My Hair Regimen

I'll start this off by saying that every hair regimen is going to be different. What works for me won't necessarily work for you....I may love how a product works with my hair, you may hate it. That being said, here's what I do:



I was my hair once a week with my sulfate-free shampoo. However, if I'm going to straighten my hair, I will use a shampoo that does contain sulfates. Why? Because I want my hair to be absolutely clean when I straighten it. Although sulfates are consider harsh because they strip away the hair's natural oils more than a sulfate-free shampoo, there are things you can do to counteract this. Therefore, I will often use a pre-poo mixture of oils on my hair the night before (castor oil and coconut oil are my favorite pre-poo ingredients right now). The sulfate-free shampoo I currently use is Giovanni 50:50 Balanced Hydrating-Clarifying  Shampoo. The other shampoo I use is Organix Coconut Milk Shampoo.



To prevent tangles, I wash my hair while it's plaited (usually six plaits). I usually don't have a problem distributing the shampoo throughout my hair, however, I recently purchased an applicator bottle to make sure I'm covering all bases.



After I shampoo my hair, I will proceed to use a moisturizing deep conditioner. Once a month I will use a protein conditioner, followed by my sulfate-free shampoo, and then followed by a moisturizing conditioner. Protein conditioners can be drying, so you want to be sure to continually add moisture back into your hair. When deep conditioning, I remove the braids to make sure the deep conditioner is evenly distributed throughout my hair. I then twist that section into a bantu knot and secure it with a butterfly clamp.



When I'm ready to wash out my DC that also means I'm ready to detangle my hair. Since I wash my hair in plaits and I keep my hair this way for the week, I usually don't have much, if any, tangling. However, it still is important for me to take down my plaits and remove any shed hairs. In order to detangle my hair, I GENEROUSLY apply a cheapie conditioner to my hair and use a wide tooth comb. Once the section is fully detangled, I twist that section back up into a bantu knot and secure with a butterfly clip. The cheapie conditioner I use is V05 Moisture Milk Conditioners. You can find this at any beauty supply store, but I buy mine from the Dollar Tree for $1/bottle.



So, now my hair is detangled and in six bantu knots. Section by section, I take the knot down, apply my leave-in conditioner, and seal that with a mixture of Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (EVCO) and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO). I then braid that section and proceed to the next. The leave-in conditioner I use is a mixture I got from kimmaytube. If you search youtube for "kimmaytube leave-in" you will see the recipe. For those wondering, the mixture is ph balanced.



For daily maintenance, I will co-wash if I feel my hair needs it throughout the week and I pay very close attention to my hair to make sure it doesn't lose its moisture. When needed, I will reapply my leave-in and seal with my EVOO/EVCO mixture.



 Okay, that's it for now. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to write them below. In my next post I will talk about protective styles versus low-manipulation styles. Thanks for reading.