Wash Day!!!

Products We Use:

• Jamaican Black Castor Oil
• Pompeian 100% Grapeseed Oil
• Organic Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil
• Shea Moisture Raw Shea Butter Moisture Retention Shampoo
• Shea Moisture Yucca and Plantain Anti-Breakage Strengthening Masque
• Oyin Handmade Hair Dew
• Oyin Handmade Burnt Sugar Pomade

So here it goes:

Wash day always starts with Rose because she’s the tougher of the duo when it comes to water. It doesn’t matter if I wash her hair in the bathtub or at the kitchen sink; use a hose or a cup, this little monster kicks and screams the whole way through. She’s always been that way. What can I say? She gets it honest. Maybe she’ll grow out of it soon or maybe she won’t. Either way, I’m grateful for the fight she puts up because she’s definitely toning my arms. lol.

Anywho, I start by misting her hair with water and applying a generous amount of grapeseed oil to the hair shaft and scalp. I especially focus the oil on the ends of her hair. This helps tremendously with moisture retention during shampooing and ease of finger detangling. 

Let's talk about shampoo. Shampoo can be stripping to curly hair. African-Americans typically have drier hair than those with straight hair because our strands curl and bend so much that our sebum can't travel all the way down the hair strands. We combat this by misting the hair and dousing it and the scalp in oil. We also make sure to only use a sulfate-free shampoo. 

Sulfates remove the excess oil and dirt from the scalp but they also remove the natural oils we produce. That's not the goal for us curly-q's. I want a clean scalp. Not a stripped scalp.

Why do we finger detangle? Finger detangling is gentler and it reduces the chance of breakage. I’m able to slide the hair right out of the tangles because I pull one strand at a time and soak the tangle in oil. Time consuming? Yes. It can be if it's your first time trying it, but after awhile you can do this in 5 minutes. Worth it? Absolutely! I'm only removing tangles and shed hair. Absolutely no broken hairs. No broken hair means healthy hair that grows properly. Who doesn't want long, healthy hair?

So let’s recap. I part the hair down the middle with my fingers, mist until damp, douse in oil, finger detangle, 2 strand twist that detangled section, clip it out of the way and repeat on the undetangled half of the hair. Afterwards, I let her run around and play while I’m cooking breakfast and until I’m ready to shampoo.

I shampoo her hair with Shea Moisture Raw Shea Butter Moisture Retention Shampoo in sections, rinse, clip out of the way, and repeat on the other section. I do everything in sections because I don't want to "retangle" the hair I just detangled. I apply the Shea Moisture Yucca and Plantain Anti-Breakage Strengthening Masque to deep condition. I finger detangle comb the product to evenly distribute it, 2 strand twist the section, and clip it out of the way so she can eat breakfast, watch cartoons, and play. She deep conditions for an hour. This gives me time to tend to Addi.

After rinsing out the deep conditioner, I apply the Oyin Handmade hair dew as a leave-in and whatever oil I have on hand. Most of the time I use organic extra-virgin coconut oil, but I ran out so we used 100% grapeseed oil and jamaican black castor oil mixed together. The girls' hair is put into twists and beads for a week, so it's important to properly moisturize their hair on wash day. We do this by applying a water-based leave-in conditioner. Water has to be the first ingredient in this product because without water it isn't a moisturizer. After the leave-in we apply a natural oil. We do this to trap that water based moisturizer into the hair strand thereby ensuring that the hair remains moist. I style with Oyin handmade burnt sugar pomade which is also a sealant. Just locking more moisture in guys!

All of the products I use on their hair are organic, vegan, and made by black-owned companies. I love the quality of the ingredients in the products, I agree with the philanthropic and arts movements each company supports, and I love the prices.

The most important part of wash day is the time I get to dedicate to each child. We talk, we sing, we fuss (lol), we enjoy beloved movies from my childhood, and we love up on our hair. What I like about wash day are the lessons I’m teaching implicitly. When they get older, my girls will have a working knowledge of the healing properties of natural oils, butters, and ayurvedic clay masks. Hopefully, they will know how to make their own hair products. They will know how to listen to their hair and give it what it needs. As women they will be pulled in so many directions, but these lessons, if applied, will empower them to carve out time for themselves. Self care is the best care is what MY mom has taught me. I hope to pass that on to my girls.

How do you make wash day special for your little one? Share with me in the comment section below.