Kinky Talk

Kinky HAIR that is!

I came across this discussion on Facebook and it’s filled with good information. I have plenty of kinks so I can attest to the need to focus on hair health in order to retain length.

Kinky hair is especially fragile, which means you can go natural, rarely use heat, yet still experience hair breakage. Well how is this so?

Each bend and curve in kinky coily hair represents a weak point. So this means when you wash, comb, or style your hair these bends and curves are easily broken.

How You Care for Your Hair – the factor that really matters

With kinky 4b/4c hair types, although good products are important how you care for your hair is probably even more important. It won’t matter how much you moisturize or condition your hair, if you are not handling it right.

Here we go again! For the millionth time on this site I am going to stress the importance of protective styling (ex. Twists, Cornrows, Braids, Coils, Tuck and Roll Styles), because for those with fragile hair types it’s one of the key areas of length retention.

Focus on Low Manipulation – it works!

When you wear protective styles this helps prevent breakage from manipulation of the hair, matting and tangles, and it is also is a good method for moisture retention.

The more you style and manipulate your hair the weaker it becomes. If your hair is particularly fragile you will notice those 3/4 inch breaks as well, which is an even deeper cry for protective styles and low manipulation.

Once you have effectively developed a regimen with protective styling that works for you there should be a noticeable difference in how much breakage you experience, the amount of split ends that you see, and eventually with consistency noticeable growth.
Take a Gentle Approach – your hair will thank you for it

When you do style your hair you may want to try fingercombing rather than using a comb or a brush every time you detangle your hair. Fingercombing is more gentle on your hair and you have the ability to feel tangles and snags that styling tools cannot. Fingercombing is a bit more work, however for those who get those pesky 3/4 broken off hairs this should help to reduce them.

If you feel that you are gentle with your hair, you have to be even more gentle and patient. Our hair flourishes when its left to rest. Which isn’t such a bad thing, because protective styling makes handling your hair less time consuming and easier on you!

Be Patient – growth takes time

You must keep up this routine of low manipulation in order to see results. Do not expect to just do this for a week or two and see earth shattering results. We are talking about months of consistency!

Remember our hair only grows on average (others may be faster) 1/2 inch per month.

What you can expect to see within a couple of weeks is the reduced number of broken off hairs that you see and the quality of moisture in your hair (protective styling helps you retain more moisture).

[Source: Black Napps article]