The life of your hair depends on the care and, most importantly, the hydration you provide. Natural hair needs to be moisturized from the scalp to the ends to maintain its shine, strength, overall health, and promote growth.
How to Hydrate Your Natural Hair and Maintain Moisture?
You need to give them what they need, and your hair needs WATER.
Yes, WATER! Water hydrates your hair, while vegetable oils or butters nourish them.
To provide hydration to your hair, you should use water-based moisturizing agents such as vegetable glycerin, aloe vera, or floral waters.
Hydrating your hair is not just about wetting them or spraying the product on your hair. To prevent the moisturizing agents from evaporating, you need to lock them onto the hair fiber.
You maintain hair hydration by applying a greasy product (vegetable oil or butter) to your hair.
These greasy substances not only nourish the hair but also act as a barrier around the hair fiber to lock in the moisture and prevent dryness.
To give your natural hair the hydration it needs, the cosmetic industry has developed various creams, moisturizing treatments, hair sprays, or hair balms specifically for this hair type.
They are composed of water and vegetable oils (argan oil, castor oil, almond oil, jojoba oil, coconut oil, etc.). You can also use ready-made creams.
For those who are more motivated, you can make your own homemade moisturizing hair spray!
Can You Maintain Hair Hydration for a Long Time?
To keep your hair moisturized, you need to follow certain essential maintenance rules for the well-being of your hair.
Here are 8 tips that will help you easily keep your hair moisturized every day:
1 – Use Deep Hair Treatments
Deep treatments nourish, hydrate, repair, and strengthen the hair. You can deeply care for your hair with products purchased in stores (masks, sprays, balms, solid shampoos, anti-dandruff shampoos, mild shampoos, etc.).
Or, you can make your own homemade treatments using everyday ingredients that are very nourishing and moisturizing, such as eggs, avocado, vegetable oils, honey, and many others.
For your natural hair, choose ingredients that will nourish your hair according to its needs. For example, if they are damaged, opt for deep repairing treatments. If they are fine, choose treatments that add volume.
It is preferable to do a deep treatment once a week.
2 – Use the Liquid Oil Cream (LOC) Method
As the name suggests, this method involves hydrating and maintaining hair moisture by applying liquid (preferably water), oil, and cream.
It deeply hydrates the hair and promotes moisture retention. Well-moisturized curly or wavy hair will prevent itching, dryness, or breakage.
3 – Seal in Moisture with Oil
This tip is included in the previous one. After moisturizing, you must seal it in by applying one or more oils of your choice, depending on your hair’s needs.
Remember that simply applying oil to your hair does not moisturize them. Water moisturizes, not oil. The oil will stay on the surface and not penetrate deep into your hair.
Therefore, you must go through the hydration step, which means applying water before oil to avoid dryness.
4 – Drink Plenty of Water
Yes, as we often say, water is good for your health, but also for your hair. Hair hydration does not rely solely on the physical aspect.
Drinking plenty of water promotes continuous hair hydration. Regardless of the season, make it a habit to drink plenty of water for your health and the health of your hair. A minimum of 1.5 liters of water per day.
5 – Sleep on a Satin Pillowcase or with a Satin Bonnet
Cotton and hair don’t go well together. The friction of a cotton pillowcase damages your hair.
You should prefer satin or silk bonnets, pillowcases, or scarves to maintain hair hydration.
6 – Try the Green House Effect (GHE) Method
The GHE method promotes hair hydration through a warm and humid environment. To do this, you will need an oil of your choice, a butter of your choice, a plastic cap, and a satin bonnet.
After applying the oil and butter to your hair, you can cover them with the plastic cap and then the satin bonnet.
This is a technique you can use overnight or during the day. This technique deeply hydrates afro hair.
Thanks to increased blood circulation, the idea is that your hair follicles open, allowing the products applied to penetrate and promote hair growth.
7 – Don’t Skip Conditioner After Shampooing Your Natural Hair
Washing your hair is the beginning of hydration. To make the most of it, you should use a conditioner. Conditioner is essential for the well-being of your hair.
It helps rehydrate the hair that has lost its moisture during shampooing and makes it easier to detangle. Ladies, from now on, do not skip applying conditioner.
8 – Use Vegetable Oil Hair Treatments
The benefits of vegetable oils for hair are well-known. With their multiple properties and benefits, they nourish, hydrate, strengthen, and increase hair shine.
Doing a vegetable oil treatment once a week, depending on your hair’s needs, will also help maintain hair hydration.
For damaged hair, you can, for example, use castor oil, which stimulates growth and is an excellent hair moisturizer.
Here’s What You Should Avoid to keep Your Natural Hair moisturized
None moisturized hair is generally the cause of brittle, damaged hair, lack of shine, and slow growth.
Avoid bleaching your natural hair: bleaching rapidly dehydrates the hair, so if you want moisturized hair, it’s best not to bleach them.
Avoid heat sources on your natural hair: hairdryers, straighteners, curling irons, and all other chemical straightening methods will only dehydrate your hair further.
Using cosmetics products that are not suitable for your hair or low-quality: besides costing money every 2 months, most of these products are harmful to your hair. It is therefore better to prefer natural, homemade, or organic products.
These are some mistakes to avoid for having moisturized natural hair. Also, read our article on the 10 things to stop doing to your natural hair today to improve hair health and promote growth.
Contrary to what one might imagine, natural hair is naturally less moisturized and should be washed as infrequently as possible (once a week). It’s up to us to provide them with all the necessary nutrients to keep them from being too dry.
Therefore, the hydration of natural hair involves regular hair care.
Opt for natural and/or organic products that nourish and hydrate for the well-being of your hair.
Maintaining hydration is possible when you take the necessary measures to achieve it. Having beautiful, silky, and well-moisturized natural hair is possible when you take care of them.”
