#black hair care

[creatingblackcharacters]

Examples of Protective Hair Coverings

I had to scroll through unreasonable amounts of white people for this. Oh, Google.

Durag

Silk Bonnet

Silk Scarf

Loc Socks

Okay, I admit. I've been using loc sock and loc bonnet interchangeably bc I've worn both and I know what I mean, but I cannot do that anymore.

Different styles will require different night time protective care! If your Black character has a silk press, she may choose to wrap her hair in a scarf. If they've got long locs or braids, a long silk bonnet will be better. A teeny weeny afro? A short bonnet will suffice, or they might even go bare. These are far from the only methods! We have oodles of options on how we maintain specific styles. Black hair care requires effort! Research and pick one!

[slyvester101]

Another headcanon for Tucker

Since Tucker is a black man stuck in the military with the same mostly white fuckers in a box canyon for years on end without any kind of salon/hairdresser/barber around, he gets fucking good at doing his own hair.

He orders all the stuff from Vic and has a designated ‘hair day’ for when he undoes, cuts, braids, or generally does his hair care. He gets hella good at it. He can do all the fancy, complicated shit. He can do the very mundane and simple shit too. He even learns how to dye his hair (it’s boring in blood gulch before Donut and Caboose arrived and kickstarted the next decade of shenanigans)

And since he’s the only “hairdresser” in the canyon, it’s obviously his job to take care of anything hair related.

He cuts Caboose’s and Church’s hair semi-regularly. Caboose lets him experiment and cut his hair however he likes, Church gets the same stupid haircut every time.

He helps Tex put her hair up in braids and buns when it’s just not cooperating. When Kai complains about a lack of hair care availability, Tucker gives her a full on spa day, treating and braiding her hair for her.

He also sometimes helps the reds with their hair. Sarge has only ever asked to borrow a razor (something Tucker still hasn’t gotten back), Simmons also gets the same damn haircut everytime, Grif has very curly and long hair like Tucker and often needs help taking care of/braiding it (especially since he’s too lazy to do it by himself) and Donut enjoys getting pampered whenever Tucker does his hair (Tucker doesn’t half-ass this shit. It’s a full production when Tucker does someone hair.)

He helps Wash and Carolina dye their hair. He braids Kimball’s hair into combat braids when she asks. He teaches the soldiers of Chorus how to do complex braids and how to do proper hair care while in an active warzone.

Taking care of hair, cutting, braiding, washing, it all becomes second nature to Tucker. It becomes woven (ba dum tss) into his very being. What used to be something he did out of vanity and necessity became something he did because he genuinely enjoyed it, because it brought him and the people around him joy.

Tucker using hair as an outlet, maybe as a coping mechanism. Tucker giving to others what he wishes someone would’ve given him.

A decent fucking hairdo.

[odinsblog]

Traccye Love used hair relaxers for years and believes the chemicals in those hair products are related to her uterine fibroids. Love, of Oak Park, had a hysterectomy two years ago and is one of thousands of women who have filed suit against the hair care companies.

Growing up in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood in the late 1990s, Traccye Love wished for the long, smooth tresses of pop star Aaliyah.

“That was the look then — smooth and straight,” said Love, of Oak Park. “My mom would press it (with a hot comb), but I wanted it to stay straight.”

Love wasn’t allowed to get her first chemical hair relaxer until she turned 18. For most of the women in her close-knit, predominantly Black community, the rite of passage of using relaxers to straighten their naturally kinky, thick hair had come much younger. Love’s mother worried about the dangers of using a relaxer: chemical burns or brittle hair caused by lye and similar chemicals in hair-straightening products.

Throughout college, and well into her 30s, Love slathered on chemicals from home straightening kits every six weeks or so. Then, in her late 30s, she began to feel knee-buckling abdominal pain during her menstrual cycles — on her worst days each month, Love downed five 200-milligram tablets of ibuprofen every four hours.

