Tag Archives: Breakage

Information on natural hair breakage.

Q&A | How to Prevent Natural Hair Tangling Up

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Prevent natural hair tangling upHey NHB,

I have REALLY Curly hair (beautiful, naturally very strong and thick) but it also comes at a price! It naturally locks itself VERY quickly (on a daily basis). If I comb my hair out, and wash it, it will literally start to lock while I’m washing it out. I deep condition my hair regularly and keep it moisturised but this doesn’t stop it from tangling up. Unlocking it is long and is more or less like ripping my hair out (even with plenty of moisture and conditioner).

I’m happy to let it do its thing as I rarely comb my hair out into afro style anyway, BUT I want to know if this is negative for my hair, and also do you have any tips for this type of hair.

Thank you NHB!

Hey curlfriend!

Great question!

It seems to be the issue is that you should be stretching your hair? You didn’t mention whether you do or not but I’ll assume you don’t from the question.

Yes curly/coily hair tangles up very easily hence why it’s best to stretch your hair (without heat) so as to somewhat straighten the strands when it gets longer to keep it from tangling up on itself.

The issue is that if you leave it, it makes very hard work when you’re trying to detangle to wash it and this will limit your hair growth too as you will be losing more hair when trying to detangle because your hair is so tangled up. Since you’re not deliberately locking your hair, it’s best to keep your hair in a stretched state and protective styles to keep it from tangling up.

I recently wrote an article on this so definitely check it out. I think it will explain in more detail what I mean.
http://thenhb.com/drying-natural-hair/

I hope this helps!

Fall Here, Fall Hair

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Autumn is round the corner which for the most of us means colder weather (boooo!) and more dry-prone hair (double booo!). I know I go on about this, but protective styles are just the ticket to retaining moisture in your hair and preventing breakage (breakage is the enemy!).

Autumn Protective Hairstyles are just the ticket  so here are some YouTube tutorials on different protective styles you could incorporate this summer.

What styles are you planning to do this fall/autumn? Leave a comment below :)

Stunted Hair Growth: The Root of the Problem

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So in line with the previous post in this 2 part series on stunted hair growth, today’s topic is centred around the various general reasons for stunted hair growth / breakage. I will deal with three possible reasons in today’s post (in no categorical order):

1. Excessive or inappropriate manipulation

Okay, so firstly, it is extremely important both for the benefit of your hair and your very own self, that you DO NOT manipulate your hair i.e. combing / brushing, plaiting, twisting, weaves etc. excessively – only do so when NECESSARY. The right styling technique is crucial to your hair’s health (I’ll post on this later). Many naturals actually choose to finger comb instead of using a brush or comb; for those of us that have not elevated to those levels yet, LOL, getting the right technique is pivotal. Make sure your hair is moisturised (not necessarily drenched) with water when manipulating it otherwise you will experience incredible pain and your hair will be very angry with you!

Additionally, if you weave or braid your hair etc. make sure it is not done tightly, don’t leave it in too long, and give your hair a break! Make sure you’re leaving your hair out and e.g. doing protective styles with your own hair for sufficient periods of time.

2. Poor hair maintenance

Secondly, it is important you establish a hair regime that works for YOU and not anyone else. Our hair is very prone to dryness, especially those of us with kinkier/coilier textures, so your regime must be jam packed with moisture moisture moisture. I will cover the basics of a good regime in a separate post, but for now ensure you deep condition your hair and moisturise with water, leave in conditioners, moisturisers etc. as well as sealing with an oil of choice. It might be good for you to avoid shampooing weekly and maybe do so biweekly instead / monthly, depending on how prone to dryness  your hair is and you can invest in sulfate free shampoos which strip your hair of all its natural oils; in between that time, cowash instead. Find what works for you; don’t just take on a regime because a random Mary Kate (this will be my female Joe Bloggs lol) or even your hairspiration does so. Of course, you can try things out as suggestions, but what works for them may not work for you – so be persistent!

3. Not listening to your hair!

This really ties in with what has previously been said. In my previous post, I mentioned how I had stopped listening to my hair and of course, it had disastrous effects on my hair’s health. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Learn what your hair likes and dislikes and run far away from the latter. If your hair is dry, moisturise; don’t delay moisturising because it doesn’t fit with your regime e.g. you cowash weekly but my the middle of the week your hair is very dry, don’t wait until the end of the week, get some conditioner on those locks immediately! If you notice split ends, chop those bad boys off immediately.  Take care of your hair and your hair will definitely take care of you!

