Many times, people get terrified at the thought of keeping and maintaining their curly hair. Unfortunately, this is because the curly hair type, when not properly managed and taken care of, can get burdensome and tiring. To enjoy the best of your curly hair, you should desire to understand how best to keep your hair in shape. However, if you have always been concerned about how to keep your curly hair moisturized in every season, then you made the right choice by reading this post.
Before we explore the practical steps on how to keep your curly hair moisturized, and not weigh it down, let us take a moment to understand why moisture is essential to the hair.
Why Your Curly Hair Needs Moisture
Not only do moisturizers keep your hair moisturized, but they also go as far as feeding your scalp the right nutrients. Moisturizers provide, protect, and retain moisture that enhances growth in the hair. To understand better, let us paint a scenario. Imagine having to apply a particular product on your hair every moment to keep it moisturized, it is possible that you’d get tired, frustrated, or find it hard to keep up. But the moisturizer helps to quench your hair’s thirst and most importantly, retain the moisture.
However, leave-in products like conditioners can provide moisture while providing the hair with strength. When your hair is constantly fed moisture, it is easy to gain all the fiber that might have been damaged due to heating and styling. So, if you are that lady that loves to change the color of your hair consistently, or you are quick to go for heat styling, moisturizing should be on the top of your list; ALWAYS!!! It will help repair all the damage that could follow these, and repair general hair damage.
Breakage is common in every hair type. Unfortunately, many people get frustrated when their hair suffers breakage. Interestingly, you can avoid and get rid of breakage when you have a moisturizing routine. Ideally, moisturizing should not be limited to your wash day or salon appointment. Instead, you can incorporate it into your daily routine. See it as the food your hair needs to grow, just like your body needs food to grow and function appropriately.
Ingredients like Aloe Vera, Coconut oil, Shea Butter, and products that are rich in them will help enhance your moisture retention.
Once again, when you refuse to moisturize your hair, you are starving your hair. Also, you are depriving your curly hair of its bounce, and the strands their healthiness. When your curly hair is deprived of moisture, it is malnourished.
How To Keep Your Curly Hair Moisturized
- Cultivate Good Eating Habits
I know you were expecting a product recommendation or a routine when you came to this section, but I am sorry to disappoint you. For all hair types, your nutrition is essential because the nutrients are supplied to every body area. Eating well and staying hydrated as an individual go a long way in your hair. Including vegetables like broccoli, lettuce, and spinach will supply your hair with adequate Vitamin A and C that moisturizes the scalp. These vegetables help produce natural hair conditioners and moisturizers known as sebum.
- Know That Water Is Key
If you aim to keep your curly hair moisturized, you should understand that water is key. Every effective moisturizing product either has water as its base or key ingredients. The way water quenches the thirst in your throat is the way it keeps the hair hydrated. A test of a good moisturizer is water. If it doesn’t contain water, don’t go for it.
If you are considering a product that is good for moisture and ticks the following boxes, the NaturAll’s Thirst Quenching, Hydrating Avocado Kiwi Moisturizer is a good choice.
- Use an Anti-humectant To Seal Moisture
Anything that repels water, like oil, is an anti-humectant. During the day, moisture applied to your hair in the morning will evaporate and be absorbed by the environment. However, if the moisture is protected from passing through the oil by an anti-humectant, it won’t want to. Your hair will continue to be sealed with it!
Oils and other anti-humectants are crucial for curly hair because of this. They prevent your hair from drying out by locking moisture into the hair strands. It is advisable to seal in moisture from a water-based moisturizer with thin, natural oil. This will maintain moisture in your hair without weighing it down or causing excessive product buildup.
Natural products like shea butter, cocoa butter, beeswax, olive oil, sunflower oil, and mango butter can serve as an anti-humectant.
- Reduce Heat Styling and Treatment
When nursing your curly hair, avoid placing heat on it as much as you can. I know it can be tempting to use flat irons and blow dryers to achieve some kind of look, but it is important to understand the damage they do to your hair.
These heat styling tools strip your hair of the moisture they have gathered over time, making it difficult for it to be restored with natural ingredients. However, if you need to use any of these tools, like blow dryers, for example, keep them on the coolest setting.
- Deep Condition Regularly
Deep-Conditioning: What Is It? Your hair is covered and treated with nutritious chemicals during a deep conditioning procedure. It replenishes the moisture in your hair, fortifies it, and lessens the harm that chemicals and style aids have done to it. Deep conditioners are applied to the hair for a longer period of time than regular conditioners and contain more concentrated moisture-retaining components. Generally speaking, deep conditioning can be used once a week. From the mid-shaft to the ends, comb through, let sit for 20 minutes, then rinse with lukewarm water. I’d like to say that I deep condition once a week, but I usually only do it once every month while also adding a hot oil treatment.
What is a hot oil treatment, exactly? Warming up plant-based oils like olive, almond, or coconut and applying them to the hair. These treatments are done to offer more nutrients to the hair’s strands, seal the cuticles, protect the strands, and strengthen the hair. I warm the deep conditioner and oil for my daughter and myself, apply them to our hair, and let them saturate in our hair for 20 minutes or overnight before rinsing everything out.
- Ensure You Are Washing Your Hair with the Right Shampoo
Just as there are different treatments for different hair types, there are different shampoos for different hair types. For your curly hair, it is essential to use the right shampoo. This will help prevent the hair from getting frizzy and getting damaged.
You can kick start your wash day by cleansing with your curly hair shampoo, then replenishing it with moisture. An example of curly hair shampoo is Carol’s Daughter Black Vanilla Moisture & Shine Sulfate Free Shampoo. It is rich in aloe vera and rose extract that is responsible for restoring hair shine and supplying adequate moisture.
- Trim Your Ends
Many times, hair ends are weak and unhealthy which makes them unable to retain moisture. In such cases, the split, brittle, and knotted ends need to be trimmed to give adequate room for growth and moisture retention. I know, I know, some may have had horror stories of going to get a trim and the stylist was scissor-happy and trimmed too much. Now you look like you got a new hairstyle. Ensure you have a stylist that understands your goals, talks you through the trimming process, and goes slow to ensure you are getting a proper trim. A healthy trim contributes to healthy hair growth.
- Dry Your Curls Appropriately
It is no longer news that wet hair is fragile. With this knowledge, you must handle your wet hair with care. After the typical wash day — where you check your water temps, portion out the shampoo, work through your scalp, cleanse and finger comb the hair, massage as you rinse, add conditioner, and leave in — the final step in this phase is drying your hair.
To avoid heat styling, you should pick a clean and soft but absorbent piece of cotton cloth. This texture, compared to a towel, is more friendly to the curls; hence, the recommendation. However, if you are going for a blow dryer, be sure to put it on its coolest setting. I tend to let my hair naturally dry unless it’s cold or right before bedtime, then I try to at least dry my scalp.
Having understood these tips on how to keep your curly hair moisturized, it’s crystal clear that maintaining your curly hair does not have to be a nightmare. Moisture is the key element to keeping and enjoying your curly hair. Don’t forget to keep trying products to see what works best for you, your hair type, hair chemistry, and hair goals!
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