Happy new year and welcome back to the newbie natural series. It’s January and here in Nairobi it’s generally hot and dry… Which is an external condition that our fro has to deal with… So How do we get a hold of the ever elusive moisture?

I have some great pointers that hopefully help with retaining moisture in our strands.

• Pre-poo your hair

This is basically adding oils to your hair to not only impart the good  stuff on your hair but to also prevent your hair from being stripped of its natural oils during washing. It is best advised to use penetrative oils like coconut, olive or avocado oils because these three penetrate the hair shaft .

• Use a moisturising shampoo and conditioner

This helps greatly to impact moisture in your hair. A good moisture regimen begins at wash day. Avoid using shampoos that are high in sulfates and that will dry out your hair. Also, it is essential to condition ater every wash to get back the moisture lost during the wash day.

• Deep condition your hair.

Deep conditioning adds the lost moisture and nutrients back to your hair. Always deep condition with a moisture rich store bought conditioner or you may just DIY your way out. I shared cheap and easy DIY hair deep conditioning recipes in this post.

• Moisturise your hair midweek / everyday/ every other day

A great way to ensure that your hair stays moisturised between wash days is to re-moisturise during the week. Depending on your porosity it could be daily, every other day or just once a week. This ensures that your hair has a constant moisture supply.

• Seal in your moisture.

After imparting moisture to your strands, seal it in with a heavy oil like castor, or a butter like Shea butter. This keeps the moisture in your strands, and you will realixe that you don’t have to re moisturise as much between wash days.

• Sleep in a satin/ silk scarf

In your night routine, adding a satin scarf before you go to bed ensures that your hair retains moisture till morning. Cotton pillowcases sap moisture out of our hair and cause it to be dry and crinkly. If you are not big on scarves, a satin pillowcase or a satin bonnet will be an amazing substitute.

• Concentrate on your ends.

Your ends are the oldest part of your hair and resultantly loose moisture the fastest. Ensure you give them extra love. Protective styling in buns and styles that tuck in your ends are a good way to keep moisture in tour hair.

• Wear protective styles and low manipulative styles

Keeping your hair in protective styles where your ends are kept away helps your hair maintain moisture. Protective styles may be long term or short term…. Like braids, two strand twists and short term low manipulative hair styles like buns, twist outs and updos.

Moisture is your hair’s best friend. So how then do you incorporate this into your life? I like to call this the midweek moisture. It is how to revamp your hair’s moisture levels right in the middle of the week.  This is how to do it!!

What you need:

• Spray bottle with water and humectant. I shared a spray bottle mixture on my blog
• A leave in conditioning cream
• Oil of choice
• Shea butter/ grease

My preferred method has to be the L.C.O method… (Liquid Cream Oil)

What to do:

• Separate your hair into sections. Working in sections is bae!!
• Sprits your hair with your spray bottle mix.
• Massage the water into your hair using the praying hands motion.
• Apply your leave in conditioning cream.
• Detangle some more…
• Apply oil…
• Then seal in the moisture with your butter.
• After this… style your hair as desired.

How do you keep moisture in your hair?

Love

Nyake