How to keep your dyed hair healthy

Hey Beautiful people 

So a lot of people have been asking me how to keep their dyed hair healthy or if it is wise to dye their hair. I used to love dying my hair during my teen years then i stopped when I decided to start my healthy hair journey so I totally understand the struggle. When you dye your hair it loses some of its natural protein, this weakens it and can also lead to damage. This is the case with any chemical treatment e.g: relaxing or dying. So if you dye your relaxed hair it loses more protein in contrast to when you dye natural hair. However its also important to remember that  we all have different hair because some hair loses moisture after being dyed. I've made a list of do's and don'ts of dyed hair to help you guys out. 

DO'S & DON''TS; 

1. DO, DEEP CONDITION YOUR HAIR WEEKLY WITH EITHER A MOISTURIZING CONDITIONER OR A PROTEIN ONE, DEPENDING ON WHAT YOUR HAIR NEEDS AT THE TIME (check out my post on different conditioners if you don't know what I'm talking about)
2. HOT OIL TREATMENTS WILL HELP STRENGTHEN AND KEEP YOUR HAIR MOISTURIZED. So this is a definate DO
3. USE CLARIFYING SHAMPOOS
4. USE LEAVE IN CONDITIONER
5. USE HEAT PROTECTOR BUT PLEASE AVOID USING HEAT IF POSSIBLE  
6. WASH YOUR HAIR USING LUKE WARM WATER
7. DO NOT OVER BRUSH/COMB IT
8. DO NOT OVER PROCESS YOUR HAIR (DYING THEN RELAXING STRAIGHT AFTER) WAIT AT LEAST A WEEK.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask questions or comment in the comment section below. You can also contact me on any of my social media .

 PLEASE FOLLOW THE WELOVEAFRICANHAIR INSTAGRAM PAGE IF YOU DON'T ALREADY. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.

I also want to do a question and answer post so please feel free to leave all the questions you have for me in my inbox on FB or my twitter and instagram dms.

XOX & Take good care of that hair

Oils for healthy, strong and thicker hair.

Hey beautiful people.
I'm sorry for being silent this past month.
As you can see by the title of this post it is going to be about oils and their benefits for your hair. My friend BK helped me out with this post (S/O to you girl). 

Coconut Oil :  

• excellent conditioner 
• helps in the re-growth of damaged hair 
• provides the essential proteins required for nourishing damaged hair
• it softens the hair
• conditions the scalp
• a great oil to use for pre-poo  
• has antioxidants that repair damaged 
• stimulates hair growth 
• moisturizes dry hair 
• makes hair softer 
• prevents hair breakage and split ends

Not ideal for winter because it hardens during cold weather.

Jojoba Oil:

• great for all hair types 
• aids in hair growth by helping in the growth of new hair cells 
• acts against dandruff 
• reduces hair fall

Extra Virgin Olive Oil:  

• helps preventing as well as curing hair loss.
• promotes healthy hair and scalp.
• has anti-inflammatory properties, 
• it helps in treating dandruff 
• helps reduce hair fall  
• aids hair growth.

Castor Oil :

• helps to seal moisture
• softens hair , 
• visibly thickens hair.

Regular use of castor oil gives you healthy, thick, shiny, and moisturized hair.

Amla oil: 

• great conditioner
• traditional hair growth treatment

Avocado Oil: 

• deep conditioner treatment 
• good for moisturizing dry, brittle, and damaged hair
• stimulates blood flow which is good for hair growth
• helps prevents hair loss
• acts against dandruff 

Argan Oil : 

• great finishing product for shiny hair 
•  tames frizz 
• hydrates and moisturizes hair
• treats split ends

 Essential oils

Peppermint Oil:

• helps stimulate blood flow which is necessary for hair growth
• soothes itchy scalp

Tea Tree Oil: 

• helps clear dead skin cells from the scalp.
• soothes itchy scalp 
• has anti bacterial and anti fungal properties

These oils are available in clicks,dischem and some are found in grocery stores.

I hope this will be help you when picking up oils for your hair.Feel free to comment, make suggestions or ask questions in the comment section below or dm me on twitter, FB or IG.

