled, applied leave-in, sealed with an oil, then I did one single braid with her hair only.
After this, I then pulled the rest of her hair towards the crown hair and joined this to the crown hair and made a pony. After her hair dried I would unravel the braid to reveal crown hair that was nicely stretched and moisturised.
I have practiced this technique since discovering the problems, and now her crown hair is as long as the rest of her hair and is no longer tangled and shorter.