People are often told that in order to retain length, it is important to moisturise your hair. As simple as it sounds, most people do not know exactly how to moisturise their hair correctly.

Firstly, it is important to understand that hair is a delicate fibre that requires moisture in order for it to survive on our heads for long periods of time. Moisturising curly textured hair, often comes with a process. Many people believe that if their hair is dry then dousing it with an oil or a butter or any cream in a bottle that says ‘moisturising’ is the answer but it is important to really touch your hair and notice how it feels..is it crunchy? is it brittle? does it snap quickly? These are signs that your hair is really dry and just adding a cream on top of it may not do the job.

As you can see in the above image, each hair strand is covered with cuticles. Your cuticles open when warm water touches your hair and closes when the hair has been properly sealed with an oil or butter and has been left to dry. If your cuticles are closed, products that are put on to the hair, that does not contain water, will only sit on the hair and not penetrate into the strand, therefore your hair will still be dry but may have a greasy feel. 

It is important to take the following steps to ensure that your hair is properly moisturised from the inside:

1. Wash and deep condition your hair on a weekly basis if your hair is dry (this can be increased or decreased based on the condition of your hair)

2. After washing your hair, add a moisturising product that has listed ‘aqua’ or ‘water’ as it’s first ingredient to your damp hair (this is very important in determining whether the product is actually moisturising enough)

3. Seal in the moisture with an oil or butter. Shea butter is a very good conditioning butter that also adds sheen and keeps your hair feeling soft.

4. Listen to your hair, if your hair feels dry the following day, in 2 days or even on that same day, add more moisture by spraying your hair with water until it is damp, not soaking wet, add your moisturiser and then seal.

The key thing to note is that hair needs water as water is the moisture (just like plants need water to thrive) But in order for the moisture to remain in the strand, without evaporating as quick as it was put in, it is important to seal in the moisture to allow the water to remain in the strand without escaping.

To trim or not to trim, that is the question?

When you go natural, a lot of people tend to want their hair to grow in to this big head full of hair in a short space of time, we go online and watch other peoples progress only to be drooling over hair like the persons you watched. Your goal is to grow your hair from a TWA to BSL straight away and you will try anything under the sun to do it. Because of this, a lot of naturals want to hold on to their strands for dear life even though their hair may not necessarily be striving how it is supposed to.

I am a key example of this person, I have been natural for 8 years and I have watched others around me start their natural hair journey from scratch and exceed my hair growth within a couple of years. I would try different products, different routines, trimming my own hair while wet, while dry, buying products made for horses…yes, I did that! I can’t actually believe I did that! But yes, I tried everything to get my hair to grow. The funny thing is, my hair was growing, it’s just that it broke as quick as it grew! I noticed that no matter what products I used on my hair, my hair will still remain dull and dry but greasy to the touch. I kept telling myself, I am not cutting my hair! I didn’t go through these past 8 years with ridiculous looking hair (at times) for nothing! I am going to make this work and actually i’m going to do a protective style challenge and get my hair to APL by the end of the year (my hair was CBL at the time).

Anyway, I began protective styling, as I have done many times before, to no avail, I wore wigs for a month, then twists the next month but while I washed my hair, I would still notice those tiny broken hairs all over the place! After having my daughter my attention changed from paying so much attention to growing out my hair, to caring for her. I decided to go to the hairdressers and low and behold, I asked them to cut my hair into a short style. I couldn’t actually believe that after all these years, I finally decided to let go of the hair that wasn’t really thriving for me. Once she finished styling my hair, I actually felt relieved. ‘A new beginning’ is exactly what I thought.

My hair was cut 3 months ago and since then, I have had 1 trim. My hair has never strived so much! My hair is growing so fast and is in the best condition it’s been in since I went natural! It isn’t greasy, where it has been coated with too much oil (for an effort to moisturise my hair) it doesn’t have those small pieces of hair coming out all over the place when I wash it, I don’t need to re-twist every night or even re-moisturise daily. I’m enjoying my hair much more now and I look forward to the great lengths that my hair will finally get to see, based on the condition of my hair.

So the verdict,

YES, trimming your hair and in some cases cutting off a lot of damage is vital to achieving those hair goals that seems near impossible sometimes. If your hair is damaged or dry no matter what you do, or your ends keep falling off. Your best bet is to start again or have a good trim. Also, trimming your hair based on a schedule is great for maintaining healthy hair. You can start off by trimming it every 2 months and decreasing it to every 3-6 months! depending on the health of your hair. The key is to listen to your hair! Once you notice it not responding to products or becoming too oily to the touch but not moisturised enough or breaking off at the ends, or months and months go by and there is not much length retention..go to the hairdressers (that you trust obviously – based on reviews online or word of mouth) and get that hair PROFESSIONALLY trimmed.