XOX & Take good care of that hair.

My hair journey update

Hey beautiful people

So, I just thought I'd give you an update on my hair journey and the new products I have been  using. When I first began my hair journey I wasn't really trying to grow long hair hence I was not using anything for hair growth. I was focusing on growing healthy hair. However now I'm actually trying to grow it after I saw how long and beautiful Black Chyna's hair is. So basically Chyna's hair = my hair goals

see how gorgeous her hair is

😍

yeah, so she inspired me to try grow my hair and see how long it will get. This was my hair begining of March 2016 just before I started using oils that promote hair growth.

March 2016

March 2016

What have i been doing to grow my hair.

• Protective styling : I've been weaving my hair and getting box braids since then. Whenever I loosen my hair I wash it then do some form of plat just so that my hair is protectected and to stop me from over combing or brushing. Oh and when ever I weave my hair I leave my hair line out so i can contiuously treat it with my doctor Miracles temple and nape balm. I use it as an edge control too so 1 guess its a 2in1. Doctor Miracles also has a hot gro which i heard works wonders I havent personally tried it out but I have heard good reviews on it.You can get these products at Clicks or Dischem. If you are looking for something to use on your whole head I would suggest the Hot Gro.

• Amla oil: this is the extract from gooseberries its made in India (Im sure we all know how gorgeous Indian hair is) Indians have been using this for centuries.Ive been using it to oil my scalp every other day for the for the 6 weeks I have had braids. Im happy with the results Ive seen so far. You can use it as is or u can mix it with coconut oil and use it to oil your scalp. This mixture is also great for dandruff. I got this in Dischem but im sure you can find it in any Indian Beauty supply shop.
  

• Caivil Fusion Oil: I'll be using this to base my scalp when I have weaves. It's a mixture of black castor oil and argan oil. You can get this in Clicks.
  
• Scalp massages: I've been giving myself scalp massages after oiling my scalp with the Amla oil. This promotes blood circulation. So if u have specific areas you are targeting for hair growth massaging those areas will help stimulate hair growth. Water is basically good for everything hair, skin etc.
• Air dying: This is a good way to avoid using heat. After washing my hair I just dry it with a towel and let the air take care of the rest
• Essential oils: Im also learning about mixing essential oils tea tree, fenugreek, rosemary etc. I have not really started using these yet but as soon as I do I will do a post focusing on hair growing oils for you guys.

This my hair now 

from now on I'll be taking pictures of the lenght of my hair from behind with a bra on to make it easier to track the growth and I'll be using this chart to help me tack the growth.

I hope this helps you out if you are trying to grow your hair. Feel free to comment, make suggetions or ask questions in the comment section below or dm me on twitter, FB or IG.

XOX & Take good care of that hair

Stop breakage and shedding: Moisturizing and Protein conditioners

Hi beautiful people

2 weeks ago I spoke about shampoos, so it made sense for me to talk about conditioners.

For a while I had been noticing that my hair was growing longer and healthier but I was still experiencing some shedding (not the normal shedding). I would see a lot of hair on the floor after combing or brushing my hair. Then after talking to some friends (Shout out to BK and Sikha) researching and watching some youtube videos I learnt about slaphate free shampoos, moisturizing conditioners and protein conditioners. I realized had been giving my hair too much protein and not as much moisture. This was bad because our hair needs a balance of the two. Some people need a lot more protein while others need more moisture. However too much moisture or protein is bad for our hair and can cause breakage and shedding. So it`s important for us to know our hair, so we know exactly what we need at different points in time. 

Black people tend to have naturally dry hair therefore the best way to add moisture to it is by deep conditioning it with a moisturizing conditioner. Water based products are the best for moisturizing. It is also very important to drink a lot of water about 2L a day.

Moisture

• makes your hair softer which is important because our hair is naturally dry 
• makes it easier to handle and manipulate your hair.
• keeps your hair hydrated 
• promotes growth of new hair.

Protein is responsible for 

• strenghtening hair
• rebuilding the hair follicle
• repairing damaged hair
• decreasing breakage and shedding

Protein conditioners are usually written repair/restore or for damaged hair.