Overall, if you listento your hair and take the necessary action, your hair will be happier and so will you; as they say

‘Look Good, Feel Good’.

Resources

There’s loads of material flying all over the web with more tips and suggestions etc. Here are some posts you can check out to find out more or a different perspective:

http://www.curlynikki.com/2011/05/4-major-causes-of-hair-breakage.html

http://blackgirllonghair.com/?s=breakage&submit=Search…

http://www.cfyh.co.uk/2012/03/17/i-think-my-hair-has-stopped-growing/

What are your experiences or thoughts concerning this topic? Do share – leave a comment below  :wink:

That’s it for today chicas  :grin:

Ciaosies

Stunted Hair Growth – My reflections

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In this post I will be briefly talking about why my hair’s growth was stunted for much of my second year being natural. Firstly, here are two photos comparing my length checks at

around 6-8 months and 15 months,

Stunted Hair Growth

6&15mnths

and 15 months and 24 months:

Stunted Hair Growth

15 months and 24 months

It should be quite obvious that my hair growth had drastically slowed down as the time intervals for both pictures are around about the same.

So WHY?!

Confession time. So throughout most (around 3/4) of my first year (or so), I kept my hair in kinky twists (see review ) because I had just started uni and I really didn’t have time to give my hair the proper TLC it needed and I wanted to grow my hair. Before that, my TWA was always moisturised, in that I sprayed it with water and oils etc. So that was great; and I had found a good regime for taking care of my hair. However, 5-6 months later I decided to take a break from the twists because of the massive hair growth I’d witnessed. This was then around 15 months. I made a big mistake: I thought I could get away with treating my hair as though it was a TWA. WRONG! I didn’t realise that this new length of hair came with new responsibilities e.g. protective styling and altering my regime to fit my new hair length. Furthermore, after around 5-6 mnths, I went back to uni and I did the twists again as I was excited to see the growth that I’d observe when I took the twists out. However, to my dismay, when i took my hair out, it really hadn’t growth very much at all and my edges had broken off :( Into the new year, it seemed like my hair was always DRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! Bitterly Dry! No matter how much I deep conditioned, moisturised, whatever, it would be immensely dry in a few hours. This was a really stressful and frustrating time for me to be honest. I then came across this picture whilst browsing some hair care pages:

Stunted Hair Growth

Tapering hair

Source: Click here

I started to question myself. I then noticed that my hair was TAPERING! You can see a picture of this here. I was puzzled as to why especially as I had trimmed my hair like twice in the space of 4 months. I soon realised that although I had been trimming my hair, I wasn’t trimming ruthlessly i.e. I didn’t trim everything as I didn’t want to lose length. That’s when I realised that I had compromised health for length. It then clicked that, that was why my hair felt constantly dry and brittle.

In any case, I was due to be a bridesmaid and I had to get a weave as it was part of the uniform. I then decided that I would kill two birds with one stone and cut off my hair – that is all the damaged parts. This was actually with the hairdresser who had told me to go natural 2 years ago (I hadn’t been back to him since then because I didn’t need to!). You can see the process and how much hair was taken off here.

So Ladies, what am I saying? It’s great if you wish to grow your hair, no problem, but DO NOT COMPROMISE HEALTH FOR LENGTH. Watch your hair, listen to it. Remember the goal is HEALTHY hair, okay  :wink:

Coming up next: Stunted Hair Growth: The Root of the Problem. Stay tuned and until next time stay beautiful  :wink:

Q&As – Protective hairstyles & breakage

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“Do you find that after you take out your protective hairstyle, you get dry breakage? Because I do, so now I’m a bit hesitant in doing braids again.”

Hmmm interesting question! Personally, I don’t experience any dry breakage. You do have to differentiate however between breakage and shedding. When you leave your hair in for a long time and take it out, you definitely will see quite a bit of hair come out because we shed hair everyday. However, if your hair is actually breaking, such that you may have clumps and patches of hair missing in different parts then it may be that you’ve left the hair in (especially in the case of braids etc.) too long or perhaps it was too tight.

It is very important you ensure that whoever is doing your hair, knows how to handle your hair and that they don’t just blow dry it to oblivion when trying to braid it etc! Also I would recommend that you wash and condition your hair before you put it in a protective hairstyle. Do oil your scalp on a weekly basis whilst in a protective hairstyle and don’t leave the hair in too long  i.e. 2 months should be the maximum in my opinion.

I sincerely hope this helps. Ladies reading this, if you have a similar experience or advice, please let us know! Remember this forum is to help us all so as usual don’t forget to…

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