4. Dry manipulation
Girl, dry manipulation will do you dirty every time. If you are a natural lady with kinky* hair who is trying to detangle or style your hair when it is dry, that is like an invitation for breakage. No matter how you slice it, it’s better to manipulate natural hair damp or wet.
When you use water or a moisturizing leave-in product you will help increase your hair’s moisture content thus boosting elasticity and leveraging your hair’s tensile strength so it can stand up to manipulation. With the elasticity increased, your hair will stretch further before breaking which essentially means less friction and breakage overall.
5. Heat misuse
This is a cardinal sin in hair care. Regular press n’ curls or blow dry sessions will be aesthetically appealing right now but since heat breaks the bonds in your hair and promotes dryness and friction then it’s safe to say that long hair shall not be in your destiny any time soon if you use heat often. Heated styling tools are ok to use on occasion but always use them on clean hair which has had a heat protectant applied.
If you are natural, overuse of heated tools can lead to heat damage which will be evident when your curls loosen and don’t spring back after a wash. It is even more important for you to avoid direct heat if you have chemically treated or relaxed hair since there are far less bonds present to help you ward off breakage. In chemically treated hair the heat damage will present as hair that starts to get a lot of mid strand breakage due to loss of protein. In either case you may want to avoid heat as much as possible or heat style less.
6. Ingredient ignorance
This can be an important issue to consider, particularly if your hair length is stuck at a plateau. If you are not aware of the ingredients in your hair products such as mineral oil*, silicones and other such ingredients and how they affect hair’s health, it could be damaging to your regimen. With these ingredients you need to take special precautions in order to use them successfully in your hair regimen. Either that or decide whether you need to be using them at all based on how your hair reacts to them.
If you are a newbie then stick with all natural hair care brands that provide great results without any hidden nasties. As time goes on and your knowledge increases, you can opt to be more adventurous with your product choices.
7. Product junkie-ism
This is an often overlooked contributor to length plateaus in hair care. Don’t get caught up with spending way too much time on the hair care forums, buying every product mentioned as this will result in you over manipulating your hair as you try to work your way through the crate loads of products you have already bought.
Your hair needs time to adjust and react to the products you use so using too many all at once will not allow you to make an assessment of what really works for you. Stick to a small group of products that you already know work well with your hair. Once a product is finished then feel free to try something new while always having your staples at hand in case of a disaster.
Nice article darling!!
its good
You are spending way too much time on the hair care forums, buying too many products and hence over manipulating your hair as you try to work your way through the crate loads of products. You know yourselves!
Isn't this a hair care forum???!!!! WTH?
I agree, you ladies know yourselves, cant go a day without logging onto BHM and LHCF! But I like to think of this site more as a learning emporium . . .
I just discovered your site yesterday. It's very informative.
I do agree with #9 & #11 though. Good piece!
Thanks!
Nice Hair
From not conditioning her properly and too much heat treatment.
I have the opposite of this problem. My hair grows an inch a month but the ends get damaged so quickly and fray like an old sweater. It sucks.
I’m nine months in my healthy hair journey, however I noticed in the last month that my hair is shedding more than normal, I beleive it’s because it is been extremely cold. What’s your opinion?
Yes hair tends to shed more in colder months, it’s perfectly natural. Just ride through it, as long as it’s not breakage don’t worry too much.
My concern , is Alopecia what can i use?
Cause my hair stylist keeps cutting it off? New year, new stylist
Them wigs will do it! Hair being pulled back too tight & stress! #ILoveCrochetWeaves!
Using too much heat can leave the hair dry and brittle and break it off.
It doesn’t like me.
Mine is growing beautifully. Heat only twice a year for the last year. Yay!!
I have a bad case of graves disease (over active thyroid) for about 14 Yes now my hair has thinned out completely nd I even has lost some. I do not use any realaxers what so ever but my has seem to stop growing nd it is very very dry no matter what I try especially the ends plz help.
I have a bad case of graves disease (over active thyroid) for about 14 Yrs now my hair has thinned out completely nd I even have lost some. I do not use any realaxers what so ever but my hair seem to stop growing nd it is very very dry no matter what I try especially the ends plz help.
Not knowing what you are doing, no matter what state it’s in…
simply neglecting the Hair
Hyperthyroidism
Hi Alma. I was reading the part about natural hair not always being a political statement and how relaxers don’t always represent self-hate and I agree with that. I’ve been natural for almost 3 years now, and had relaxers prior to that. I didn’t hate myself or wish I were white, that’s just what I did since an early age because that was just the thing to do. Before I got a relaxer, the thing for me as a little girl was to get braids with beads. At that age, I was young to even have an opinion of myself or anything. We like what we like what we like and sometimes that’s all that is. I chose to go natural because I liked the way it looked, I like to change up my hair, but also, I wanted a more natural lifestyle and I also wanted to connect to my roots on a deeper level (outside of what I’ve already achieve when I had my hair relaxed). The one thing I want to argue is about African women relaxing their hair and how it can’t be related to self-hate because there is a higher percentage of Blacks there than whites to the point where there really aren’t any at all. Just because that may be the case, and because we understand that relaxers don’t equate to self-hate, doesn’t mean that the haven’t been affected by white supremacy. The were colonized by European (white) nations and have been influenced by them. They also, like many other people in this world, watch movies and TV shows and follow music artist that and who promote that ideology that white is better or at least, in the case of the skin bleaching epidemic in several of those African countries, being dark is not good. So they too have cases of self-hate for certain Negroid features, but at the end of the day, for some people, hair is just hair and what ever is done with that hair jmhas nothing to do with making a statement other than, I like this yodat just because I do.
Hair does grow it depends on how you care for it.
None of these mention proper diet/exercise or hydration. That is the foundation of proper hair care…
STESS
My hair has been growing . I just read this article for tips .
My hair has been growing . I just read this article for tips .