More deets after the jump!
Tag: question of the day
Question of the Day: Preventing White Flakes When You Wash and Go
Flaky hair is probably the natural woman’s biggest nightmare…well, at least mine (that and dry hair). I’m not talking about “my leave-in and styler didn’t mix and now I have white chunks” flakes. I’m referring to, “my hair looked like thebomb.com while it was drying but I touched it once it dried and now my shoulders look like the North Pole,” flakes. I find these flakes much more offensive because they show up when you think your style is already in the clear. You’re ready to go out and look fly, then decide that one final hair fluff is all you need and… flakes!
Izzy (my hair), is known to have this issue on occasion, which has resulted in me becoming a master in the art of stealthy bathroom applications of oil and/or water to my hair. After one particularly painful episode, I decided that I needed to get to the root of the problem so I could take the proper preventative measures and never have to wipe my leather jacket with a damp paper towel again. Read what I found out over at BGLH!
Question of the Day: Elle’s Wash Day
A lot of people ask me what my wash day is like, and although I have it outlined for different activities in my Current Regimen, I thought a step-by-step account would be helpful. Please note, I am not listing the products I used because I am testing some new products and they are not my holy grails (besides my coconut oil!). Also, I do not always do my hair like this – this is just an example of a way I do my hair. As stated before, I do things to my hair as needed rather than having a concrete list of things I think I NEED to do. Anywho, here it goes!
The night before:
1. Slather dry hair (6 or 7 day old hair, I can’t remember if I did it on Sunday or Monday, lol) with Nutiva Coconut Oil, paying extra attention to my ends and the nape of my neck (I baby my nape a little more b/c it takes so much abuse due to jewelry).
2. Put hair in a low bun and place a plastic cap on top to keep the oil from getting on my pillow. I also put a scarf on over the cap to keep it from slipping off.
———-SLEEP———-
Wash DAY!
3. Take down bun and separate hair into four sections (two in the front, two in the back).
4. Pin up each section using a rust-resistant duckbill clip. (You can buy these at several beauty stores, I got mine from AveYOU)
———-HOP IN SHOWER———- (While in the shower, I do each of these steps on each section of hair, and clip them back up before moving to the next section.)
5. Wet hair/rinse oil, squeezing water into my hair in order to saturate it. My hair is lower porosity, so if my hair has a week’s worth of dirt/oil PLUS low porosity, it can be difficult to get my hair wet.
6. Apply a conditioner with cleansing agents to each section, smoothing it down my strands and adding extra conditioner to the ends. Massage scalp while applying product to loosen any build up or gunk.
7. Leave conditioner on my hair while I apply to other sections.
8. Rinse conditioner thoroughly, lightly finger detangling as I go along.
9. After rinsing each section, I applied my leave-in conditioner and clipped my hair back up. (I like applying my leave-in in the shower now, it’s just quicker.)
———-EXIT SHOWER———-
10. Apply gel to my hair in eight sections, smoothing the product on. I may do a little more finger detangling BEFORE applying gel since the sections in the shower have been halved. This is the same method I have used for wash and goes for over two years.
11. Apply another dollop of gel on the top of my hair to smooth frizzies.
12. Seal with a butter-heavy moisturizer on the lower half of my hair, twisting my hair (not in two strand twists) to help distribute the product to my ends.
13. Diffuse hair until drippies go away (I don’t know how long this took.).
And I’m done! The whole process takes about an hour and I let my hair air dry the rest of the way. I’m not particularly loving how my hair came out with the gel I used (the product may be too light), but we’ll see how it feels when it dries.
For more in depth information about my regimen, please visit my Current Regimen page.
xoxo
