Easter Hair Care

 Easter Hair Care

Easter is this coming Sunday, so you know what that means....millions of children, young an old, will be straightening their hair between today and tomorrow!

I actually had no intentions of writing this post today, but I feel obligated to remind my readers about the importance of using a heat protectant when blow drying, pressing, and/or flat iron those precious tresses.

Heat, when done incorrectly or too often, can take your gorgeous head of hair and totally destroy it in one bad application.  Unfortunately, once you've encountered heat damage, there is nothing you can do to truly fix it.  Yes, there are conditioners and such that help to improve the appearance of the damage, but the deed is still done.

You should aim to always use a heat protectant whenever using any sort of heated straightening instrument.  This will help to absorb most of the direct heat from your heated appliance. Heat protectants come in a variety of forms including lotions, serums, and sprays.  I usually use sprays, due to the ease of application and coverage ability.  I like Giovanni's Flat Iron Styling Mist.  It contains some organic ingredients, and ya'll know I'm a health nut. Regardless of the form, as a rule of thumb you should use something. 

Okie dokie my friends...  This concludes my PSA announcement :-)  Happy Easter!

Jumbo Bantu Knot Out on Flat Ironed Hair

Jumbo Bantu Knot Out on Flat Ironed Hair

Operation Straight Hair was a success!  Yaay I’ve got straight hair (well at least for the time being).  Ok, so now what?!?!  How do I maintain it?  Even when I had relaxed hair I was NEVER good a wrapping my hair, so that was out of the question.  Since I didn’t feel like fighting to get this mop of mine wrapped (you will soon learn that I am LOW maintenance when it comes to my hair) I decided to put in some big old bantu knots before bedtime.  Easy breezy :-)

My Process:

1. Section hair into big sections (I did 6 altogether, 4 in the back, and 2 on the sides)
2. Add Shea Butter to section of hair
3. Put in Bantu Knot
4. Secure with bobby pin
5. Repeat on remainder of sections
6. Tie up with scarf
7. In the morning, undo Bantu Knots
8. Shake and fluff

 What do you think?  Let me know your thoughts.

Operation Straight Hair

Operation Straight Hair

For fear of heat damage, I don't straighten my hair very often.  Not to mention, I'm all about low maintenance and I don't like taking forever to style my hair.  But every once in a while a naturalista has a feel for a change.  

To reduce any potential heat damage I opted not to blow dry my hair.  I figure the less heat the better. So instead I dried it in my big ole dunky twists overnight, and proceeded to flat iron once they were dry the next day.

My Process (post wash and conditioner):

1. Add Shea Butter to hair and put in big twist (about 8 twists)
2. Let hair air dry
3. Remove twists 
4. Take small sections of hair and spritz with heat protectant
5. Smooth out with flat iron