What I've Learned

Happy New Year everyone! I've been thinking about what 2008 meant to me, and I've made alot of growth and personal changes over the past year. I became active in the hair forums and that has lead me to many discoveries and positive changes in my hair routine. I even met some awesome ladies in the process. Since I love bulleted lists, I thought I'd make list of things I've learned over the past year that have changed my hair for the better.

1. Check your ingredients. Belt tightening during this economic downturn has lead to many product reformulations in the hair care sector and I feel like I have been hit the hardest. Proclaim Curl Activator Gel, African Royale Daily Doctor, Jamaican Mango & Lime Leave-in Moisturizer and the list goes on. When the first reformulation happened, I spent days trying to figure out what was wrong with my hair. It doesn't take much of a change to turn a holy grail product into an arch-nemesis of your hair. Now I check the ingredients of my staple products every time I repurchase.
2. Co-washing consists of washing and conditioning. Maybe this was a no-brainer for everyone else, but I always thought that co-washing consisted of merely washing your hair with conditioner. And that's all I did. One lather with a mixture of conditioners, usually Suave Tropical Coconut and a more moisturizing conditioner like Trader Joe's Nourish Spa. It wasn't until someone mentioned that the Curly Girl method actually states you should wash with a co-wash conditioner to remove the debris, rinse, and then condition with a conditioning conditioner. I've never actually read the Curly Girl book, but I believe myself to be following the rules as much as the rules work for me. (I still use some cone and mineral oil containing products.) Now that I have started co-washing correctly, I find shampooing is not needed as often.
3. Sealing works. When I first went natural, I used oil as part of a homemade spritz but it was messy and I stopped when I kept getting oil all over my clothes. When I started experimenting with oils again, I left an oil slick everywhere I laid my head. It was the ladies on HappyCurls who pointed out that I should be applying oil after leave-in and before gel and it would prevent these Soul Glo-like mishaps. I have been using castor oil to seal in my leave-ins and the difference in my hair is palpable. The oil boosts the holding power of my gel, my curls are defined, and my hair stays moisturized for 5 days with no need to reapply any products. I've also noticed less breakage.
4. Layering moisture is good, layering gels, not so much. With all my reading of hair blogs, visiting hair forums, looking at hair pictures in fotkis, and watching hair-related youtube videos somewhere I picked up the idea of layering Fantasia IC Hair Polisher Gel over my curl activator gels to catch the drips. Not only did it catch the drips, it prolonged the hold of my wash-and-go styles. I was hooked. I started layering Hair Polisher Gel over everything from Proclaim CAG to Long Aid to Curly Meringue. It wasn't until the reformulation of Long Aid (it was minor, but my hair noticed it) that I realized the layering of carbomer-based gels was drying my hair out. Since I have started using oil underneath my gels, all the drips are caught anyway. I am trying to experiment with more buttery-type styling products. And I still don't have an all-in-one product that I can just slap on my hair and go, but the leave-in, oil, and one gel method has been working for me.