This video is all about how to handle dry brittle hair with your little ones. I know from experience how painful and stressful this can be. So be sure to tune in for all the tips and tricks I share in this video.
Transcription:
Hi, it's Marquetta Breslin and I'm back with another Q and A. This one is kind of long, but I wanted to read the entire thing to you because I think that there are several of us or a lot of us that have this problem. Okay. Let's see, where is a good point that I can read from. Okay, “Yesterday, I was combing my daughter's hair. My children have a Nigerian father and with that, I assume their hair is very difficult to comb at times. I wash and condition and try to keep it braided. Yesterday, I was combing through my 7-year-old's head and she was giving me the blues. I felt badly for her and apologized every time the comb touched her hair. However, I also became very frustrated and wanted to cut it off. Lord, help me. But after all of that, she was fine. I'm not sure if it is her scalp that is very tender or the thickness of her hair in general. Her coils are very tight and her head doesn't hold a lot of moisture even after washing it. I will continue to use the detangler and oil her scalp often. I wanted to relax this so bad, but I'm afraid of it breaking off.”
That it. Okay, so first of all, I understand exactly where you're coming from. When I was a little girl, the thing I hated most was to get my natural hair combed. It was like I was being tortured. I hated it. I felt like when I saw The Color Purple for the first time and saw the little girl [inaudible 0:01:43] who was combing the little girl's hair, I felt like I was that little girl. Like I can feel her pain. I felt that, so I know where you're coming from. It is painful for children. It really can be. At that time, my mom has never been a hair stylist, but at that time, there were no products like, we didn't know. My mom didn't know about co-washing my hair to help detangle it and soften it and break it down. She didn't know about those things, which is what I'm about to explain to you. I get questions like this. Don't feel bad and I sympathize with you for wanting to relax your daughter's hair.
I hope, I hope by the time you watch this video, I hope you didn't do it. If you did it's okay. I am not, I say it all the time. But I'm not the natural hair police. I am not going to be mad at you for relaxing your daughter's hair. That's a decision that you made because you felt it was best for you, so don't let anybody get mad at you. I hope you didn't do it and if you didn't, this is what I will suggest that you do. Okay. Let me go back and make sure I address everything in your e-mail. Okay so, the biggest thing with tightly coiled hair is moisture. You said her hair doesn't hold a lot of moisture. Here's what I suggest. A lot of times with shampooing our texture of hair, sometimes the shampoos that we use can strip the hair so much of oils that even with conditioner is still hard to pull through. What I'm going to suggest to you is to only co-wash your hair for about two week and then on that third week, use a moisturizing shampoo and still condition and then, try that for a while, so for two weeks, co-wash your hair and that means cleansing her hair with conditioner. That's going to help, it's going to do a few things. It's going to break that hair down and is going to gently cleanse the hair and it's going to soften it and it's going to make it easier for you to detangle her hair.
Now, here's one thing you can do. Once you wet her hair down, you part it off in four sections. Start to apply the conditioner into those four sections. Clip them off. Take that first section, start from the bottom and detangle the hair all the way up to the roots. Once you get the hair detangled, put it in a big plat. If it's long enough, put that section in a big plat. If it's not long enough, put it in a big plat the section off into subsections and plat them. Once you do that for the whole head, I want you to rinse her hair wile it's still platted. Don't take it out of the plats. It's already been detangled. You've done the hard work and I can guarantee you, you did it with no tears. Because a lot of the times, with conditioner most of the time like 90 … I'll say 98% of the time, that conditioner is really going to help break that hair down and you're not going to have a lot of tears or you're not going to have a lot of trouble detangling. Once you get that done, let's see, I want you to go ahead and rinse the hair while the hair is still platted and then, whatever style you're going to do if you are going to … I'm trying to see if you talked about the type of style. No, okay.
Whatever style you're going to do, go from that base. So, let's say you want to blow it out and braid it because a lot of times when you braid natural hair like that, that's tightly coiled in it's natural state, that hurts. Been there, done that, still going through it now when I get my hair braided. I have to blow my hair out with the blow dryer before I go through the braid salon or I'll have tears running down my face because that hurts, so blow the hair out gently in those sections and then, continue styling as usual. Always use a heat protector. Another thing you can do if you want to shampoo your hair more often, a lot times with kids, they're outside playing. They may get dirt in their hair and they may need a shampoo more often than a co-wash. If you have to do that, I want you to number one, invest in a hair steamer. Mix coconut oil, a little bit of tea tree. Just a few drops of tea tree. Maybe one or two drops, you can get it at Whole Foods. Make sure your coconut oil is certified organic. It has more nutrients. When it's processed and it's not certified organic, you just loose a lot of the benefit. Also, the same for your olive oil, make sure it's raw, organic, cold pressed. I want you to mix these three things together and I want you to apply them to your daughter's hair and set her under steam.
With children and steam, it could be a little bit tricky, but if she starts to get too hot or complaining about it with your steamer. I wish I had my steamer [stuck 0:06:51] and roll it over here. You can adjust the height. You can just … That's a blow dryer, my little camera woman is talking to me. That's a blow dryer not a steamer. Sometimes with children, with a steamer, you can adjust the height so it's not so in their face, but it's really important for you to just get that steam in there to penetrate that cuticle. That's also were to break the hair down and make it easier to detangle as well. Those are just some options and that's going to also help tremendously with her moisture. That was your other question. It looks like you have an issue with moisture. Coconut oil is super moisturizing and so it olive oil. Naturally, they're super moisturizing. Sometimes even with coconut oil, people don't like to use it because they say it's too oily. My hair drinks it up. I feel like I can just pour coconut oil in my hair and then my scalp an hour later look like I never did anything to it.
These are just some options of some things that you can do. I would go for your 7-year-old, I would go with a more natural route like more natural oils and things of that nature and definitely try the co-washes. That way these natural oils are way more beneficial and they have a lot of nutrients and they really do break the hair down and make it easier for you to work with. Those are some awesome, awesome options and please, e-mail me back and let me know how these things are working out for you and if they don't work, then we'll try something else. Hopefully, I'll hear from you soon and I really hope you enjoyed this and you got a lot out of it. I can't wait to see how things work out. There you have it. I'll see you on the next one.