I`m sure by now you are wondering how you can tell what your hair needs. Okay so basically when our hair is feeling brittle and dry it obviously means it needs moisture and when our hair is feeling too soft then it needs protein. So its important to feel your hair before washing it so you know what exactly it needs.

Dry = deep condition with a moisturizing conditioner

Soft = deep condition with a protein conditioner

We need to alternate between the two depending on what our hair needs at that point in time.

List of moisturizing conditioners

• Mizani Moisturfuse Moisturizing Conditioner

• V05 moisture Milks Conditioner

• Tresemme Naturals Moisture Conditioner (what I'm currently using)

• Dove Intense Moisture Conditioner

List of protien conditioners

• Dark and Lovely Ultra Cholrstorol (what I usually use) 

• Aunt Jackie's In Control (what I`m currently using)

• ORS Hair Mayonnaise

• Motions Moisture Silk Protein Conditioner

I hope this helps you out when you are picking out your conditioners as well as washing your hair. Feel free to comment, make suggetions or ask questions in the comment section below or dm me on twitter, FB or IG. You can also expect a post from me every Thursday! 

Oh and this blog reached 5000 views this week😀🎉 🎊   Thank you so much for the support and thank you to all the people that have sent me pictures and messages telling me that I've helped them it means so much to me.

XOX & Take good care of that hair.

Transitioning to natural hair

Hi beautiful people 
I know a lot of people are transitioning from relaxed to natural hair so I decided to ask my friend Sikha to share her story and hair journey so far.

This was my second attempt at transitioning I failed the first time and gave in to relaxing because I still wanted straight hair.

OK so my decision to transition to natural happened when I started to understand that my particular hair texture was not conducive to relaxers/ relaxing and it would not be fully healthy in that state. I have very curly and yet very soft and fine textured hair, when I relaxed it became thin and looked sparse at times. My ends were brittle and thinned out maybe also due to a lack of proper haircare.

I was really excited about going back to natural, but I was waaay too scared to try a big chop immediately so I opted to gradually transition. What I did first was cut all the very visible damage in January 2015 and started with neck length hair.

Transitioning is essentially ‘growing out’ the natural hair while trimming or cutting the relaxed hair as you go along, when you get to the length of natural hair you are comfortable with then you can finally big chop all the relaxed ends and remain natural. Some people like myself never had a big chop I just kept trimming the ends until I ended up here.

There are a lot of awkward hair stages if you are going to commit to transitioning, you will be trying to style hair that has two sharply contrasting textures. I struggled a little in the beginning and flat ironed a lot but I realised I was damaging my hair and I committed to buying hair products that would promote the growth of my hair as well as its health. Natural hair or curly textured hair loves moisture, so it can get very dry. Shampoos/ conditioners with sulphate in them strip the hair. I invested in some sulphate free options, these two are my favourite shampoo and conditioner.

My hair is very fine as I mentioned which also translated into fine edges that were not very strong. I didn’t have a hairline problem but I thought hey prevention is better than cure so I researched products that give hair a fuller look while making the edges stronger and fuller too, and I discovered these gems. Caivil fusion hair grow essence oil which has every single healthy hair oil you can imagine as well as Jamaican black castor oil with coconut which actually smells pleasant. I’ve never turned back.

                        

In the wake of taking care of my hair I discovered what natural my curl pattern actually looked like. I had serious damage in the front so I cut there the most which turned out to be the most prominent place to see the pattern. I unfortunately don’t know in which category this texture is!

The only way to keep natural hair moisturised is to lock the moisture in with oil. That is when I discovered two things I now cannot live without that is coconut oil and hot oil treatments. In my opinion for transitioning and natural hair these two are a must. For hot oil treatments you can use a whole range of oils; olive, jojoba ,argan ,castor, coconut (there are so many) as well as a plethora of essential oils. I mainly use the Caivil oil (because it contains so many good oils already), coconut oil and black castor oil and peppermint for the essential oil.

To moisturize daily or as a leave in conditioner I use shea butter (which I don’t have a pic of right now) If I need to oil my hair daily I either use the coconut oil or ORS hair spray

                                                                    

As I said before styling can be a mess so I honestly stuck to protective styling 75% of the time, braids and weaves mostly. I also learnt how to do bantu knots which is a healthier way to deal with double textured hair.

