Am I doing things right?

[Gamber_747]

I am a guy with very coarse, thick, wavy and dry hair. There was a time when I used to think that I have "fine" hair and used products for fine hair lol.

But now I know for sure the type and features of my hair as I have verified it from multiple hair dressers.

I am now using a silkening shampoo for dry hair and a silkening conditioner as well to combat dryness. I am thinking of buying the garnier sleek and shine hair mask for deep nourishment of hair.
None of the "for men" line of products seem to have anything for coarse hair.

What I want from my hair is shine, softness and just overall a bit of vibrancy and life about them but dont want them to be constantly falling on my forehead either. My hair style is a medium length back comb. So are the conditioner and the mask going to be enough or I need to use oil for making the hair soft? And should I avoid products with cone ingredients?

Lastly there is another big problem I have now. The weather has got extremely dry and my head gets full of dandruff. I have to use an anti-dandruff shampoo daily(which I believe is not advisable for dry coarse hair?) and yet there will still be some dandruff. What should I do about that? If I start using an anti-dandruff conditioner as well then how will I work the hair towards softness as the anti-dandruff conditioners dont seem to be saying anything about making hair soft?

Thankz for your help.

[Arctic]

I am a guy with very coarse, thick, wavy and dry hair. There was a time when I used to think that I have "fine" hair and used products for fine hair lol.

But now I know for sure the type and features of my hair as I have verified it from multiple hair dressers.

I am now using a silkening shampoo for dry hair and a silkening conditioner as well to combat dryness. I am thinking of buying the garnier sleek and shine hair mask for deep nourishment of hair.
None of the "for men" line of products seem to have anything for coarse hair.

What I want from my hair is shine, softness and just overall a bit of vibrancy and life about them but dont want them to be constantly falling on my forehead either. My hair style is a medium length back comb. So are the conditioner and the mask going to be enough or I need to use oil for making the hair soft? And should I avoid products with cone ingredients?

Lastly there is another big problem I have now. The weather has got extremely dry and my head gets full of dandruff. I have to use an anti-dandruff shampoo daily(which I believe is not advisable for dry coarse hair?) and yet there will still be some dandruff. What should I do about that? If I start using an anti-dandruff conditioner as well then how will I work the hair towards softness as the anti-dandruff conditioners dont seem to be saying anything about making hair soft?

Thankz for your help.

Welcome to LHC! I recommend you to look for other members with the same hairtype as yours, and how they take care of it. I think you will need 25 posts to access the profiles.

I think many of the coarse hair products are full of coating agents to smooth the hair shafts. You will need to experiment wether silicones (or other coating agents like polyquats) are making your hair feel good or not, it's not something that is same for all people. Some members use silicones and have gorgeous, healthy hair while others feel it makes their hair flat, dry, etc.

I think it might benefit your hair to use products without proteins, as they tend to make hair less soft. Coarse hair has lots of protein naturally. Acidic rinses (like diluted vinegar or ascorbic acid) help close the cuticle and thus making hairs smoother.

Add lots of moisturing products (without proteins). Weekly deep treatment sounds like a great idea.

I can recommend oiling, it doesn't make your hair oily looking if you don't use too much, and it helps the moisture stay inside your hair. I like to make a pre-wash oil treatment before my washed every now and then. Then I usually use lots of oil and let it effect couple of hours. Olive oil is my favourite.

To make conditioner more effective, many people mix moisturizing and nourishing ingredients into them. Like oils, honey, aloe. Looks for the SMT recipe for example from the recipe section.

If you are not already, you could try CWC or CO washing methods (from articles section), or at least only apply little bit shampoo and only to the scalp area. Many members here dilute their shampoo, it's less drying this way.

If the dandruff shampoo is not helping, then it's a good chance yours is actually just a case of dry scalp skin rather than dandruff. The "real" dandruff happens usually to oily scalps and is caused by fungi. The normal anti-dandruff shampoos control this fungi very effectively, so if it's not helping, yours probably is just dryness.

You could try applying aloe vera gel into your scalp, it's moisturizing without making hair greasy. It's very good for hair and scalp. You can add some nice essential oil into it for fragrance and for calming the skin. This has been a life saver to me (though I have oily scalp).

Some people like to oil their scalps too (usually before wash I imagine). Opt for moisturizing shampoo, or mix some conditioner or honey or aloe gel with your shampoo to extra moisture. Your scalp might enjoy vinegar rinses too.

It might be a nice treat to yourself to use a brown sugar scalp scrub to mechanically take away the dead skin cells (from the recipes).


Hope you like it here! It's good to try only one new thing at the time so you will know what works and what might not work.

[Othala]

I also have coarse, very dry, wavy hair.

Arctic gave you superb advice. Can I add some product recommendations?

If you truly have dandruff (as opposed to a dry, flaky scalp), try Nizoral. I would try a moisturising shampoo first though, just to see if that sorts out the problem,. Try Nexxus Theratin.

For the dryness, try Philip Kingsley's Elasticizer either/both as a pre-wash or a leave-in conditioner.

Best of luck Gamber 747, and welcome to the LHC.

[Gamber_747]

Thank you for all the advices.

I am currently using a moisterizing shampoo(head and shoulders lively and silky) and have only today started using the sunsilk soft and smooth conditioner, I'll give the conditioner a week to see how it reduces the dryness.

I am pretty sure that there is dandruff problems with me and not just dry scalp skin cuz if I dont shampoo for 48 hours, I start to have considerably more white bits falling off my hair. I have also used non-anti dandruff shampoos and using them creates an unbearable amount of it so using an anti-dandruff one has become a must for me.
I will ask my hair styist about whether I have real dandruff or not.

My hair stylist gave me the same advice, to oil my scalp 15 minutes before shampooing. He said all shampoos dry hair even if it is a moisterizing one.