hair, care, EVERYWHERE!

It's September, y'all! I can't believe the infamous "Summer Sixteen", as Aubrey coined the term, is already almost in our rear view. There have been so many different things going on in my life at the moment, and I will be candid and admit that the very last thing I have wanted to do in recent months is take good care of my hair. Scary, though, because my hair is the most vulnerable right now. As I mentioned in my only hair care post prior, I cut off a significant amount of hair back in March due to immense color damage. I had let the gap grow too far and wide since my previous trim, and the split ends were just walking right up my hair shaft with the sort of disrespectful strut that makes you want to avenge their existence with a pair of kitchen shears yourself! I didn't, though. Trims are for the professionals, as I've mentioned before. Sure, there's DIY videos, even patented instruments out there for me to 'trim de la crème' my damn self. But, let's face it women of color and kinks, those tools were not designed for our hair texture. Also, our hair is a bit more complex than that simply because the shapes can be so different between straightened and fro textures. Anyway, this post is not meant solely to reiterate my previous hair post. It's about when you've suddenly fallen off the wagon. Maybe you were doing so well, and then life got busy and you lost the desire to make your hair a priority. Maybe you are like me, whose hair is in a prime state of vulnerability, where you've trimmed off what you need to and it's time to take the best possible care of your hair post-trim to achieve the most growth until your next trim. Here are some tips on how you, no, WE, can get back on track and see results despite our faux pas.

1. Get a trim. I know it seems like I just said that [because I did, literally], but seriously, get a trim and don't be afraid to get trims. Regularly. You will thank me later. Let me explain how hair works to you. When you trim your hair, it grows. How much you retain from trim to trim all depends on how you care for your hair in between, and definitely how you style it. You may need to trim way less the next time, and so on and so forth. Trim way less? Yes. Trim less hair in your next visit, but you still need to trim regularly. Given the proper hair care, you can trim your hair every 2-4 months, and do well. I know someone with the most beautiful hair who trims it every 6-weeks, religiously. She also doesn't protective style at all, but she knows to compensate for that with her hair dresser visits. Good for her! Me, I need a trim every 3-4 months. Some people swear that they need less than that, or that they can just trim their hair once a year and they will be fine. They might just be right, or they might not. It all depends. When I say people, I am solely speaking of women with hair that is even remotely kinky. Please. Find those people. Bring them to me. Let me feel their hair, and I will tell you if they need a trim or not. I can say confidently that when I touch their hair, it will most likely feel like Brillo at the end, or the ends will just be sparse. You can glob on shea butter everyday for the rest of your life. But if you need a trim, you need a trim. Those 'repair split ends' products are B.S. y'all. Did you just read what I wrote? Yes. BULL SHXT. It's a farse. Dead ends cannot be spared. Can dead beings be spared? No. That's why we have funerals. This isn't Weekend at Bernie's, y'all. You can't just slap some oils on dead hair and pretend. It will [A] catch up to you, literally, and crawl up your hair shaft until you have to cut off way more than you ever anticipated, and [B] it will feel like shxt! Do you want to walk around having soft roots and ends that can scrape your significant other's face? I would hope not. Long hair doesn't necessarily mean healthy hair. Those two terms are not synonymous, remember that.

2. Massage your scalp. OMG, y'all! If you can just remain consistent with this one, it will work wonders for you. Of course, I myself ain't shxt and stopped it a while back. Once I get my trim today, I will start doing this every other day again. Mark my words. Technique? I had a bottle of oils before that need replenishing, but it consisted of jojoba oil and then some scented essential oils like peppermint and rosemary. I just sloppily parted my hair at random and squeezed some oils on my scalp. I used the oil about once a week though, and typically only after my weekly wash. Your scalp naturally produces sebum, which lubricates your scalp and hair, provided you are proactive in spreading it around. You simply don't need to add additional oils to your scalp throughout the week, unless you suffer from dry scalp specifically. After randomly spreading oil around my scalp, I would hang my head down to get my blood rushing to my head, and I would massage and massage and massage my scalp. Pay close attention to the perimeter of your hair to save those edges, but also to your most difficult sections. Mine is the crown of my head. It's naturally dry and needs love. I do this for about 2-5 minutes, taking a break from the position for a few seconds in between just to avoid getting light headed. Try it, y'all!

3. Detangle daily. Yo, this one right here! I lost so much hair to this back in 2013. My hair was almost down to my butt, when straightened, at one point. At the time, I was not detangling regularly and so when trim time came, a lot of what got cut off was just knots that started at various points in my ends that were causing breakage. So what do we mean by detangling? Obviously, you can't detangle your hair if it's cornrowed under a weave or crotchet braids, or if it's in Senegalese twists. No, I don't mean you [although you, my friend, still need to be handling that scalp]. Especially you, actually [insert thinking emoji]. Anyway, no. I mean the people who do styles like buns, or even my infamous 'faux puff', that provides them access to their tresses every night. When you wear a bun or a puff, if your hair isn't in mini-twists, it's bundled up together. That increases the likelihood of tangling. So with that said, pull that bun down every night, rub your scalp to alleviate the stress of your hair being pulled back, and take a moment to detangle from tip to root. TIP TO ROOT. Not the other way around, please. You will break that gorgeous mane of yours. Use a wide tooth comb, preferably, and if you can go back with a fine tooth comb in the end to go over just the ends, please do so. I learned the hard way, and I want you to live vicariously through my mistakes as to not repeat them [did that even make sense, or was I just dying to use that word? I think the latter...].

