My 7-Step Wash Day Routine For Natural Hair And A Healthy Scalp | Allure

Wrap them around my finger just like that, just like you'd be wrapping these men around your finger, hello, hey y'all, i'm essence: i am a beauty director turned director of ad studio at pros, and this is my wash day routine for optimal scalp health. So today i'm going to be doing my go to twist out the steps to my wash day. Routine normally include a hot oil pre-scalp treatment, then i'll shampoo and condition, and then i'll twist out my hair quickly hit it with a hair dryer before air drying apply. My nightly diy scalp oil and then i'll style, my hair, the next day, usually my routine, takes about anywhere from two to four hours just depending on the day, and i do it about once a week. So my hair and scalp are a lot. So i have type 4 hair. 4C. 4B. It'S like a hodgepodge of curl patterns. My scalp is also very dry. So if i go longer than a week without washing my hair, it starts to feel really like dry itchy, a lot of buildup on my hair from products. It'S just not not a good feeling so with my pre scalp hot oil treatment i like to put it in an applicator bottle, one with like a pointy tip, so that i can get it directly to my scalp. First, i put in the olive oil. That'S kind of like our carrier, oil, a very kind of mild, neutral oil - it's also hydrating, but it really just helps with that shine factor. So then, i put in some honey honey is a humectant so that just a super important ingredient when it comes to moisture for me and hydration and then at the very end i put in some tea tree oil anywhere from 6 to 10 drops, depending on how Much of my other ingredients already have in the applicator bottle tea tree. Oil is anti-bacterial, it's in a lot of skin care products, and so i found that it also helps with my scalp, because scalp is also skin. So i'll heat it up with warm water kind of the way that you would do like a baby bottle. You don't want it really hot. You just want it warm enough to where all of the ingredients are like. You know fusing together and melting and then i get to applying, i told y'all it gets messy. So i like to put a towel around my neck and i just like to part down the middle on each half part this way, so that i have four separated sections. Give it a nice good shake. We are just going to start applying see. It'S already dripping told y'all and i just repeat through all four sections until like the mixture is gone, my scalp has been dry for basically as long as i can remember so i had my mom take me to this dermatologist and they prescribed me the driest shampoo, Like honestly, they might as well have given me a bottle of rubbing alcohol and said sis just pour this all over your head, because that's what it felt like it was so stripping. I used it and it just depleted my hair and my scalp of all moisture. It felt like a different head of hair. It did not feel like my hair, like i don't know her in the words of mariah. It wasn't me in the words of shaggy. I think that experience was one of my first, where i really understood all the more. The very critical value of black doctors who just get it and who have a more vested interest into black health concerns prior to using this treatment. My scalp was so sad and i really wasn't doing anything other than like my standard wash day routines to take care of it. So like that, first day or first two days, it would be pretty fine, but then, by the third day i would still start noticing, like flaking again or dryness, but with this treatment, i noticed that it would carry me through the entire wash weeks. I let this treatment sit on my hair for at least one hour, but sometimes i let it sit on for four hours. Honestly, it just depends on the day and where the spirit leads me. So as this is sitting on my hair, i have a little bit of down time right. I might watch tv like, i might watch a series, anything that's like lighthearted and upbeat. Alright, it's been about an hour, so i am about to go shampoo. This out of my hair, i like to get my hair wet first, because when it's wet it's just easier for me to work with, so i take out my hair ties. I get it really. Nice and drenched all over and then i resection it into very loose sections. I am a huge by black advocate in everything from fashion to beauty, skin care, like all of it and with hair. Specifically, i use a lot of black on products because i want to use something that just like gets my hair, as i'm shampooing, my hair section by section. I start first by kind of working the shampoo in from root to ends, and i go through with my fingertips and i'm just getting a really good clean in that section really focusing on my scalp and then i'll rinse. The shampoo out do another shampoo go in with my fingertips again and then i have this handy, dandy, scalp tool called deluxe therapy, scalp, soother and girl. Let me tell you: this is like one of my favorite inventions ever it's curved and very flexible, so that you can get into your hair. At any angle, i like