Haircare Tips for Relaxed Hair.

I'm sure you can tell, from my pictures - My hair's natural (i.e. relaxer free):

But before I made the decision to grow out my natural hair, I had healthy, relaxed hair :)

In this post, I'll share some tips on taking care of relaxed hair and some product recommendations.

**Please note: Reasoning behind my tips/suggestions will be explained later - really busy but wanted to put up this post as I promised to a while back :) **

• Wash and deep condition your hair at least once a week
  
• Moisturise your hair at least once a day
• Stretch out the time between your relaxers to at least every three months
• Avoid constant direct heat to your hair. If you need to blowdry once a week, please invest in a good heat protectant. Also invest in a ceramic flat iron, stove curling tongs/irons should be avoided.
• Try rollersetting your hair, you don't have to blowdry and flat iron/tong your hair to achieve silky results. Tip: Make sure a heat protectant is applied to your damp hair before rolling. A dome hairdryer is direct heat just not as concentrated as drying with a blowdryer and a brush/comb. You can roll your hair with the largest rollers for your length of hair, when dry, wrap your hair, lay down with a scarf for a few hours and you'll have straight hair. There are other ways to achieve straight hair which I'll share at another time.
• The best way to avoid direct heat often is to air dry (ie not using a blow/hair dryer) your hair... next week I'll go through the steps to achieve nice results from airdrying.

• After a few days of getting your hair done, it usually doesn't look as cute as when you initialy got it styled. Buy loads of hair accessories and pin your hair up, pull back with a headband, etc on days like this.

• Try hairstyles that don't require heat e.g braidouts and twistouts (Let me know if you're interested in how to achieve this style)

                                                      

•  Very important - Buy a satin/silk scarf and if you can also get a satin/silk pillowcase. Cotton literally sucks out the moisture from our naturally dry hair.

Product Suggestions

We all have different hair, what works for me won't neccessarily work for you. I'll share products I use and products others have used that I know worked for their hair.

• Shampoo:
  Main thing you're looking for in shampoos is 'moisturising' in it's description. We need as much moisture as we can get. There are a couple of ingredients that most shampoos have that strip *all* moisture from the hair. Because of this, my main shampoo advice is to wash your hair once and not - wet, shampoo, rinse, shampoo and rinse again. The 1st time you shampoo, it might not lather as much but that doesn't mean your hair is not clean. - Keracare Hydrating Detangling Shampoo
  - Nexxus Therappe Luxorious Moisturising Shampoo
  - Giovanni Smooth as Silk Shampoo
  I'll add more to this list later.
• Moisturiser:
  The main thing to look out for in your moisturisers is paraffin (paraffinum liquidum) and mineral oil. the shouldn't be in the top 5 ingredients in your moisturiser. I prefer using buttery moisturisers because oil helps seal in moisture.
  - Elasta QP Mango Butter
  - Cantu Shea Butter
  - Neutrogena Triple Moisture
  - Raw shea butter ('ori') whipped with some oils (I use coconut and castor oil) and some aloe vera
  
• Deep conditioner:
  This should be moisturising and also contain some protein. You can have 2 seperate conditioners, one moisture, one protein.
  Try mixing your deep conditioner with oils (olive, castor, jojoba, coconut, almond, etc)
  - Organic Root Stimulator Olive Oil Replenishing Conditioner (protein + moisturising)
  - Lustrasilk Shea butter Cholesterol (protein + moisturising)
  - Keracare Humecto Creme Conditioner (as this is very moisturising, you need to deep condition with protein at least once a month. I'm not sure if Keracare still produce Keracare Super Reconstructor)
  - Nexxus Humectress (this can also be used as a leave in conditioner)
  - Honey, Eggs and Olive Oil mixture - moisturising *and* protein!
  
• Leave-in Conditioner:
  This should always be applied to damp hair before styling
  - Giovanni Direct Leave In
  - Nexxus Humectress
  - Nexxus Headress
  - Carol's Daughter Flowers & Herbs Leave-In Conditioner
  - Neutrogena Triple Moisture Silk Touch Leave In Cream

Please let me know me if you need any more info, I put this together in a bit of a hurry.

Photo credit: Me ;-) The reason I have sooo many pictures of my hair is I have an online hair album (yep, it's more than a hobby! I'm a hair geek :p )