When asked how to grow black hair, unfortunately, not everyone can agree upon the best answer. Many African-Americans go through heat treatments or use chemical treatments to relax and straighten hair. While this can produce the desired soft and loose locks, in the long run, these treatments are harsh and highly damaging to hair. You also end up in a vicious cycle since you’ll find the need to get more frequent treatments to maintain your look, but each treatment only further breaks down the sulfur bonds in your hair. Pretty soon you’re left with dried out, brittle hair- or worse, no hair!
Instead, take these tips into consideration on how to grow black hair:
- First of all, if you’re using chemical treatments to relax tightly curled black hair, STOP. Do you really want to keep rubbing stuff containing lye, ammonia or other harsh chemicals into you head? Stop immediately and give your hair time to recover- that’s at least 2-4 weeks. In the meantime, treat hair with a gentle touch. Trim off the dead, split ends or shave all your hair off and start anew. You asked how to grow black hair? Well, part of the answer is to stimulate the regrowth of new, natural hair.
- Conditioners are your friends! They are the key factor in how to grow black hair. You will need a rich conditioner to combat the natural dryness of black hair. Normal hair has about 10-15% moisture but black hair tends to have less than that. Thus, you should try to use hair products with natural oils (good ones to look for are olive or jojoba oil), fatty acids or shea butter, to combat the dryness. Avoid hair conditioners with petroleum or mineral oil; they’ll give you too much of a “shellacked” look and worse, it will be a disgusting cloggy mess to clean off
- Massage your scalp with the pads of your fingers. There’s no proven fact this leads to hair growth but it does stimulate circulation which will bring a rich supply of blood and oxygen to the head, which in turn is good for cells. Massage is also relaxing and we all know stress can affect hair loss!
- Treating hair as gently as possible is a point to address when talking about how to grow black hair. Mechanical damage caused by aggressive brushing and combing will only pull out or break brittle black hair. Use a wide tooth comb to avoid pulling too much hair. Avoid over-brushing your hair as you will strip off the protective and moisturizing oils.
- If you don’t have to, avoid washing your hair daily. You don’t necessarily have to skip out on daily ablutions, just don’t wash your hair if it doesn’t feel dirty. Those oils produced by the scalp will help keep your hair moisturized.
- You are what you eat, so consider the effect certain foods may have as you explore how to grow black hair. Drink lots of water and get enough proteins and healthy fats into your diet. Consider taking a multivitamin to supplement your diet.
