Starting A Natural Hair Care Routine

It’s time to take that leap and treat your hair better. You may have been chemically straightening (relaxing) your hair, excessively using heat, rocking hairstyles that were too tight, continuously using briads that sucked the moisture out of your hair, or even changing your hair colour frequently using hair dyes or bleach. Whatever processes your hair has been through; it’s time to show your hair some TLC so that it can begin to thrive. If you are now at the point where you finally want to learn how to look after your hair properly, let me help you being the process.

With the plethora of natural hair bloggers, social media accounts and the wide range of natural hair products available; now is a great time to start showing your coils and curls some love. But where do you actually start? You’ve followed a few of those natural hair accounts, listened to reviews of different products, read about porosity, have a pinterest board full of amazing styles ideas, but for some reason you may have hit a barrier before you’ve even really started. You either can’t get started or you’ve started your routine but feel like it just isn’t working. Well don’t worry, you are not alone!

I personally think that sometimes the problem can be the fact that there is so much information available to us; it leaves us a little overwhelmed. I believe it’s important to have the basics secure before you move on the more complex things. So let me help, let me guide you on those first few step because starting a natural hair care routine isn’t as difficult as it may seem. Like most other tasks you’ll undertake in life, you need a plan, a few key pieces of equipment and the right energy. Before you know it, you will soon find that you are well on your way to reaching your hair care goals.

Time To Get Started

Make Time
The fist thing you need to consider in time. Committing to a natural hair routine means that you’ll be spending more time looking after your hair and you may feel a little anxious at the thought of having to find more time in your already tight schedule. I want to encourage you to think of developing your hair care routine as working it into the time you already have as opposed to having to find more time. Each day we have 24 hours to work with, so it’s up to us to adjust our time as we need to each day, to accomplish our tasks and goals for that day. With natural hair care there are processes you will have to do daily, things that you will do only weekly and things that you will only need to do once a month. When you break it down like that, hair care hopefully begins to feel more manageable and seem less daunting. It’s also important to think of your hair care routine as part of your self care routine. If we always ensure we wash our bodies and brush our teeth everyday, we can use that same energy to make sure we take the steps to look after our hair.

Starting a new hair care routine is an adjustment and investment of your time so you need to give yourself time to prepare for returning to your natural hair texture. It takes time but it is definitely worth the effort! The first thing you will need to do is create a plan as this will make it much easier to accomplish what you want. Consider the following things:

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Research
Carry out some research before hand; find out the basis of a good hair care routine and the practices that are essential for success.

Products
Find out what key products you need to start your hair care routine. There are many products on the market, however to achieve a healthy hair care routine I believe you only need a few key products. You need a suitable shampoo and conditioner, a deep conditioner, some form of leave in conditioner/hair cream and a natural oil. Clay washes, edge controls, gels and mousses (to name a few) are all great to have but I see them as extras that you add to compliment your routine once you have established the basics.

Hairstyles
Create an inspiration board of the different hairstyles you can utilise as you start to care for your hair. Think about opting for simple, low manipulation, protective hairstyles that will allow you to keep them in for at least a week. Avoid tight hairstyles and those that add extra hair to your hair as this is incredible drying for your hair. Dry hair can lead to breakage and that is definitely not what we want. You can also utilise different hair accessories such as headwraps, turbans and wigs. These are real time savers and will give you hair a rest from excessive styling.

Equipment
As well as great products there are also a few key pieces of equipment that I think are essentials. A spray bottle, satin/silk bonnets, a wide tooth comb/detangling brush, trimming scissors, a hooded dryer and a microfiber towel.

Washday Routine
Washday doesn’t have to take all day. I carried out a poll on my Detangled Hair Intsagram page a few months ago asking how long it took people to wash their hair and I was genuinely surprised to see how many people said it took them 4 hours or longer to complete their washday routine. It really doesn’t have to take that long! Take time before washday to plan everything out and assign a time to each process you need to complete. You my allocate 20 minutes to a hot oil treatment, 15 minutes to shampoo, 30 minute to deep conditioning, 5 minutes to rinse and then 1 hour to sealing in the moisture and styling. That’s under 3 hours and you can even do this quicker by doing a hot oil treatment the night before and modify the time you allocate to each process depending on how long you have for that particular day. There have been times I have managed to wash, deep condition, seal in moisture and style my hair in an hour; it is definitely possible you just have to plan for it.

So in summary there are a few key things you need to do and have ready the start your natural hair care routine;

1. Research/Make a plan
2. Purchase some key products
3. Create a visual board with hairstyle you can wear/purchase some headwraps
4. Purchase a few key pieces of equipment
5. Plan and implement a wash day routine
6. Get started

So there you have it, once you have all these points completed you are ready to start! Do you have any questions or comments? Please feel free to let me know below. And don’t worry about your hair care routine, (in my best American accent) ‘you got this’!

Check out my other blog posts for more information on hair care.

10 Ways To Keep You Hair Moisturised

3 Things Every Natural Should Know About Their Hair

Understanding Hair Porosity

5 Ways To Boost Hair Growth