❤️ Love Your Hair: Tried & True Routines❤️
Last updated on May 10th, 2021 at 05:22 pm
Hair care routines that help natural or relaxed hair to flourish – length retention & growth
Do you love your hair? I mean, is it everything you want it to be? Regardless of if you have natural or relaxed hair, there are certain hair care routines that will work at strengthening and helping your hair to grow (or maintain length) across the board. These tried and true routines will help you to love your hair.
****BEFORE YOU READ ANOTHER WORD: What I’m about to share is with the assumption that a person has no prior medical conditions that could affect hair growth/length retention. Also, not every product works for every one. What you are about to read isn’t about products. It’s about hair care practices or hair routines that work for everyone. How often you do them may vary as well as what products you use. Yet, the hair routines themselves work on every hair type and texture. Here we go….
Moisturizing
No matter the hair type, all hair needs moisture. Some hair needs more moisture than others but at some point in time, your hair will need moisture added to it.
Kinky curly hair is the most dry of all the hair types and moisture is critical. Relaxed hair is also prone to being very dry due to the chemical treatment.
The way I add moisture is very simple. I spray my hair with water. Water is moisture. However, you need to seal that water/moisture into the hair shaft (ex: LOC, LCO, LCOC method). Once you have done that, you are done with moisturizing your hair.
Alternatively, you can moisturize your hair with a product that is cream based with water as the first ingredient. There’s many ways to add moisture to your hair and here’s the fun part. YOU get to discover it for your own hair 🙂 Remember, it’s hair regimens, not hair products that work for all people.
Deep Conditioning
Even if you never heat styled or chemically treated your hair, you’d need to deep condition it eventually. Environmental factors greatly affect our hair and in order to build up and/or protect our strands, deep conditioning is required.
Deep conditioning is a tried and true hair care routine that also helps to impart extra moisture and oils to your hair. You love your hair when you make sure it’s well conditioned. It’s something every lady needs for healthy hair that grows.
Protein Treatments
Protein treatments are often misunderstood. Our hair is made up of mostly protein. When your hair is breaking, a protein treatment is in order to patch up and strengthen the hair strands that are protein deficient for one reason or another. The practice of using regular protein treatments in a hair care regimen will keep any head of hair strong. Just be sure to always balance out your protein treatments with our first tried and true hair care routine……moisturizing.
The type of protein you use is most important because again, not all products work for all people. The different types of protein in hair products include: collagen, silk protein, oat protein, wheat protein, milk protein, soy protein, keratin, animal protein and vegetable protein. (You may also see some of these proteins listed as hydrolyzed. That just means they are broken down so that they can more easily penetrate the hair shaft)
Scalp Massages
Scalp massages have been scientifically proven to stimulate hair growth. One person’s rate of growth will vary from another’s.
When performing scalp massages, always use the balls (pads) of your fingers. You can use your favorite moisturizer, oil, or nothing at all. There is no right or wrong product to use when giving yourself a scalp massage. You can even do it while washing your hair 🙂
Scalp massages are also very relaxing. If you’re stressed out, you’ll find your hair is hard pressed to grow beautifully so de-stressing by way of a scalp massage can help.
Trims
If you’re trying to grow your hair to longer lengths, trimming your hair is necessary for maintaining healthy ends. It will get rid of splits and single strand knots….for EVERYBODY. Yep, getting trims as needed is important to maintain healthy ends.
Notice I said, “as needed.” It is not required to trim your hair at regular intervals unless you are damaging it with rough handling, chemicals or heat at regular intervals.
While it’s good to get a professional to trim your hair at least once during the year, you can do mini or self trims (ex: Search and Destroys aka SnDs) in between the time. This will help you to keep your hair relatively damage free.
Obtaining and maintaining healthy hair doesn’t have to be complicated. Keeping your hair moisturized, deep conditioned, and treated with protein when necessary (or at least monthly) will help you to grow and maintain longer, stronger hair.
Add in daily or weekly scalp massages and as-needed trims and you’re well on your way to a head full of hair that you will love and appreciate for years to come.
I love the Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Mask. My Fiance gives me Scalp massages every other day. It def does help with promoting hair growth plus it feels so good!
hi april. the deep treatment mask is one of my staples 🙂 I also use it as part of a pre-poo sometimes
thanks for stopping by and commenting!
I have to cosign the trimming. That’s something I (finally!) learned last year. I’ve had my dreads for years but it never occurred to me that my ends could weaken.
I also just started protein treatments about three months ago. I can’t say I’m seeing a difference yet but I’m still trying to master my protein/moisture balance.
What protein product do you use or do you make your own? I LOVE Aubrey Organics Glycogen Protein Balancing conditioner
My hair continue to break in the crown of my head. I experience itchy scalp in the crown and that the area where my hair is the shortest. what advice can you give for breakage in the crown and itchy scalp?
Hi Emily-
Breakage can be caused by a number of things, inicluding but not limited to:
– Stress on the hair from pulling
– Lack of moisture (sometimes we neglect certain areas of our hair)
– Medication
– rough handling
Assuming it’s not medically related, try doing protein treatments 1-2x monthly balancing them out with deep moisturizing treatments. Baby your crown like you would your ends. Also, make sure you aren’t pulling a comb or brush through your hair. Try finger detangling that section with lots of conditioner for a while vs. using a comb in the shower.
It’s important to isolate the cause of breakage before you can find a solution to it.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for the info, you always give great advice.
Thanks Pamela!