The Official Multi-racial With Multi-textured Hair Thread

**QueenMadge** · February 20th, 2012, 02:39 PM

Portuguese, Welsh, Cherokee/Choctaw/English and ??

Nappy coily neck curls, straightish canopy and medium/fine hair with a few really coarse ones thrown in.

My niece who is African American and the rest of the family mixture with Irish thrown in has much curlier finer hair than mine. I envy her the ability to do twists that hold on their own. I cannot do that with mine because it unwinds almost immediately.

**inertia** · February 20th, 2012, 07:54 PM

Latvian and Japanese here. I've got everything from 1b to 3something on my head. The crown has a mixture of wavy and random stiff curly hairs, the inside is mixed straight and slightly wavy, and the nape is fine in texture and sometimes turns into ringlets.

I never wear my hair loose and natural. The randomly mixed-up curly hairs make it frizzy if I leave it and there's too much straight mixed in for curly-hair techniques to work. In winter I usually blow-fry it straight or curl it with an iron or rags. In summer the humidity turns it into awful frizz that nothing will tame so I've given up and just put it up non-stop from June through September.

**CurlyCap** · February 20th, 2012, 08:31 PM

Yep yep. Mixed chick here! Black and Filipino. Awesome all the way through.

It's hard growing up with mixed hair, mostly because neither parent can quite identify with your hair. My mom always wanted to shampoo the badness away and my dad wanted to slap royal crown on it and forget about it. As a kid, all I knew was that my hair could be pretty, I just wished it would be that way while I was at school.

Thing is, I love my hair now that I've learned to work with it. I'm learning new things about it every year and quit wishing I had a different head of hair years ago. I love how it has enough give to be easy to style but enough texture to be architectural. I do sometimes wish it were a little thicker, but what I can I say? Both of my parents have thin hair.

As for the cultural issues, I'll chime in if you start a thread in the Friendship forum. It's hard being mixed, especially if you look predominantly like one parent. I'm half Filipino and was raised predominantly by the asian side of my family, but have medium/dark skin. I get very frustrated sometimes because it seems that people don't like to hear about the culture I'm familiar with because it doesn't fit the image they see.

**rena** · February 20th, 2012, 10:20 PM

Thank you tons for starting this thread! You're not alone. I am quite mixed and it shows in my hair like you would not (or would) believe. We're talking a myriad of textures and thicknesses. I seem to have the whole spectrum of the hairtype system all together on my head. Invisi-fine, floaty-fine, baby fine, fine-fine, fine/medium/, medium/medium, medium/coarse, and coarse. These can all come as straight, straivey, loosley wavey, wavy, tightly wavey, curly, spiraling, and crinkly. All the coarse hairs are crinklies, but not all crinklies are coarse (huh?). It is truley amazing to me when I think about how crazy diverse it is up there.

As my hair grows out, I'm anxious to see who wins the battle, as in, what it will *appear* to be most like.

**HylianGirl** · February 21st, 2012, 12:29 PM

Thanks for starting this thread! I totally understand what it is like to have more than one hair texture on you head xD My hair at the nape of my head is very straight (like 1b) it's also very soft and rarely tangles, at the back of my head it goes 2a, and the sides are 2c, with the hair in my temples being the curliest, about 3a, also the hair on my temples don't grow long, they always remain around 2 inches long no matter what... I wish I could make them grow longer, they annoy me when I make updos, because they keep sticking out, and they are not baby hairs, they are just don't grow, if anyone know any tips about them, I'd love to hear ^-^ good to find more people with more than one hair type =D

**Vintagecoilylocks** · February 22nd, 2012, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by rowie

OMG! Your tips are so useful to me! Thanks a million! I know now to "accept having to use multiple products" to work for my hair.

Your hair is absolutely gorgeous along with all the people in this thread. So far I've been using a combination of coconut oil, and olive oil for my ends. On really humid days I would add some biosilk serum to the coarsest parts of my hair since they are so fragile to breakage. Shampoo products I like that are working for me is:

Tresseme soft and breakage control ( both shampoos and conditioners)
Mane N' Tail
Biosilk
coconut oil
EVOO

Hair utensils that work for me:
Hair claws
little black barrets

Tangle tezer for after detangling with a wooden comb, and before I use my wooden comb I finger comb my hair everywhere.

HI, Rowie, I gave up shampoos years ago and there was an huge improvement in my hair. It grew to hip length for the first time in my life. I still was on a journey though. Same for my daughter who is part me and Swedish heritage. Huge learning curve for her. I make her shampoo conditioner as she calls it. My first daughter has 2abc type hair when younger and has settled into a 2a ish. Lost all curls. Her hair is a mess now but she refuses to give up the shampoos. Its classic length. On top of all the types we all have very fine to fine hair. April 2011 I gave up the comb. I gave up the brush when I gave up shampoos. Huge improvement . The occasional split end being found and I think those are just on hairs that are now making it to the longer lengths.