“It felt like someone was taking my ovary and twisting it like a balloon,” Love said.

After several years and trips to three different doctors, tests revealed Love had multiple, golf ball-sized fibroid tumors in her uterus. In 2022, at the age of 38, she had a hysterectomy. She was still using hair relaxers until her husband spotted a social media post about lawsuits targeting the manufacturers. She now thinks the relaxers caused her tumors.

“It had never occurred to me that there was serious risk to using relaxers,” Love said. “I thought the risk was getting scalp burns.”

In October 2022, the first of several thousand lawsuits was filed at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in the Loop by a woman from St. Louis claiming that chemicals in hair relaxer products she used — such as Soft Sheen, Just for Me and Dark & Lovely — caused her cancer.

(continue reading)

[sbrown82]

Meghan Markle & Mariah Carey talking about Black hair care! 👩🏾‍🦱

[floof-ghostie]

I just think it's so depressing how much natural hair is associated with struggling, and how many people opt to perming and damaging their hair as opposed to taking the time to learn to love their hair the way it grows. And then make people who promote wearing their hair natural out to be controlling when they aren't. I especially hate how this narrative is used to fuel capitalism, and buying 60 different products "guaranteed to grow your hair". I don't know. I have a lot of thoughts on this. I'm just tired.

(nonblacks can interact but please be respectful)

[wakandama2]

Wash n' Go's were invited by some lightskin 3b devil that has infiltrated the soul of our community and I stand on that😤😤😤

[mimi-0007]

Janet Jackson 😍🤩💜💜💜

[thejaguartour]

Victoria Monét at Garnier Fructis’ vegan Hair Filler launch with Xochitl Gomez & Charli D’Amelio! 🤎💚

[op0ssumlord]

Okay because apparently some people need this reminder

👏BLACK WOMEN ARE NOT THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN HAVE CURLS/COILS HAIR IS NOT A RACE👏

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk

~ A very white person with very curly hair

[not0fthiswurld]

[andelkacroatia]

How to retwist…for dummies 💕✨

OG Creator theeglamnaija on Tiktokrepost from tik

[naturalhairhow101]

If I dont drench it, it’ll be snowing babes, leave me alone lmao 

@theycallme_fab

[hypaalicious]

Black Hair Care myths BUSTED!

Since I’m fighting off the plague and have nothing else better to do but lay here pitifully, I’ve decided to talk about hair again after my last two posts on shampoo types and curly hair care , only this time focusing on Black folks’ hair and the misinformation lots of us grew up on.

Now, because I know the gowrls like to tussle (and Mercury in Microbraids along with an eclipse is upon us), lemme just say this: if you’re absolutely happy with your hair care routine, then this post isn’t for you.

This post is only for people who are curious and want to evolve and simplify their hair care routines.

OKAY LEGGO:

The hair typing chart is garbage.

Everyone and they mama should be familiar with this chart. So many of us use it to determine what type of hair products to buy that work best for our hair type.

Unfortunately, the chart is pseudo-science.

All hair types need the same basic care (shampooing/conditioning at least every week), and products that claim to cater to a specific hair type is just a marketing tactic. This chart also promotes texturism; Oprah’s stylist literally made up the type 4 category to say that the only thing to do to tight curls is to straighten or loosen them. 🥲

Products can’t give you the kind of curls you want.

I touched on this a bit in my first hair post, but it bears repeating here: Curl “activators”, Shea butter, raw oil blends, creams, leave-in conditioners, texturizing shampoos… all of them are finessing you, beloveds. If your hair isn’t holding defined clumps of curls immediately after shampooing, then your hair is likely chronically dehydrated and needs to be detoxed.

We’re kinda raised to product chase because we’re told that the way our hair grows out of our heads is bad and needs to be fixed, and the $2.5 billion Black hair care industry is always eager to offer us placebos for our coin. We see someone with the hair texture and length we want and we immediately ask “what products do you use??” as if the answer is in a bottle when it’s really just genetics. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Greasing/oiling your scalp does not moisturize it, get rid of dandruff, or make your hair grow faster.

