Water, Natural Hair’s Best Friend

Although many of us have been taught that water is the enemy, it’s not.  We extend the time to give our hair the cleansing that it needs in fear that water will somehow break it off. Well, let me tell you something. Even if you wanted to wash your hair everyday this is not going to make you go bald because water has touched your hair.

If anything it will be a little bit more work for you, but you can cleanse your hair as often as you see fit. How often you wash your natural hair depends on your lifestyle. For those who find themselves working out everyday you may want to wash your hair to get rid of that sweat ( leaving sweat on your scalp=not good) and if you are not as active then you may want to wash your hair every week. This is all according to what you see is fit for your lifestyle, all that you need to know is that you don’t have to be afraid.

Our hair thrives in a moisture rich environment and water is one of the best ways to quench its thirst. Dryness after washing is a big concern for many women of color and in which case you may want to evaluate a couple of things. Is your shampoo stripping your hair of moisture? Is your tap water, hard water? Either of these two factors will contribute to dryness, not necessarily the water in itself.

Sulfate shampoos strip the hair of moisture and after a wash things can get a bit dry. Now if you have a shampoo with sulfate that you love you don’t have to ditch it completely, just limit your usage of it.

Sulfates are designed to remove dirt and oil the only problem is with frequent usage it can strip our hair of too much. They come in handy when you feel that your scalp has buildup and co-washing will not be enough. Limiting your usage of sulfate shampoos to once a month will assist you with your dryness woes.

Hard water leaves mineral deposits on the hair which leads to dryness and breakage. Pure water has a neutral PH value of 7.  Now our drinking water most likely does not meet this number, but you can test where your tap water falls on the PH scale by using PH testing strips. Learn more about PH balance and why it is important here.

If you find that you have hard water with a PH value that is way out of control you can purchase a water purification system or you can implement chelating shampoos into your regimen. Chelating shampoos work to remove hard water deposits from your hair and after your usage it’s recommended that you follow up with a conditioning treatment.

Aside from dryness a big contributing factor as to why us kinkier girls avoid washing is the massive shrinkage. Regardless of shrinkage, which is understandably annoying, cleansing your scalp, and reviving your hair with water is a necessity.

Aim to co-wash your hair or use a moisturizing shampoo once a week and to fight the shrinkage braid your hair. If you find that you need to further extend your hair moisturize it and using a denman brush comb from the ends of the hair working your way up to the root.