                             

I hardly actually took notice of progress but I did a few length checks later on In 2015 since starting January of that year, then a one year length and health check in Jan 2016.

October 2015:

December 2015:

                                   

Last check was January 2016:

              

I am still on my journey and I can’t wait to see where it goes!
Disclaimer: I am not a hair expert this is just what worked for me and i hope it helps those of you transitioning or planing to. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section. 

XOX & Take good care of that hair.

Sulphate Free Shampoos

Hey beautiful people
A number of people have asked me about sulphate/sulfate free or low sulphate shampoo. So I decided to read up on it and let you guys know information that can help you out when picking a shampoo.

What are Sulfates/Salphates (both spellings are correct)?

• Ingredients that cause products to foam when they come into contact with water
• They tend to strip hair of  both its good and bad oils 

How to know if a shampoo contains sulphates.

• Read the ingredients on the label. If it has Sodium lauryl or laureth (SLS & SLES) or Ammonium lauryl sulphate  (ALS)

Pros of using sulphate free shampoo

• If you suffer from allergies or skin conditions it is advisable to use a sulfate free shampoo because they are not as harsh on your hair and scalp 

Cons of using sulphate free shampoo 

• They are a bit pricier 
• They do not lather as easily because they do not foam as much
• You will use more product if your hair is long

List of sulphate free shampoos (you can find these in clicks or dischem)

1. Tresemme Keratin Smooth Shampoo
   
2. Tresemme Naturals (low sulphate) 
   
3. Dr Miracles Curl Care rehydrating shampoo
   
4. Nature's Gate Shampoo
   
5. Moroccanoil Clarifying Shampoo
   
6. Marc Anthony Sulphate free Shampoo
   
7. Reflections Style Innovation Gentle Care Shampoo
   
8. Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Anti Shrinkages
   
9. Aunt Jackie's Curls & Coils Oh So Clean! Moisturizing &Softening Shampoo
   

I recently purchased Aunt Jackie's hair products including the shampoo so I'll post a review and tell you guys how I feel about them.

If you know any other suphate free shampoo please do comment below letting me know and I will add them to this list. Thank you

XOX & Take good care of that hair.

7 tips on how to grow thicker hair

Hey beautiful people. Hope you are all good.
 A number of people have asked me how i got thick hair or for tips on how to grow thicker/fuller hair. So here's a list of 7 tips on how to grow thicker hair. 

1. Castor oil : Normal castor oil or Black Jamaican Castor oil can be used. Mix it with another oil, Coconut oil, Rosemary, Olive oil, Amla oil etc (pick whichever essential oil you like). Massage the oil to your scalp everyday or every other day. If you want to monitor your results take a pic of your growth/roots (if you have relaxed hair) or your natural hair before you start using the oil and then take another pic after about a month. There is really no need to put the oil on your actual hair just the scalp is fine.  
2. AVOID HEAT: Try by all means to limit the number of times you blow dry or iron your hair. I hardly ever iron my hair. I'm sure I iron my hair less than 10 times a year ( that's excluding the hair I leave out when I have a weave) Instead of blow drying your hair you can let it air dry if you have time.
3. Avoid tight hairstyles because they put a lot of tension on your hair which may lead to shedding 
4. Trim your ends: as much as we want long hair it is also important to have healthy hair. Yes, I know it sucks but it has to be done. Oh, and i know some of us have had people who have cut off a lot more hair than they should have when "Trimming our ends". Find someone you trust to trim those ends. Split ends are not a pretty site and after they are gone your hair will look thicker and healthier
5. Braid outs and Twist outs make our hair look fuller and thicker.
6. Protective styling: Braids, weaves, cornrows etc will protect your hair from breaking  and help it grow thicker    
7. Avoid over processing your hair with dyes and relaxers 

 It is important to know that we all have different hair types and because of that it may be more difficult for some people to get really really thick hair. So lets just be realistic with some of our expectations. However the castor oil has worked for many so please do try it and please show me pictures of your results . I hope these tips help you out.

XOX & Take good care of that hair.