4. Deep treat. I will be honest, I have no idea when I need a protein treatment over a moisturizing deep treatment. But what I do know is that I need a moisture treatment every week because my hair is naturally dry, and I just choose to protein treat once a month, or whenever I remember. I know it's painful, and this is why I don't do this often enough, but please go grab a beat up organic avocado with some organic olive oil, grind it up very well, and let that sit in your hair for at least an hour once a month. Prior to being vegan, I would use mayonnaise and eggs, but the reality is that mayo is just eggs and oil, and eggs are just more protein. Is that necessary in addition to avocado, which is for moisture and protein, and olive oil? No. There is vegan mayo [friggin delicious by the way, click that link!], but it's oil based. So, there's no need to get that involved either. As far as deep treatment is concerned, I know the ingredients aren't organic or necessarily all-natural, but plain old cholesterol from the beauty supply or pharmacy still moisturizes my whole life! I use that for 30 minutes, and wash out thoroughly. Also, back when I had a perm, my hair would thrive on placenta as well. It's super shady because it's definitely not some lady's placenta, but it smells good enough to me and my hair responded well back in the day. Who am I to argue with this mop? Yeah, I'm not doing that. Case has been rested. FYI: those last two worked for me. Try them, but I won't swear by them for everyone because those are subjective, in my opinion.

5. Oil treatment. Notice I didn't say HOT. You can warm these oils up beforehand or not. You can sit under a dryer with this, or not. I put oil in my hair and just do mad chores. Vacuuming, cleaning, cooking, and laundry. All of those house-cardio activities will heat your scalp up in no time. Believe me. In any event, for this, I use Jamaican black castor oil and coconut oil. Either both, or one or the other. So here's the thing about these oils. I will give you my personal opinion on it, and it may apply to you or not. Growing up, my mom would use castor oil and coconut oil in my hair as an oil treatment. It helps your hair grow, or so the Jamaicans believed. She never used it to style my hair by any means. It was solely an oil treatment. Today, the natural community seems to be using these two oils in a lot. Lotion. Shaving. Body wash. Face wash. Hair moisturizer, daily? Look, if that works for you, fine. Who am I to judge? I can't. But from what I know of them personally, I was always told that placing them in your hair as a moisturizer makes it 'trashy' as we say in Jamaica, or brittle. It actually has the reverse effects if you just let it sit on your hair. Is that the case for every hair texture? No. Some hair is more kinky than others and that might be the only thing that works for that person. I don't know. That's trial and error. I won't pretend like I know about that. But I can speak for myself, someone who has about 5 different textures and types going on in my head: thick, curly, wavy, fine, dry, etc. For me, leaving that in my hair for hours on end before washing and conditioning made my hair so brittle, almost like I needed another trim! No thanks. 30 minutes max. Wash out thoroughly, then condition or deep condition, and go from there. That's ME. Try that for starters and see how it works for you. This stuff is all trial and error half the time anyway. Us bloggers, and the YouTubers and vloggers [whatever that means] are just offering what works for us most of the time.

6. Clarify. Just take some apple cider vinegar and water, 1 part to 3 parts, and go through your hair and scalp thoroughly before shampooing. Especially if you are like me and use a lot of shea butter, you need to lift those oils and thoroughly clean your hair before you add them back in for the next week. All of the oils also trap sweat on my scalp, and being that i work out regularly, I have to be mindful of smelly scalp oils just sitting there. This is a nice pre-shampoo routine to get into. It just makes your shampoo's job much easier. Don't have ACV? You can also just add some corn starch to your shampoo to lift the dirt, too. Make sure you condition very deeply afterwards, as that can be drying. Try and see!

7. Protective style. Let me write that again. PROTECTIVE STYLE. Yo, this one right here! This is how I grew my hair between 2011 and 2013. If only I were detangling, and never colored my hair in 2014, my hair would be very long today. Well, not that I wouldn't have chopped it off proactively, but the potential was there. Whatever your style, again, just make sure you detangle [if you can], and always massage and massage your scalp in between. Take off that wig and get down to them roots! That stimulates hair growth, literally. If you wear buns and puffs, be sure to use a natural hair gel, don't make your pony tail too tight, and use a scarf for at least 20 minutes to lay down your hair before completing the style. Don't pull those buns too tight. It's bad for your edges, but it's also not necessary when you can get it to lay flat all day just by using a soft brush, good gel or moisturizer, and a scarf. Now, these styles can get expensive. That's why I usually do my hair myself. Cut costs, or do what you prefer, but do something. Honestly, though, you can't front like this isn't awesome advice. I'm telling you to do LAZY styles because they actually HELP you, provided you still keep up with my advice from before. You see how I 'be' looking out? I got Ebonical and philosophical on you, all at the same damn time. Less is more. When you manipulate your hair less, it has a chance to stretch out and just be hair! Really? What does hair have to do other than grow and be great? It's like a plant. You give it love, water, and it will grow! Now, with that said, some times require more protective styling than other times. Wintertime is a MUST. I generally don't wear my hair out at all in the winters of New York. It's SO drying. Summertime is a bit different. Natural hair actually loves humidity because it provides moisture. It also provides shrinkage and a total remix to the style you actually planned for the day, in most instances. That's at your own risk. If you don't mind potentially walking outside like a box head, then wear that hair out! That's one of the best times! Otherwise, mild weather is decent since it's not an extreme, and without moisture in the air, your hair will likely look as planned. Just make sure that whenever you wear your hair out, it's thoroughly coated in moisture. Mandatory step, y'all! There is all types of stuff in air. Make sure there is something between you and air at large. The environment is messed up. Don't you see this wacky weather? It's helpful to have a full coat of shea butter as your 'hair jacket' to survive. Be wise and remain consistent.

So that's it on my hair advice, for now. Drop your comments below and let me know how it works for you. Ask questions and/or tell me what your routine is. I love suggestions! Chat soon.

Peace, Kings & Queens

xoxo

Shanelle Julia Rosita Campbell