As a kid I remember my hairdresser using a fine toothed comb and “breaking up” the dandruff on my scalp before applying Sea Breeze to soothe it. Every single time, the dandruff came back worse. 😩 If I put oil on my scalp, it would take only a day before build up and large yellow flakes would rain out of my hair. But I thought because my scalp and my hair needed moisturizing that I couldn’t go without oils.

Well, I was right on one thing; my scalp and hair def needed moisture. But I wasn’t gonna get moisture from anything but water, and at the time I was avoiding water like the plague because I always had a fresh silk press or perm and I didn’t want my hair “reverting”.

If you have a scalp condition or chronic itchiness, you are very much making it worse by adding any of that to your head. The only solution is to wash your hair, loves. Yes, you may have to choose between looking “laid” and what’s actually good for your hair and scalp, but them’s the breaks.

The hair growth oils that line the shelves at Sally’s? Literally snake oil. Same goes for hair vitamins, biotin, MSM, rice water, JBCO, egg white/tea rinse/fruit or food products, African Black soap, rose water, etc. Nothing topical, save for specific medicated prescription drugs from a dermatologist, can make hair grow. Save ya money, hunny!

Co-washing and water-only washing doesn’t get your hair clean.

Conditioner is incapable of doing what shampoo does. You’re just gonna add layers of build up on your hair doing co-washes. Water-only cleansing is like never using soap in your laundry and expecting your clothes to be clean. 😬 Only putting shampoo on your scalp and carefully avoiding the length of your hair is the equivalent of white folks not washing their legs in the shower. Don’t do any of this.

I actually do not know where the myth started that Black folks hair is somehow too fragile to handle shampoo, a thing that is specifically formulated for hair. 😅 If shampoo is drying your hair out, you need to make sure you’re using the right kind of shampoo, not ditching shampoo altogether. If you need help, I touched on shampoo basics here!

Using a spray bottle to “refresh” your hair doesn’t do what you think it’s doing.

Tiny water droplets from a spray bottle only sit on the surface of your hair, even more so if your hair already has product in it. If your styles aren’t holding until your next wash, you may need to re-examine what you’re using, how you apply it, and how you set it. If you need to refresh a style or get moisture, nothing less than washing your hair will do.

Finger detangling or using a wide toothed comb or denman brush isn’t doing the job.

I know we’ve been raised to think that because our hair is tightly coiled, that we have to treat it with kid gloves. But we actually do more harm to our hair by not detangling correctly. Detangling is the act of getting shed hair out from your head so it doesn’t wrap up in your healthy hair and cause breakage. A wide toothed comb can’t do that, and neither can your fingers. A denman brush is ONLY supposed to be used to hold tension in the hair when blowdrying it straight. What you want is a Felicia Leatherwood brush and to use that bad boy in the shower right after putting conditioner on sopping wet hair, trust me.

Protective styles don’t exist.

Buns, braids, wigs… all of them look fantastic when done right and it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t wear them. But they are all just alternative styles; nothing is being protected. I know a lot of us love the low maintenance that having these styles provide, but I want us to examine why they are thought of as low maintenance: it’s because folks are less likely to wash their hair/detangle while having them.

Any style that discourages you from weekly hair washing cannot be protective. It instead promotes hair neglect. Yes, I know, it can cost thousands of dollars for those waist length box braids or sew in, but you paid for the labor that goes into those kinds of styles, not the ability to keep them in for as long as possible. Not touching your hair for weeks on end means you’ll have dehydrated hair with mad buildup to get rid of. And btw, that type of damage to the hair cannot be fixed in just one visit to the salon. For as many weeks as you go without washing your hair, you need that many weeks out of an alternative style with frequent washing to help it recover.

