Taking good care of your hair

[DaniiL]

What is "taking good care of your hair" to you?

What is your hair routine?

What do you do?
And what do you NOT do anymore?

Maybe you have wrote about this a thousand times before...

But since I'm new here it would be intresting to get a lot of tips and your experiences in one thread!

[coscass]

Things I don't do anymore (very often):
Don't use shampoo (I use it once every month, about, just to clarify)
Don't use 'cones (not knowingly, anyway)
Blowfry (VERY rarely do I do this, and if I do it's because I need to go out/it's too cold in the house to have wet hair)
flat iron (I haven't done this in a month or so, but I might do it occasionally)
Heat styling (I let my friend crimp it about a month and a half ago, otherwise I stay away from heat styling as much as I can)
Scrub wet hair with a towel
Put it into a ratty bun/ponytail and leave it for a week
Brush my hair

Things I do now:
CO washes
AVC rinses
Detangling in the shower, with wet, CO coated hair
Braids (when I'm in bed and just for fun)
Buns
Plopping
DTs
Air dry

All in all my hair is pretty dang healthy- but I still feel like I'm missing some big key to the "healthy hair" puzzle.

[jera]

I don't use any heat appliances and this is hard because I live in a cold climate and my hair is tailbone length and takes a while to dry. So NO blowdryers, curling irons, or flat irons. I don't use towels to dry my hair. I just blot my hair with a towel but NO rubbing. I don't use shampoo with sulfates way too harsh. I don't use brushes of any kind - ever !

I do CO washes and clarifying as needed with sls free poo. I oil my ends, use seamless combs, Indian herb masques, and I take tons of hair vitamins, eat right with lots of fresh fruit and veggies, and I exercise like a fiend to keep my circulation ( in scalp and elsewhere ) healthy. I drink lots of water too.

[Lamb]

"good care" is care that is appropriate to one's hairtype, hair length, and lifestyle.
There are things that are generally acknowledged to be "bad" for your hair. Heat-styling regularly, for instance. Perms, overdoing the chemical dye.

But other things, while often described as "good care" (like not using shampoo) do not work for everyone. If you do physical work or sports, have an oily scalp, or live in a dusty place, going a week between washes is not as good an idea as it sounds. For a curly, using a brush is generally not hair-friendly. For a person with 1c hair, it is.

One man's medicine is another man's poison and all that. You need to find the right routine for yourself. There are things you may want to eliminate (heat-styling, back-combing or teasing, ripping a comb through wet hair etc.), but otherwise, haircare is a very open field.

[Dementia1013]

"good care" is care that is appropriate to one's hairtype, hair length, and lifestyle.
There are things that are generally acknowledged to be "bad" for your hair. Heat-styling regularly, for instance. Perms, overdoing the chemical dye.

But other things, while often described as "good care" (like not using shampoo) do not work for everyone. If you do physical work or sports, have an oily scalp, or live in a dusty place, going a week between washes is not as good an idea as it sounds. For a curly, using a brush is generally not hair-friendly. For a person with 1c hair, it is.

One man's medicine is another man's poison and all that. You need to find the right routine for yourself. There are things you may want to eliminate (heat-styling, back-combing or teasing, ripping a comb through wet hair etc.), but otherwise, haircare is a very open field.

I don't :
-blowdry
-Heat style
-Tease
-Towel dry
-use product (mousse, hairspray)
-use cones
-Sleep with it loose
-Tightly braid it

I do:
-air dry
-braid for braid waves
-CO
-rinse with cold water
-oil with coconut oil on a regular basis
-S&D split ends
-french braid for bed under a satin sleep cap
-use wide toothed bone combs to detangle in the shower
-use my Acca Kappa beechwood paddle brush when my hair is dry

[elina333]

I DONT:
- Wash my hair more than twice a week (I use regular schampoo since I work out a lot)
- Blowfry (not even when its cold out, I prefer to wear a hoodie instead)
- Use heat appliances (sometimes I do but not very often)
- Put my hair up in a ponytail while running, I now braid it
- Smoke
- Drink alcohol (at least not very often )
- Use brushes
- Trim it at the salon

I DO:
- Sleep on a satin pillow case
- Eat vitamins specially formulated for my hair (contains biotin, silica etc)
- Eat lots of protein
- Eat lots of fruit, berries and veggies
- Braid my hair a lot, especially at night and while at the gym
- S&D
- Use soft elastics without metal
- Use coconut oil like crazy

One thing I still do which is superbad is bleaching it... I get my roots highlighted at the salon, but im gonna try to stretch it to every four months instead of every other. Im addicted, so giving it up completely is not an option

Well these are some things that I've adopted so far... I was already doing (or not doing) some of them before I joined here but now its almost as a religion

Good luck and happy growing!

[melikai]

What is "taking good care of your hair" to you?

What is your hair routine?

What do you do?
And what do you NOT do anymore?

Maybe you have wrote about this a thousand times before...

But since I'm new here it would be intresting to get a lot of tips and your experiences in one thread!

Sure, many have written these things many times before, but it's still fun to share!

One of the best things I've learned from this place is the CWC (Condition-Wash-Condition) wash, and that's one of the first things recommended to try if you haven't, for new people.

What I do:
~CWC or SC every 5-7 days (aiming for once a week).
~Occasional beer rinses, herb rinses, and egg & honey washes.
~Tiny bit of oil on length each night.
~Braid for sleep.
~Sleep on silk satin pillowcase.
~Wear hair up often.

What I don't do:
~Blowdry or use heat styling.
~No silicones, no sulfates. Gentle hair products with fewest synthetics possible.
~No brushing; seamless combs only.

What I avoid:
~Measuring my hair. I get too obsessive about growth, so I go by body markers instead.
~Focusing on supplements over eating a healthy diet. Unless you have health problems, it should be more than possible to grow lovely, healthy hair without taking many medications.

[Arrow Juniper]

The two best things I've done for my hair this month:
1) Threw out an awful brush with little metal balls at the end that were snagging my hair and splitting the ends, whew~!
2) Made myself a silk scrunchie! Now I don't feel at all guilty for stretching it around a bun.

[kittensoupnrice]

For me, taking care of my hair is:

Taking my time to carefully comb it out with a nice comb, not ripping through with a cheap brush.
Not using SLS shampoo.
Not using cones.
Braiding it at night time.
Using a silk covering to protect my braid at night.
Occasionally oiling/deep-treating, etc, when it looks unhappy.

[Olde Soul]

What I do:
--Stretch my washes (2X a week now!)
--Oil my ends
--Braid and bun
--Sleep with it bunned or braided
--SMTs
--ACV and cold water rinses
--Henna in lieu of chemical dyes
--S&D compulsively


What I don't do:
--Wear it down
--Blowfry
--Curl with irons
--Tease
--Use styling products
--Wash it too often
--Wash it with hot water
--Sleep with it down

What I should do:
--Get rid of my pin-head paddle brush
--Use fewer cones/SLS products