Humans have a great advantage over other animals when it comes to grooming. Even though we can not lick ourselves clean, we can make hairstyles like no other. Many mammals and birds depend on what their genes give them for the rest of their lives. We, as humans, can modify our hair to our liking. We are the masters of our hair, and we enjoy this great power.
Curly hair is a great power that comes with even greater responsibility when it comes to maintenance. Everyone who has curly hair always gets compliments on how pretty it is, without knowing the other side of the story. Behind all of that lies a big story of keeping it healthy and gorgeous, and sometimes that process is really hard. Here is how you can have healthy and gorgeous curly hair and keep it that way.
Cutting it
Healthy hair needs to be cut every once in a while, so it can stay that way. Getting a haircut with curly hair is often a mess because not many people know how to do it. One of the best techniques used for cutting it is the deva cut, which focuses on cutting every single curl individually. If you can find a hairdresser that can do this cut correctly, you should definitely go there to get your curly hair cut correctly.
It is important to get your hair cut regularly to get rid of the split ends. Split ends make it a real mess when it comes to combing your hair. It is already hard enough to comb curly hair and style it together. It becomes even harder with split ends, which causes excessive pulling that can in turn damage your hair. You can comb it more slowly, but that takes much more time than getting a quality haircut. Accent on the comb, do not use regular hairbrushes, use wide combs for curly hair.
Shampoo
When you are looking for the right shampoo, you should always look in detail at the ingredient list. Which shampoo suits you the best is up to you to discover since everyone has unique curly hair. When looking at the ingredient list, you should look for milder shampoos that do not use any harsh chemicals. It is rare to find such these days, but unfortunately possible to find some with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS for short). This chemical is really good at washing your hair, but with a price of being highly carcinogenic.
Once you know that the shampoo has no toxins, silicones, damaging alcohols, you should look at the oil content. When shampooing, it is important that you do not strip your hair out of any natural oils that keep the curls healthy. That is why using shampoos with natural oils, castor being one of the finest, reduces this chance of damage. Also, when shampooing your hair, make sure the water is cold. Hot water is much more efficient at extracting natural oils from your hair.
Sleeping
Once you have made your hair gorgeous and kept it healthy, it is important to make it stay that way. Most of the damage your hair takes is in your bed when you are sleeping. When you sleep, your hair is in constant contact with the pillow, which causes friction damage. Damage is both on the mechanical level and also the chemical level of the hair. Remember the tip for using cold water and not hot water? The same logic applies here because friction causes heat which damages your hair.
Sleeping on your back is the most damaging option for curly hair. That way hair has the most surface contact with the pillow and thus more damage is done. You should sleep on the sides or on the stomach with your hair tied up. Tie it up in a high ponytail to reduce the surface contact with the pillow. Do not tie it up too tightly, as you will be undoing the benefit that it is meant to give.
These are the essentials when it comes to caring for your gorgeous curly hair. There are of course more tips, but those are additional touch-ups to these essentials. Curly hair truly is a blessing and a curse that only the people with it know about. The fact that such a big effect can be caused just by a few atoms not being connected is mind-boggling.
Hair truly is something fascinating, it is so simple in its structure yet truly delicate. The reason why our ancestors preferred this type of hair arrangement is really interesting. It is just hair, yet it is not, it is something many of us hold as very important.