Dry hair is determined by its behavior, not how it feels.

This one has a lot of folks tripped out because logically, we should be able to just touch our strands and know that it needs moisture. Unfortunately, so many of us don’t know what our actual hair feels like without it being slathered in products, so the moment that we stop using them we think our hair is “dry” when it’s really just how our natural hair texture may feel. It’s def not easy in the beginning to let go of the familiarity a nicely oiled head of hair presents. 🥲

So, how do you know if you have dry hair? If it can’t hold a curl pattern without manipulation, is hydrophobic (if water doesn’t completely flatten hair to your scalp when you wash it, it’s not absorbing), is extremely difficult to detangle, breaks off easily, etc.

You don’t need to rinse your hair in cold water.

Only reason you should even consider it is if you have vivid color in your hair, but… lemme tell y’all sumn.

Years ago when I started dyeing my hair, it was typical for a permanent black hair dye to act like a semi-perm and wash almost completely out or turn grey in a few weeks. Now that I have a much better hair regimen that keeps my hair in the best health it can be, my semi-permanent fashion colors last for months until I decide to touch it up again. And I absolutely do not relish being cold in the shower, so I just use hot water.

The health of your hair matters more than any gimmicks or products you can use to fix a problem.

Long hair/shiny hair is not an indicator of health, it is an indicator of genetics.

I want DESPERATELY for us as a people to break the shackles of thinking that the only hair that matters is long and thick, or that someone who has long hair is an automatic authority on hair care.

If you want an idea of how long your hair can get, then look to your family. If your mom or dad don’t have hair touching their waist then it’s highly possible you were not blessed with the DNA to get your hair waist length either. And that’s okay! You aren’t any less valid. It will just save you a LOT of heartache to learn to embrace your hair the way it naturally is rather than to run around buying products and chasing haircare trends in hopes that a miracle will happen. Not to mention, I’ve seen a lot of folks with long hair but they ain’t had a trim in years and it absolutely shows. 😬

A lot of folks do not have shiny hair, that is once again due to genetics not hair health. Matte hair has a different surface texture and that’s absolutely fine! Only manufactured beauty standards glorify long and shiny hair.

Speaking of hair length…

Shrinkage is not your enemy.

A general rule is that the only hair length that matters is how you regularly wear it.

My hair stays comfortably at the nape of my neck now that I wear my curls 100% of the time. If I pull it taut, then it’ll reach mid-back. But I don’t plan on straightening my hair ever again to show that mid-back length, so… 🤷🏽‍♀️ I have short hair because that is how it lays without manipulation. And that’s fine.

Shrinkage doesn’t scare me because it’s what healthy curly hair DOES. If my hair springs like a coil and retains shape, then I’m doing something right! I have always wanted long hair, I won’t deny that. But if I have to stretch my natural hair in any way in order to GET that long hair, it’s not worth it to me. I’ll just wear a wig for a hot min if I wanna whip my hair back and forth.

Air drying your hair isn’t better than diffusing it with a hair dryer.

Another thing we’ve been told is that heat damages our hair and that air drying is best. That’s not necessarily true.

DIRECT heat can damage your hair (flat irons, blow outs, pressing combs). INDIRECT heat (hooded dryers, a diffuser attachment on a handheld dryer) does not. In fact, diffused heat sets your wash and gos/twist outs way better than air drying. It cuts down on frizz and ensures your style will last through the week.

Also, it’s better to dry your hair completely rather than wait hours for it to air dry and then maybe sleep on wet hair. Fun fact: Leaving your hair wet for too long can cause mold to grow in your hair! 😱 And if you lay a wet head on a pillow, the bacteria transfers to your pillowcase and you continue to sleep in that until you wash the pillow!

You can’t “lock moisture in” your hair.

