First Natural Winter

Finally!  Some winter weather. I didn’t think I’d be so excited about it, but as it is my first winter as a natural, I was excited to see what the cold weather would mean for my hair.

First, let me say that even though it hasn’t been cold until recently, the air has been very dry, both in my house and outside, just like a normal winter…but this winter has been far from normal, weather-wise. I had to invest in a humidifier this year because my sinuses were dry as the Sahara. So it has been unseasonably warm, but seasonably dry.

What did that mean for my hair?  It dried out! Duh! Time and time again. Even thought I say “duh” to that, don’t think that I had the smartitude to know what was going on from the beginning, because I didn’t.  I didn’t know what the problem was, and I tried everything except what I now think should have been pretty obvious….DEEP CONDITIONING!!!!

My issue wasn’t just a dry hair issue but a dry scalp issue as well. I was having these huge (and I am not exaggerating) flakes in my scalp that could be peeled away. I initially thought I was having eczema fare ups (as I think I posted earlier) and that was on top of the regular issued I already have with dry itchy scalp.  I tried massaging my scalp with different kinds of oils (before realizing the need for the DC).  Nothing improved  the issue. The Head and Shoulders still helped with the itching, but not with the flaking. On top of that, my hair was not retaining moisture, which was leading to a little breakage.  That is certainly NOT what I wanted because while the natural hair journey is about the overall health of my hair, I also am determined to get so good length.  My hair would end up tangled, even after doing my protective styles because it was drying out more than it should have been.

Eventually, the light bulb went off and I had the brilliant, not so novel, idea that I needed to do a DC.  Doing the DC also lead to the realization that I needed to do so weekly.  I found that I could make it 10 days at the most, and that was pushing it. So now I wash and DC weekly, where before I was DCing every 3 weeks. I also don’t do the heat free DC because I found that my hair and scalp need the heat from my hooded dryer under that good ole plastic cap to get the maximum benefit of the DC.

I have not been doing hot oil treatments lately because I wet and seal my hair at least every other day with an oil and that, now that I have adjusted my DC regimen, seems to be working for now.

I also stopped doing mini twists as a protective style. With my hair and scalp having the dryness issue, the mini twists were exposing more hair and scalp to the elements. So now, I will either do larger individual two strand twists that I can do quick styles with, or I will do flat twists all over, going towards the back. The ideas for both of those protective styles were derived from protective style youtube videos by Kimmaytube (http://www.youtube.com/user/kimmaytube) and SimplYounique (http://www.youtube.com/user/SimplYounique)

That’s all for now!