to think of it as a tool that can help me lift any remaining dirt. It'S just kind of like my safety measure, to make sure like my scalp is nice and clean and fresh, and it feels so good. It also is like gently exfoliating, which i find is very. You know good for me because i do have dry scalp if you're using products and you have product build up or anything like that. It just kind of lifts everything out and i feel like it really helps with like just kind of reviving and stimulating your scalp. Going natural was not really my decision, it was my oldest sister's. My mom, for as long as i can remember would like send me to my sister's room for her to do my hairs and she actually opened her own salon. One day, i'm at the salon she's doing my hair and she's like i'm, just not relaxing it anymore, and you can't really argue when the person doing your hair is doing your hair for free. So i was like okay girl like as long as it still be cute. That'S fine, and it was so as i'm shampooing my hair once you know, i feel, like my scalp. Is nice and clean i'll go through i'll rinse out the shampoo in that section, and before moving on to the next section, i immediately put in the conditioner for that section that i'm already working on so i put in my conditioner, i take my felicia leatherwood detangling Brush, i start at the bottom. I detangle my weight up really get that conditioner in there through every strand, make sure it's nice and detangled. When my hair is super drenched and also has a product in it, that is very hydrating. It really kind of maximizes that slip factor, so i can go through and really get a really really really good detangling better than i can. When my hair is like dry and then i'll do a really chunky fat, two strand twist i'll, do a bantu knot and then i will clip it at the top um so that it stays secure. And then i move on to the next section and repeat those same steps with every single section. I let my conditioner stay in for as long as it takes me to take a shower, and then i rinse it out so once the conditioner is rinsed from my hair. I will shake my hair kind of like a wet dog to get some of the excess water out and then i will put i have this kind of like cloth bonnet head, wrap in one situation, but it has a button on it and a drawstring on it And you put it on your hair and you twist it and connect it, and it kind of like keeps your hair up until you are ready for styling, and it also kind of like absorbs some of that water, but like not too much so. I transitioned out with sew-ins. It was my last year of undergrad and i was in hbcu queen. I went to albany state university, any hbcu, queen you're, going to be very visible at all the games, all these community events, and so i had to figure out something that would like work for me and also keep my hair healthy. I did not want to have to straighten my hair every day to get it to all blend seamlessly, so i would do sew-ins. I don't think i felt empowered enough to do a big chop, the natural hair movement, what it is now it was not that then it was still very early, especially in like this very rural town in the south. Everyone kind of had the same style like very long, either voluminous or like sleek and straight it did not feel like. I would be received with my texture of natural hair. Looking back, i don't regret even the process of how i went natural. I feel like at that time that's what i genuinely had to do and i still feel that way. Even now like i knew that i was gon na be bomb. You know with my natural hair, but i knew that for me at that time. Other people would not perceive me as such and it would be a hindrance to my own kind of like advancement and development. The hard part is done now we're just going to put my hair into some two strand twists. I like to part my hair into sections and work on a section at a time slightly missed with this bottle. I love this bottle because it has a mist feature, so it missed instead of like soaking the hair. I just do that to get it a little malleable, then i'm going to take some ceiling, hair butter by wonder curl. I like this product because it's a good styler, but it's also very hydrating so because i'm not using a leave-in. It still gives me that moisture factor. I still know that my hair is going to get all of the nutrients, it needs, pull off, a section doesn't have to be evenly parted and then the rest of this i'm going to secure away with one of these handy dandy, clips that your grandma be wearing And this is a really good comb because of the ridges and it just helps to kind of detangle through and i'm going to put a little bit more butter on this section because in the words of tabitha brown, that's my business. So my technique is fairly simple. I just take the section that i'm going to twist and pull it apart into two sections, and then i twist it like this and i twist it pretty tight because it's gon na already loosen on its own and then once i get to these ends right here. You can take a little butter and really