Water evaporates. It’s what it’s gonna do. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Putting leave ins or oils on your hair in hopes that water stays in your strands longer isn’t a thing, despite what a lot of us have been told. The only thing you’re gonna be left with is greasy, dehydrated hair if you don’t wash it weekly.

Avoiding getting a hair cut will not grant you healthy or long hair.

Hair grows an average of half an inch per month, regardless of race. The belief that “Black hair doesn’t grow” is rooted in anti-Blackness. 😅 If you’re not seeing growth, then it’s most likely that your hair is simply breaking off faster than the rate of growth, or you have an underlying health issue that needs to be addressed by a doctor.

I know I used to hate hairdressers who seemed “scissor happy” because I was always chasing length, so I would often only tell them to “dust” the ends if they do anything. Now, I will grab my clippers and cut inches off my hair in a heartbeat if my hair starts looking raggedy. Clinging on to scraggly hair because it takes “so long to grow” doesn’t do you any favors, trust me. 😭 Take better care of your hair and you will retain length a lot easier, and that includes getting quarterly haircuts.

Porosity does not matter.

How many of us did this whole “put a strand of hair in a cup of water and see if it floats or sinks”? Well, what if I told you that it means absolutely nothing for everyday hair care? 😭 Porosity isn’t even a static state, so many things can change it on a dime!

The only time porosity matters is if you are getting a color service and that is only for your stylist to determine. And you will never see a stylist worth their salt putting your hair in a cup of water to figure it out. Also, a lot of “low” porosity hair is just product build up.

Using home remedies to address hair loss concerns doesn’t work.

No, it doesn’t matter that your grandma did black tea rinses regularly to stop her hair from shedding. It doesn’t matter what women in India do with their hair, either. This may be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s perfectly okay to evolve past things that aren’t truly helpful even if it’s a Black culture staple.

Please don’t be afraid to go to a dermatologist. 🥺 There’s even a Black Dermatologist Directory to reference if you don’t wanna go to just anybody. Yeah, it may seem pricey, but Dermatologists have the training to cut through the guesswork, pinpoint what the problem is and save you a LOT of time and pain. You don’t wanna fuck around and make your hair loss WORSE by doing psuedo-chemistry in your kitchen.

“Do what works for you” doesn’t have the mileage you think it does.

When people don’t want to hear that their current hair practices aren’t really helping them, they default to “Well, it works for ME!” or “Everyone’s hair is different!”

Nobody’s hair is so different that it doesn’t need a weekly wash with shampoo. Nobody’s hair is the magical unicorn that grew 4 inches in a month because they used JBCO. Your hair is not “built different”, and believing that it is will lead you to spending money on things you don’t need. Doing what works for you only comes after you have nailed the basics of healthy hair care, and it only varies in like… if you prefer to use styling foam to set your wash n go as opposed to gel. Or using one brand’s shampoo over another. Not “my hair likes butters and oils and staying in protective styles for months on end and is doing just fine, and you telling me otherwise is anti-Black”.

If you have unexamined hatred of your natural hair texture, then nothing in this long-ass post will hit for you. If a large part of your identity as a Black person is rooted in product chasing, protective styles and taking an entire business day to wash your hair, then a lot of this will offend you. I’m really sorry for that, and I am not here to argue with anybody. I’ll just tell you “if you like it, I love it” and go on about my business.

For everyone else, I really hope this post helps to shed some light on hair care and set you on a better journey that gives you more time and more confidence in your styles! 🥹

[sbrown82]

I really think white people, non-Black POC, and Black men need to leave Black women alone when it comes to our hair. How y’all always mad when Black women straighten their hair, wear wigs, weaves, extensions, and color it. But when we get natural styles and wear our hair the way it grows out of our heads, you damn sure are quiet when we’re bullied, harassed, and degraded because of it. That’s on top of the fact that we run the risk of being suspended from school, fired from jobs, and being called a “nappy head”. So…my question is: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM US?!?!?

[wakandamama]

Wash n Go's are a figment of thee imagination.