Are you excited to embark on your natural hair journey? It’s very exciting to discover and learn more about your hair. You can never have too many tips for your natural hair! I know that as a beginner you’re probably looking up different things so here are 5 natural hair tips for beginners to grow healthy coily hair.
- Keep your scalp clean
- Work in sections/gentle
- Finger detangle your hair
- Keep your hair moisturized
- Keep your hair in low manipulation hairstyles
Keep your scalp clean
We have heard it all before. Stay away from sulfates! As you know, our coily natural hair is very dry. Our hair is the driest compared to type 1,2 and 3 hair. This means that moisture is extremely crucial for our natural hair but more on that is coming up later.
You may be wondering how keeping your hair clean could be a conflict with moisturizing your coily hair. When you wash your hair, you don’t only remove the dirt from your hair. You’re essentially washing away the moisture from your hair as well.
That’s why gentler shampoos are always recommended. An example would be a moisturizing shampoo and a sulfate-free shampoo. Those are great alternatives for our dry natural hair. Unfortunately, the issue with those gentler shampoos is that they aren’t always enough to remove heavy buildup.
That’s why I recommend always having a shampoo with sulfates on hand for when the buildup gets too much. It doesn’t have to be used every washday, but 1x a month or less could be a good way to reset your hair and scalp. Especially if you like to use a lot of heavy products on your coily hair.
Keep your scalp clean for healthy hair. If you don’t, all the buildup on your scalp will end up clogging your hair follicles. The outcome is not in your best interest if you want long and healthy hair. An unclean scalp will only lead to itchiness, inflammation, and irritation which isn’t a pretty picture.
Work in sections & be gentle with your natural hair
Try to work in sections whenever you can. I know it’s a lot easier to just hop into the shower and do a quick shampoo and conditioner. However, taking the extra time to care for your hair will pay off. It’s a lot easier for you to skip or forget some parts of your hair, leaving some parts of your hair uncared for.
Whenever you wash your hair, work in sections to reduce tangling in your hair. I have had times where I would shampoo my hair and didn’t rinse it out properly. Other times I didn’t clean my hair and scalp well because I didn’t concentrate on certain parts of my hair.
As mentioned before, this will also help to coat every part of your hair with moisture when moisturizing your coily hair.
Finger detangle your hair
Yes, it’s more time-consuming but your hair will thank you. All you need is your fingers, and what’s even better is that it’s free. At least your managing your budget! That still doesn’t answer the question as to why finger detangling is great for your coily hair.
Brushing your hair can be quite harsh at times which could lead to your hair breaking off. You may have felt your scalp hurting after brushing your hair. That is the result of you yanking on your scalp. Although finger detangling may not make your hair grow faster, it will help reduce the amount of breakage with certain brushes. You can read more about growing your coily hair in my previous post.
Finger detangling allows you to use the necessary amount of force when going through knots, matting and tangling. Does that mean that you can never use a brush or comb? Of course not, just be mindful of the amount of force you apply on your hair and scalp. If you’d rather not finger detangle, consider using a wide-tooth comb. You can also that comb with your fingers.
Moisturize your coily hair
Moisture is crucial for our coily hair that is naturally dry. Dry hair is more fragile and prone to break off so you want to keep your strands moisturized. You can do this by regularly deep conditioning your hair. This will help to bring back moisture into your hair and to feed the hair the necessary nutrients. You are basically feeding your hair.
Consistently moisturizing your hair will help to reduce damage and improve the elasticity of the hair. By keeping your hair in a healthy state, you will prevent your hair from breaking off.
Deep conditioning is considered to be the most effective way to moisturize the hair. This is because the deep conditioner aims to penetrate the hair shaft. You can also follow up with a leave-in conditioner or alternate with regular rinse-out conditioners.
It’s not the end of the world if you decide to skip this step in your routine once in a while. Balance is key in everything we do and the same applies here. You wouldn’t want to end up over-moisturizing your hair. Deep conditioning 2-4 times a month is a good guideline. But the most important thing is to listen to your hair.
Keep your coily hair in low manipulation hairstyles
it’s very tempting to have your fingers in your hair, but you may no longer want to do that. Our coily hair is not too happy when we manipulate it too much. This goes from having your hands in your hair to wearing hairstyles that require lots of upkeep.
When it comes to low manipulation hairstyles, the goal of the hairstyle is to keep you from touching your hair too much, unlike protective styling where it’s more about keeping the end tucked away.
In essence, you want to stay away from hairstyles that require a lot of restyling. This will help to reduce breakage and damage to your natural coily hair.
More tips?
Hopefully, these tips will be of use to you. Can’t get enough reading tips for natural hair? Check out my previous post on tips 3 essential natural hair tips for beginners. Don’t forget to share your own tips in the comment section down below.