secure it. I just wrap them around my finger just like that, and i move on to the next section, and i just repeat that until all four sections are twisted into multiple two strand twists. Ah, oh my arms. So these are my twists, nice and juicy and plump, and now i'm about to finish the rest of my routine, with my oil and my hair dryer, and we will be done for today. I like to take this dyson dryer directly to my roots, and it has settings for hot air and cool air, and i just alternate between the two. So i don't dry my hair completely, but this just keeps me from going to bed with like a really damp or wet scalp. So now i am going to oil, my scalp very lightly. I made this oil earlier today. It'S just a blend of coconut oil, jamaican black, castor oil, jojoba oil and peppermint oil. My little concoction thanks to ivy, these youtube girls, honey. They got life figured out, and i am grateful i really like this oil because it keeps my scalp super hydrated. It really minimizes on that, like dryness itchiness that flakiness and i will use this every night or like every other night until my next wash day so now i am just going to put my bonnet on and go to bed because it's been a long day. Hey y'all it's the next day, and i am about to take out my twists. I like to oil, my fingertips, so that i don't create a lot of friction as i'm taking out each twist. When i take out my twists, i like to kind of unwind them twist the actual twist itself in the opposite direction until it's coming apart and then i start at the bottom, and then i just like unravel them this way, so that this, like very defined kind Of like ringlet spiral thing can stay intact, so i have basically taken out all the twists in the back right now, i'm just kind of feeling through lightly with my hands and occasionally i'll find a twist see we found one see they hide a lot of times For me, the front of my hair is what frizzes the fastest. So i don't like to be that abrasive with the hair in the front, because it's already like more prone to frizziness, so we took all of the twists out and now it's time to separate them. I start kind of like in the middle and work my way back these front twists. I don't pull apart until the very end if i even pull them apart at all. I pull apart at the bottom first versus starting at the top when you start at the top, it can get tangled for me at least the more you separate it, though the bigger the hair, so it's just kind of like whatever you feel, but i also noticed That the more you separate the faster it gets frizzy, so you also have to be prepared for that, as i'm twisting, i try not to get the roots too tight. So, as you can see like a lot of my roots, look like super full, not very defined. A little frizzy and that's all going to help with volume. In the end, i feel like nobody, like no other group of women gets judged for their hair, to the extent that black women do just growing up in a very southern culture. As a black woman, there was still this unspoken, narrative and sometimes spoken of like what my hair should look like. So at that time it was like my hair should be long and it should be straight and it should be full, and i and i believe that - and so i think you know coming into this moment as an adult where i was just like. Actually, i'm just gon na do whatever the hell it is. I want to do with my hair and that's kind of like a really powerful place to be, and it's a really empowering place to be to just kind of like take control of that. My hair is untwisted and now i'm going to pick the roots just to give it a little bit more volume. So i don't pull all the way down. That'S going to disrupt all this hard work we just did. I literally just take the pick, and this is a double pick like double pronged, and i literally just pull like that. I don't take it all the way through if it's your first time ever doing a twist out, it's probably 9.73 times out of 10 gon na, come out trash girl and that's okay, it's just part of being natural and doing a twist out. Consider it like a rite of passage. Your first twist out is not going to come out great. It takes some time, but the more you do it. You figure it out, so everybody maintains their twist out different. If you want something super uniform super defined, then retwist it every night put on your bonnet. If you want something, you know kind of big and messy, like you know, that's what i like. I just put on a bonnet and that's more so for just protection of my actual hair and then i take it off and i shake it out like that, and i really just be going about my business and she's done. It looks great she's, really nice and vivacious and full my scalp feels amazing. It feels clean, it feels hydrated and moisturized, no like tightness, no itchiness dryness. It just feels really good, and my hair also feels amazing, and i just feel like you should not have to pick like you should not have to sacrifice. Hair looks for hair health or hair health for hair looks like you can have both and clearly you know.