So you’ve heard all the news about going natural and you want to see what’s it all about, right? Well, first, lets bust some natural hair myths!
We’ll call them natural hair myths. These are the lies or “theories” or even “old wives tales” that have been passed down for generations about black hair and black hair care. These myths, have discouraged, and understandably so, many women from going natural and discovering their natural hair.
This is designed to encourage those of you who are interested in going natural or are newly natural and a bit frustrated.
- Natural hair is more brittle.
Brittle hair is a trait of dry hair. Dry hair is hair that doesn’t have the proper moisture. Learning how to properly moisturize and seal in the moisture will help keep hair from feeling dry. Also, maintaining a great protein moisture balance will help prevent hair from becoming weak and damaged.
- Natural hair is more dry.
There are some studies on why curly hair tends to need more moisture than other types of hair. These studies reveal that our scalp produce a natural oil called sebum. When hair is curly, the sebum has a harder time traveling down the hair strand. To rectify this you can add oils to your hair strand that “mimic” sebum such as, jojoba oil.
- Natural hair breaks easily.
With education on how to properly care for your hair you can minimize breakage. If your hair isn’t properly moisturized and doesn’t have a healthy dose of protein, it will break easily. Learning how to gently detangle your hair will also minimize breakage. (Remember how mom combed root to tip? Ouch! Yeah well, you will most likely have better results doing the opposite, comb tip to root.
- There are not many natural hair styles.
Just about any style you can do with relaxed hair, you can do with natural hair. Some natural haired ladies even know how to get their kinks relaxer straight and keep their hair healthy. (check out YouTube for tutorials)
- Natural hair gets really tangled!
To minimize tangles, using detangling techniques that will remove all or a majority of your shed hair. Shed hair is what causes a lot of those tangles. Also, be sure to keep your hair moisturized. Are you seeing a pattern here? Keeping your hair moisturized will help keep curls clumped and keep them from having love affairs with one another.
- Natural hair doesn’t grow.
With the proper knowledge on how to care for natural hair, MANY naturals have experienced 6+ inches of growth a year and some, 1 inch a month! The average seems to be 1/4 -1/2 of an inch a month for growth but, many have passed the average.
On this natural hair journey sometimes, some of us can be pretty hard and negative about our hair. I wouldn’t want to go natural either if someone was constantly telling me my hair would be brittle, dry, tangled, and just down right undesirable. With information like that its understandable if you reach for the relaxer too. The truth is, natural hair or “black hair” isn’t bad at all. Yes, curly hair has its challenges but, once you get the hang of things, it’s not that hard at all.