Coconut oil is great . I use it only in my recipes though.

**Vintagecoilylocks** · February 22nd, 2012, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by CurlyCap

Yep yep. Mixed chick here! Black and Filipino. Awesome all the way through.

It's hard growing up with mixed hair, mostly because neither parent can quite identify with your hair. My mom always wanted to shampoo the badness away and my dad wanted to slap royal crown on it and forget about it. As a kid, all I knew was that my hair could be pretty, I just wished it would be that way while I was at school.

Thing is, I love my hair now that I've learned to work with it. I'm learning new things about it every year and quit wishing I had a different head of hair years ago. I love how it has enough give to be easy to style but enough texture to be architectural. I do sometimes wish it were a little thicker, but what I can I say? Both of my parents have thin hair.

As for the cultural issues, I'll chime in if you start a thread in the Friendship forum. It's hard being mixed, especially if you look predominantly like one parent. I'm half Filipino and was raised predominantly by the asian side of my family, but have medium/dark skin. I get very frustrated sometimes because it seems that people don't like to hear about the culture I'm familiar with because it doesn't fit the image they see.

I can really under stand what you have said. My mom being mostly black had very fine cottony hair that she kept straightened. It was never longer than chin length. I remember her saying "hair was like clothes" you had to scrub it to get it so it will press nicely". She used Ivory flakes on my hair.

I grew up with the attitude that getting you hair as straight as possible was doing your hair. If it wasn't straight it was not done, period. Kink was not acceptable. So even when I finally grew out my last relaxer I still was searching for a way to get naturally straighter hair using the press comb or blow dryer. It was a long journey for me to come to love my hair as it naturally was growing from my head.

**rowie** · February 22nd, 2012, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by CurlyCap

Yep yep. Mixed chick here! Black and Filipino. Awesome all the way through.

It's hard growing up with mixed hair, mostly because neither parent can quite identify with your hair. My mom always wanted to shampoo the badness away and my dad wanted to slap royal crown on it and forget about it. As a kid, all I knew was that my hair could be pretty, I just wished it would be that way while I was at school.

Thing is, I love my hair now that I've learned to work with it. I'm learning new things about it every year and quit wishing I had a different head of hair years ago. I love how it has enough give to be easy to style but enough texture to be architectural. I do sometimes wish it were a little thicker, but what I can I say? Both of my parents have thin hair.

As for the cultural issues, I'll chime in if you start a thread in the Friendship forum. It's hard being mixed, especially if you look predominantly like one parent. I'm half Filipino and was raised predominantly by the asian side of my family, but have medium/dark skin. I get very frustrated sometimes because it seems that people don't like to hear about the culture I'm familiar with because it doesn't fit the image they see.

Thanks for sharing! Kamusta ka? I miss Filipino cuisines the moment I became vegetarian. I'm so glad you are on here and in so many ways I have so many things I can share with you culturally. I'm starting to research traditional Filipino hair care such as using "Gugo," I don't know if your Filipino side ever taught you this product. I think Gugo sometimes called "Gugo Shampoo" is extracted from a tree called Bark, extracted with virgin coconut oil. It supposedly smooths the kinks away. I don't know if it's true, but i'll let you know when I have tried it. I have relatives sending me some and if it works well I'd be willing to send you some!

**rowie** · February 22nd, 2012, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Vintagecoilylocks

HI, Rowie, I gave up shampoos years ago and there was an huge improvement in my hair. It grew to hip length for the first time in my life. I still was on a journey though. Same for my daughter who is part me and Swedish heritage. Huge learning curve for her. I make her shampoo conditioner as she calls it. My first daughter has 2abc type hair when younger and has settled into a 2a ish. Lost all curls. Her hair is a mess now but she refuses to give up the shampoos. Its classic length. On top of all the types we all have very fine to fine hair. April 2011 I gave up the comb. I gave up the brush when I gave up shampoos. Huge improvement . The occasional split end being found and I think those are just on hairs that are now making it to the longer lengths.

Coconut oil is great . I use it only in my recipes though.

Hey Vintagecoilylocks! It is always a pleasure to hear from you. I tried WO for a month and I had bad flakes, and my hairs started to feel like straw (even though I made sure to oil my hair). It just gave me a different sensation to all the textures of my hair, like no matter how much oil I gave my hair , it just gave my hair a sort of hollow like straw feeling. I do not know if this was a normal transition to water only. CO gave me massive buildups which made me return to clarifying shampoos. Hmm maybe when my hair gets past APL i'll try it again.

**rowie** · February 22nd, 2012, 12:04 PM

You all feel free to edit or give me re-editing tips for the opening statement of this thread. I had just re-edited the opening statements to reflect the issues happening so far in this thread. Keep it up y'all! And let's keep representing! That's right keep on working it, work it, work it! You all are fabulous to me!