Disclaimer.

I’m not a natural hair blogger. I added this page to my blog since noticing a high number of my friends and associates that admire my hair growth and seem to trust my opinion about going natural. Upcoming January I’ll be 2 years natural and next May I’ll be 3 years post-relaxer. Most of the information I listed here has helped me since the beginning of my natural hair journey. So I figured that it made sense to just put all of the information on here. I’ll add more things to this…maybe after the 2 year mark.

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YOUTUBE NATURAL HAIR COMMUNITY:

Here’s a bunch of YouTubers that I’ve been following since the beginning of my journey.

Kimmaytube: Her videos have probably been the most instructional & informative. And she breaks down steps very carefully in each video. She has some recipes for products that she shares on her channel. Search for her leave-in!!

Naptural85: I love her videos!!! She also has some recipes for products that she shares on her channel. She & Kimmay are probably my 2 favorite natural hair vloggers because they’ve documented their journey from small afro to really big hair!

Some other good YouTubers: AfricanExport, HairCrush, All That’s Gold, Taren916 and BeautifulBrwnBabyDol

NATURAL HAIR SITES:

Here’s some websites that helped me along w/ my natural hair & still do.

moptopmaven.blogspot.com: I love her website, its very informative. She has a section of her site just for natural and tutorial videos. Although I think she’s sick so she hasn’t updated in a couple months. Her older blog posts are still a great reference.

Longhaircareforum.com: Huge site, almost too much stuff on there. They have a cheap yearly membership and everyone on there shares their own healthy hair care tips. There is a section for natural hair as well as relaxed.

Tightlycurly.com: her site is great too. She has an Ingredients page where based on her experiments and findings, she lists out chemicals and ingredients thats usually in everyday-shampoo & conditioners, which things to look out for and what each ingredient does.

More great natural hair sites:
Maneandchic.com, Curlynikki.com, Naturalchica.com, and Bglhonline.com

PRODUCTS:

• A lot of the time, you kind of have to discover which products would work for you and what benefits your strands the best. Because everyone’s hair is different. One product may promise the same things for everyone but may only benefit a couple of people. Another thing is that the more you’re on these blogs, you’ll notice there will be some products that are everyone’s staple products. Like everyone agrees on how great it is.
• Another thing to keep note of is to stay away from shampoos with sulfates and conditioners with silicones. Shit, any ingredient in the conditioner that has a “cone” attached to its name is a silicone.  So I usually stick with organic hair care products.
• And lastly with products, things that I’ve noticed online is that people tend to expect products to create some type of miraculous effect to their hair. Like if its really kinky but they’re going after the “2001 Kelis curls”, they pile on the products and based on the products’ curl-enhancing advertising, they think it HAS to work. It doesn’t. The styling products can really only act on whatever curl or kink you already have. 

Here’s some brands & products that are pretty dope. 
Shea Moisture! Almost everything they have is great.

Qhemet Biotics: Alma & olive heavy cream!!

Carols Daughter: Black vanilla leave-in, mimosa hair honey (i think its called), Tui hair oil conditioner is great. Their Hair Milk line is great too.

Organix: I used to use them a couple at a time from like Duane Reade or whatever. Their conditioners are good for mixing oils into for quick conditioning or deep conditioning.

Kinky Curly Knot Today: the very best leave-in & detangler I’ve ever used. Ever!

Cantu Shea Butter leave-in, another really good leave-in.

Karen’s Body Beautiful has some good hair milks and hair butters and they smell absolutely amazing. Her store is in Fort Greene and she’s really nice.

Right now, the only products I use (when my hair isn’t weave’d up as it is now) are Teressentials Hair Wash, my shea butter mix, Aloe Vera juice and Kinky Curly Knot Today (or Kimmaytube’s leave-in recipe).

Oils that I use: Morroccan (Argan) oil, Rosemary oil, Grapeseed oil, Avocado oil, Vatika oil, Coconut oil, Extra Virgin olive oil and my favorite Jamaican black castor oil (on my scalp).

Some things that worked for me very well so far:

• Decide on if you’re going to transition (and until when) or big chop. Because if you make a clear decision it will help your course of hair-planning. Like some girls BC around the spring/summer so that they can co-wash and leave the house with wet hair and not be fearful of getting a cold. But with transitioning, are you going to leave your hair out during the months or do several protective styles? The great thing about the online references like blogs and youtube is that you can see which decisions worked for some people and which didn’t. 
• Stay away from unnecessary heat. Another reason why I chose protective styles. Other than spending less time on my hair every morning before work, it hid my hair from damaging effects from wind, cold weather and excess combing, parting and brushing.

• Always shampoo & condition your hair in sections!!

We can’t just pile the hair on top of our heads like a Herbal-Essence-commercial and shampoo away anymore. You’ll be dealing with insane tangling like that. When you go to the natural hair side, you have to completely change how you’ve been taught to take care of your hair when it was relaxed. And its easiest to detangle your hair in the shower under the water while its running.

• Always deep condition. Or deep condition once a week.I use to shampoo & deep condition my hair once a week (twice if I have time). Since I use the organic hair wash now, I cleanse my hair once a week.
• If you decide to transition without the use of braids, weaves or wigs, 2-strand twist-outs and braid-outs are safe hair styles.
• Do a protein treatment (like Aphogee) once a month or once every 6 weeks and follow it up with a moisturizing deep conditioner for a good protein and moisture balance.
• Also for the winter months, its like really good to sit under the dryer with your deep conditioner on for the best results of soft and moisturized hair.
• And lastly one of the most important things…another factor you might hear some vloggers talk about is not to look at other girls’ hair and think yours will look exactly like theirs. You’d be surprised how many girls I’ve talked to about this and they joke about their hair and another person’s hair and how they figured their hair would be at a certain length by now or the curl would look like theirs or whatever. People forget about genetics, which is the ultimate deciding factor on growth rate, hair shape and texture. The best thing to do is to look at your childhood pictures because that’s the hair you’ll be dealing with sans relaxers.