Get Through Your Natural Hair Wash Day Without Pulling Your Hair Out (no pun intended)

Remembering that your wash day is in a few days time is enough to give your “hard girl” persona the boot in the behind. You even begin to have palpitations because of what’s coming. It also doesn’t help that people keep saying wash day is always such a long and unproductive day because you can’t do anything else. You start with deep conditioning overnight, then pre-poo, then shampoo wash, the condition, then deep condition (again!), you even steam, then rinse. Don’t forget detangling which can take hours, before you style in twists or any other style your tired hands will allow you to make. 

The bottom line is: YOU ARE EXHAUSTED! It’s no wonder you feel a slight fever when you think of wash day. You must have wished, a number of times, that you could just snap your fingers and everything, including all unruly strands, will fall into place, leaving you with the perfect naturalista hair. Unfortunately, ko le werk. But we are not bearers of bad news, we are preachers of love and as such, we bring you quick and easy steps to keep you from pulling your natural hair (pun intended here) by ensuring a faster, easier, and smarter natural hair wash day routine.

Keep reading and learn how we make our natural hair wash day, fun day,

5 WAYS TO PROPERLY CARE FOR YOUR LOCS

Locs, also called dreadlocks, dreads, or “dada” (by our Nigerian people) is a great way to carry your natural hair. When done right, they are beautiful, versatile, and unique. You will be able to rock your natural hair in so many different ways and also, nurture them to attain an impressive length. Locs are not your easy-way-out to treating your natural hair. If you don’t take care of your locs, they end up looking unhealthy, unattractive, and most importantly, like the dreaded local dada. You don’t want that. 

Locs need as much TLC as your normal natural hair, maybe even more. Following a regular regimen for caring for your locs will leave you with healthy, beautiful, and enviable locs. Below are some tips to help you on your journey to locs that people want to copy!

7 Do’s and Don’t’s for Coloring Natural Hair

If you are someone who has a bit of flair for the dramatic, you may have considered coloring your hair at least twice in your life (that’s if you haven’t done it already). But, there’s a small problem. You have heard stories of women who have dyed their natural hair before and their hair never remained the same. Their hair became damaged, dry, and brittle, prone to breakage and lacking that shine and luster they were formally known for. It can be a really sad situation especially if your hair was full and beautiful. 

You don’t want to be like them, that’s why you are reading this. You want to know what you can and can’t do to ensure that your hair doesn’t end up “un-beautiful” and you get the amazing color you desire. That’s why we are here. Below are 7 do’s and don’t’s that can help you get the hair color for your natural hair that you truly desire.

WHY ISN'T MY HAIR GROWING?!

When you see natural hair queens on Instagram or on TV, you have dreams of having such beautiful, long hair. You see these women twist and curl and manipulate their hair into forms that can only be explained by natural hair pros. They may even be the reason why you decided to start the natural hair journey in the first place. But you’ve been growing your hair diligently for years now but your hair is not mid-back length yet. You don’t know why even though you follow all the instructions the manufacturer wrote down. 

You are stuck with the same hair length. You now believe that your hair has stopped growing, the same way people stop growing when they reach a certain age. The good part is, you have a faint glimmer of hope that you are wrong and your hair will still grow. We are here to tell you that faint glimmer is about to bloom bright and beautiful! 

Your hair grows about half an inch every month and about 6 inches of newly grown hairs every year. That’s an amazing amount of growth. So why does it seem like it’s not growing? Why doesn’t your hair look like the queens of natural hair on TV and Instagram?

How To Stop An Itchy Scalp From Ruining Your Afro

Take a deep breath, now imagine this: You are at an event where you are scheduled to make a speech. You are rocking a killer dress and wearing your favorite shoes. You took special care with your hair today because, well, special day. Everything seems perfect! Except...you keep trying, unsuccessfully, to sneak your hand into your natural hair afro to get that itch right in the middle. 

An itchy scalp, also known as scalp pruritus, is a frustrating but quite common occurrence in natural hair. When combined with dry or flaky skin (scalp), it can be unbearable. Itchy scalp can lead to thinning hair and hair loss if left untreated. 

What causes itchy scalp in natural hair?

GROW YOUR EDGES BACK...LIKE A BOSS!

Losing your edges can have adverse effects on your emotions daily. It robs you of the freedom to flaunt your hair the way you want and be proud of your mane, especially when you had full, healthy edges that you gradually lost. Like on those days when you would take special time to brush them back, maybe even put on some edge control and really make them look sleek. Unfortunately, you can’t do that anymore because they are not what they used to be.

So, what causes the thinning of edges and hair loss at your edges? There are a number of reasons why a person might lose her edges including illness, excessive weight loss, pregnancy and postpartum, stress, lupus, scalp conditions such as alopecia areata, and tight hairstyles. In many cases, you can’t do anything about it, but for situations where you can, you should. That’s why we are here, to tell you just how. 

The first thing you must STOP doing is trying to cover your thinning edges. That isn’t going to help your edges grow back at all. In fact, you are only making it worse.

The African Naturalista with the good hair

Source

 I googled "What makes natural hair beautiful" and got more results about how to make the hair longer, or what product to make it beautiful and less results about what actually makes it beautiful. I understand that we need to strive to be better, hence all the resourceful articles we have all over the internet but I think we don't celebrate natural hair as much as we should. We should be better, Yes! but we should also celebrate where we are right now!

So, This are the things that make me the african naturalista with the good hair?

The first thing for me is Versatility. The hair can be long today and short tomorrow. Straight today and curly the next. There is so much beauty in that and I love how unpredictable that makes the hair.

The second thing for me is Confidence. The hair has it's own personality and that comes with confidence. I say confidence because it defies gravity, has a mind of its own and doesn't care which is why you'd hear phrases like "I just couldn't tame it today" Lol.

The third thing from me is Texture. It's just beautiful to even know that one person can rock 2 different hair textures and seeing how that all comes together is absolutely amazing. The uniqueness of the different hair texture is also very lovely to see.

The fourth and final thing for me is Strength. Love the strength of the natural hair, I know that there are alot of factors that come into play when we're taking strength of the hair but I am saying the hair in itself.

The purpose of this article is for us to just stop for a minute and celebrate our hair and wherever we are on our healthy hair journey. Natural Hair is beautiful and I don't think we celebrate that beauty enough.

Now, tell me, What makes YOU the african naturalista with the good hair?