So You Want To Be Natural Pt. 6 – The Regimen

Now that you have all these products and tools to grow your healthy natural hair you must decide when and how often you will apply them, this is called your regimen. Most curlie naturals (there are naturals who wear their hair straight…yes it’s natural because there is no chemical being added… we’ll save my thoughts on this for a separate post) use a regimen to make sure their hair is on a schedule of health. How you put together your regimen will depend on the needs of your hair. The needs of your hair will be determined by trial and error and things you already know about your hair.  For example if you already know your hair is dry and brittle, you may need a protein treatment to be done monthly. If you know you have type 4c hair, you know your hair is tightly coiled and if you want it longer you may want to add a stretching technique to your regimen on wash day.

A simple regimen: cleanse weekly if cowashing and shampoo monthly, deep condition weekly, protein treatment monthly, moisturize and seal daily. Again this is very basic for a more detailed realistic regimen click here.

Previous: Pt. 5

 

Disclaimer: Everything listed here is basic and is meant to be a starting point. The links I’ve including will take you to some of the products I use for the various steps of maintaining my natural hair. I am no expert on hair care, I do not have my cosmetology license, nor am I a chemist, biologist, or scientist. I am a natural women who’s been researching natural hair care since 2012. I am however an expert in my own hair story and that’s what being natural is all about…developing a relationship with the hairs on your own head. I share what has worked for me in hopes that it may work for you as well. 

Advertisement

Castile Soap

So I’ve been hearing random not-so-good things about castile soap.  Because I am doing the CG method (washing with conditioner only) but this method allows you to use gel as well as product and that is reason for me to want to clean with a little more than conditioner periodically.  I DO NOT want to use shampoo so I thought if I used castile soap which is an all natural soap made of oils not a detergent that my hair would be safe from harsh elements.  WRONG! Apparently the PH balance in castile soap is very high between 8 and 9.  This can strip the hair and make it very dry thus making my health care regimen POINTLESS.  I am not saying that I am going to abandon castile soap completely BUT I am going to cute back on my usage….so I am going to change my regimen.  Instead of washing my hair with this weekly I am only going to do it Monthly (if needed) and the amount will be less.  Last time I used 1/2 cup castile soap, 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons Jojoba oil, 2 tablespoons Vitamin E, 2 tablespoons Tea Tree oil, and 2 tablespoons EVOO.  This time I will use 1/4 castile soap with same mixtures of oil.  I am just a fan of the ingredients and I don’t want to use anything un-natural on my hair.

Okay, so what about the PH balance??? Well a healthy PH balance for our hair is between 4.5 – 5.5.  Anything above 7.1 is considered alkaline and anything below 6.9 is considered acidic….our hair is  slightly acidic.  Pure water is considered neutral at a PH level of 7.  When our hair is at the proper PH level the cuticle is closed this stops the hair from frizzing up.  When the cuticles are open the result is frizzy hair.

 

Oohhh, so I signed up for my first hair challenge! 🙂 The deadline has been extended to May 27th so I decided to try it.  Thought this was a good challenge especially since I just BC’d I can see where I will be in two years 🙂  Website is  http://www.naturalhair2014.com/