Knowing your hair

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Natural Hair is very common with black African women and in the part of Africa that i am from, its called Kinky Hair, its black, curly or coily and can shrink at the touch of moisture. As a black African woman, growing my hair takes alot of practice and awareness; awareness in the sense that i need to pay good attention to my hair just the same way i would pay attention to other parts of my body.

The first thing you need to have in mind whilst growing your hair is knowing your hair type and that has to do with knowing if your hair is type 1A, 2A, 3C or 4B, 4C, for me, my hair is 4C, its coily and stretchy, its thick and can shrink up anytime. Secondly, i pay attention to know the porosity of my hair which means the rate at which my hair absorbs water, my hair is low porosity which means that it absorbs water quickly and loses moisture quickly too.

This takes me to the next thing i do to my hair, which is moisturizing. Knowing what works best for my hair has helped me alot, because i know that my hair can absorb or lose moisture quickly, i tend to moisturize my hair often like 3 times in a week.

Have you at some point looked at your hair and felt bad about how it looks or grows? That was me years back when my hair stopped growing, the length remained at a spot for a very long time and the colour of my hair was brown and that was as a result of relaxing and applying chemical to my hair, i didnt have an idea of what my hair was like or even pay attention to know what my hair wants.

A lot of African women have these problems. Sometimes, it does not have to be about where you are from or your race that makes your hair break and not grow but how you manage it.

Furthermore, i hear people say the hair has to do with our genetic component, that is, if my parents have good hair, my hair will turn out great and grow well, that might be true but then if you dont maintain the hair, you will end up losing it all. That brings me to the next thing i do to my hair to maintain it, i use very good products that suit my hair type.

	Making a two-strand twist(protective hair style) after washing my hair.

Using a good set of products that match your hair type contributes to helping the hair grow, it helps to keep the hair clean, that is, when you use the shampoo to wash your hair, conditioner to moisturize the hair and a Hair oil or butter to lock in the moisture.

I remember when I had a bad hair, i would get alot of advice when i visited the salon on products to use on my hair, which continued to destroy my hair, not until i paid attention to my hair and found the right products to use on it.

However, it is very important to let the hair breathe sometimes, this brings me to the next thing i do to my hair for it to grow, i reduce manipulation on my hair, i did more of protective styles like weaves, braids, African Threading and wear wigs too, that helped me retain more length and i was able to notice new and health hair growing from my scalp.

Most times i keep my protective style for 4 weeks, its very important to also moisturize the hair while its in the protective styles, this will reduce frizz and breakage when its time for take down. I also make sure they are not too tight that it affects my scalp or cause extra breakage.

	Took down a tight braid that damaged my edges

Finally, having a healthy hair routine is very important, as soon as i understood my hair and figured out what works for my hair, i created a hair routine, a hair routine is a time set aside for carrying out your hair maintenance, you have to work with your hair to get a good response from it.

Consistency is the final thing that helps my hair grow, once i was able to create a good and healthy hair routine for myself i stayed consistent with it, i stick to washing my hair twice in a month and since i started keeping natural hair, i have seen an amazing and tremendous change in my hair.

	My easy to go cornrow protective hair style

So if you keep natural hair like i do or you are about to start that journey, embrace it and remember that our hair is our crown, so lets wear it with pride.

Thank you for reading my post