Take care of your curls
In a previous article I encouraged you to love your curls, at least if you have them, because I encourage people to embrace and to be proud of their natural hair style. In this article I would like to share some of my tips to take care of curly and African-American hair. It might sound a bit weird that I, the one with fine, blonde and only slightly wavy hair, blogs about how to take care of curls. The reason is that during the research for my hairbrush line Delphin & Emerence, I met so many beautiful women with all types of hair and especially the curly and African-American hair was of particular interest to me because it was such a fragile hair type that needed special care and attention. When trying my sample brushes on my curly test team I had many conversations and I heard a lot of horrifying stories about women who destroyed their hair and hurt their scalp by trying to straighten out their curls. It raised my interest in how to take care of this hair type. This is an article full of tips and tricks on how to let your curls shine, just because I care for you.
5 Tips for taking care of curls and African-American (Afro) hair
- Make use of your natural conditioner: sebum! Your scalp produces sebum which is your own homemade conditioner. When you have straight or slightly wavy hair spreading sebum along the hairshaft to nourish the hair strands is fairly easy. However when you are blessed with curls of African-American hair, brushing your hair is a bit more difficult. Brushing your curls when the hair is dry is often a huge challenge. However I do advice to brush. This is not something curly types like to do, but I do encourage you to brush at least the night before you give your hair a wash in order to let the sebum work its magic overnight.
- Brush your hair before washing. Getting rid of all knits and tangles before washing and conditioning your hair is very important to avoid breakage during the washing process. Wet hair is even more vulnerable and prone to breakage! I know that it can be a challenge, but when you use a quality hairbrush to do it like the Blackthorn-Tangle Power Strong from Delphin & Emerence, you will see that brushing can become a very blissful experience and it won’t break your hair and doesn’t hurt and scratch your scalp.
- Deeply condition your curls at least once a week with natural oils. To fortify your curls I advice to nourish your hair and scalp with organic coconut oil (see also my other post here), or castor oil the night before you wash your hair. This will deeply condition your fragile curls and nourish and sooth your scalp.
- Stay away from straightening products, relaxers and too much heat styling. This is absolutely horrifying for your fragile hair type and causes irreparable damage to your hair and irritates the scalp. On the contrary look for a hairdresser that knows how to make your natural hair, your curls shine.
- Don’t wear tight braids or other tight hair styles too often since they put too much strain on the hair strands and hair follicles resulting in breakage and hair loss.
