After spending so much time, energy, and money (!!) over the years on a healthy hair journey, I found it quite bittersweet when I realized that achieving and maintaining healthy hair is actually extremely simple. I think because I spent so many years on hair forums, reading books, and interviewing stylists from all walks of life to pick their brains, I felt like there was some mystical secret that everyone had been keeping from me.
But the truth is...I was the one getting in my own way. Always looking out for the next great product or technique. Always touching my hair, thinking about my hair. Like the saying goes, "A watched pot never boils"...my pot didn't even get warm for years, lol. I got so mad, so frustrated that I threw my hands up and said, "Forget this!" (well, what I really said wasn't so polite, lol!). And I moved on to other aspects of beauty. Namely skincare, makeup, nail care, and now fitness. I even dabbled into fashion here and there, but I have never been one to follow trends, so that just got me even more frustrated. I digress.
The point is, that while I focused on other aspects of how I could improve myself, my hair started to do its own thing. I left it alone, in a positive way. What the Long Hair Community called "benign neglect". I literally did what I found to be the bare minimum, and my hair turned around. I also had to leave those notions of what "healthy hair care" is, based on the hair forum community standards. I had to stop everything, mentally start over, and do what works for me, nevermind what "they" had to say about it. "They" did not have my hair, or deal with it on a constant basis. I had to trust what I learned and make it work for me.
So, this is my advice to those folks out there that may be spinning your wheels in the hair care journey. Take the advice that the forums, the stylists, the homegirls all give you. But only keep what you can use. Discard the rest. And make your own educated and objective decisions on what works for you. Experiment with techniques, products, etc., but don't let them run you...There really is more to life than hair. Especially since your hair's health depends on how well you treat the rest of your body. Just something to think about...
The Bare Minimum:
1. Keep scalp clean: Only wash your hair when it's dirty. If your scalp is oily that may mean every other day. If it's dry, that may be once a week. Figure it out for yourself, not based on some "rule".
2. Condition and Deep Condition regularly: Yes, conditioner should be used on most hair types after every shampoo, but deep conditioning may not need to be done every single wash for every head of hair. Too much of anything can be a bad, bad thing. Most cases, it's more purposeful to deep condition only 1-4 times a month. Regular conditioner will keep you in good shape in between. Again, figure out what your hair best responds to, and go from there. And more importantly, do whatever it is you do on a
consistent basis. The results come not so much from what you do in your routine, so much as how consistent you are with that routine.
3. Keep ends healthy: I already wrote about the importance of trimming, so I won't go there again, but it is important to keep the ends in tip-top shape in between trims, so that when trim time comes, you won't have to remove very much, if any, length. So if protective styling works for you, do it. If moisturizing and sealing your ends every night or every other night works, then do it. It's all you, my dear.
4. Prevent Damage: Most damaged hair occurs overtime. I know some people out there may disagree with this, but it's true. One unadulterated blowdry session isn't going to completely ruin your hair if you have been keeping it in good condition on a long-term consistent basis. Typically, someone who has heat damage or chemical damage had some damaged parts of their hair before the incident and either didn't know it, or ignored it. How could that happen, you say? Easy.
With a lot of the popular products out there ("natural" and mass-produced), there is the commercial need for the hair to "feel" or "look" a certain way after using a product or tool. Usually it's "slip" and smoothness, or a high gloss shine. But what are those ingredients that provide that slip or shine doing to the inside of your strands? Most of the time, they're doing nothing (or they do the wrong thing for what your hair requires at the moment). And over a period of time your hair dries out, and it's not protected like you thought. So when you go to use that blowdryer, flat iron, relaxer, or hair color, you end up with huge surprise...
You must do your own investigating of products and determine if what that product says it will do is really accurate for your hair. Clarify you hair on a routine basis and "look under the hood" so to speak. If your hair is dry, it may not be your hair's fault...Go by feel, overall look, and manageability of the hair--with and without product. The more you know about how your hair "behaves", the quicker you can tell if something is working for you or against you.
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Note: For the reasons above, I am a huge proponent of salon quality hair care products. Based on my own personal experience, I find that those small-to-medium sized companies that spend a bit more to conduct in-depth lab and salon testing of their products are the ones to invest in. These types of products, while a bit more pricey, require smaller amounts of product used in order to be effective. And results occur much faster. In my opinion, totally worth a few extra dollars.)
So yeah, anyway, as long at the four bare minimum principles are upheld, your hair will thrive. Have goals for your hair, but be realistic. If you were born with thin hair, you won't wake up one morning and have thick Amazon Goddess strands :-) The best thing to do for sanity purposes is to just keep working towards the best hair you can have and it'll be there before you know it.
Hope this helps!!
Peace <3
A.
