How to moisturise your natural hair effectively

Moisturised natural hair is the key to healthier and longer hair.

Is your 4c natural hair always dry? Does it always feel crunchy to the touch? Is it looking dull?

Yes?

Well…we need to fix that expeditiously! Did you know dehydrated hair makes your hair brittle which can lead to breakage?

And if your goal is to grow long luscious locks, dry hair may be keeping you from your dreams.

Here’s something that completely blew my mind when I came across it years ago: the shape of your hair follicle determines your hair’s texture and type. As black people our hair follicles have an oval shape whereas it is more rounded for our caucasian counterparts.

This has major implications!

One of which is that our hair is prone to dryness because an oval shaped follicle produces kinks, coils and folds in the hair strand as it comes out of the scalp while a more rounded shape produces straighter hair.

These kinks and coils make it difficult for sebum (an oil produced by your skin and scalp that moisturises and adds shine to hair) to travel down the hair shaft.

With that backdrop, knowing how to moisturise your hair can make all the difference to your hair health and hair goals. And moisturising your hair properly is a game changer!

I started noticing a drastic change (for the better) shortly after I started moisturising my natural hair correctly many many years ago. I learned that water is the real MVP when it comes to natural haircare.

Funny thing is, when I was growing up, water was the last thing I wanted on my hair because my hair would “krempa” (shrink) as natural hair would.

But now, I welcome kremping because it signals that my hair’s thirst is being quenched!

Although there are a number of things you can do to encourage healthy hair growth from within, moisturising your hair properly is possibly the single most important thing you can do externally for retaining the full length of your natural hair strand.

Let’s take a closer look…

Understand the hair strand to moisturise it effectively

I don’t want to bore you with a lot of jargon, so imma try keep it real simple, so stay with me, Sis!

There are three main components of the hair structure that I want you to take note of: the hair cuticle, cortex and medulla.

Here’s a simple cross section visual I drew for you (you’re welcome 🙂 )

The cuticle is the outermost covering that is responsible for maintaining the health of your hair, it protects the cortex and it is instrumental in regulating moisture. The hair cuticles either stand open to let water in or lay flat to restrict water from going in or out.

So, it’s like a gate or some really cool access control that allows moisture to enter and exit your hair.

Now, the cortex (and the medulla) is what we want moisturised. It is the component that strengthens your hair and provides it with elasticity, without which your hair is easily prone to breakage.

Knowing this basic information about the hair cuticle and the cortex can help you to take better care of your hair.

Think about it for a sec.

You need to keep your hair moisturised so that it does not break and thus retain its length. To do this, the cuticle needs to open to allow water into the cortex and it also needs to close to keep the moisture in and prevent the hair strand from drying out too quickly.

How does the hair cuticle open?

Warm water opens your hair cuticles.

Using warm water when washing your hair lifts up your cuticles allowing water to hydrate the cortex, it also helps remove dirt and product buildup from your hair.

Clean natural hair provides an excellent base for moisture retention as it reduces barriers (like product gunk and dust particles) that block hydration.

Using Water and oil to effectively moisturise your 4c hair

While your cuticles are open, it is an excellent opportunity to boost your hair’s moisture with a conditioner. So, after washing your hair immediately follow up with a conditioner and a light oil while your hair is damp/wet – this will also help to condition your hair.

One of my favourite oils is jojoba oil. It is light weight and non-greasy, so it helps keep hair moisturised without weighing it down!

By the way jojoba oil is related to sebum that I mentioned earlier in terms of its composition.

There are tons of other light weight yet powerful oils such as sweet almond oil, avocado oil, and baobab seed oil.

Humectants for boosting moisture in your natural hair

What also helps to keep your natural hair (and skin) hydrated are humectants. Hume- what now? Humectants!

They are a category of ingredients that have the extraordinary ability to attract and retain water. They are able to absorb moisture from their surroundings and keep it in your hair! Super cool, right?

Examples of these are glycerine and honey. So you can seek out products with these ingredients for a boost of moisture.

How does your hair cuticle close?

So we’ve spoken about how the cuticle opens and how we hydrate and nourish the hair strand, now we need to close that cuticle and lock in all that moisture and nourishment we’ve added.

While warm water lifts up the hair cuticles and allows moisture to enter the hair strand and reach the cortex, cold water lays the cuticles flat and slows down the evaporation of moisture from your hair.

Applying a butter like shea butter on your hair as the last step helps to lock in moisture for longer. This can be raw shea butter, or shea butter mixed with oils like olive oil, avocado oil, sweet almond oil, coconut oil, etc.

It can even be other butters like mango butter or cocoa butter – the options are many!

I use shea butter and I use the same for my daughter’s hair too.

You can purchase your own jar here:

Using the LOC/LCO method to effectively moisturise your 4c hair

You may or may not be familiar with what’s called the LOC (or LCO) method.

It is an acronym for Liquid Oil Cream (or Liquid Cream Oil), it helps us remember the order in which we need to apply our moisturising hair products to make them effective and our hair moisturised for a prolonged period.

Liquid

Liquid is water or a water based product. This can be hydrosols like rose water, rosemary hydrosol, aloe vera hydrosol, etc. It can also be leave-in conditioners.

Water is the main ingredient that hydrates hair. This is important to understand.

Oil

Depending on your hair’s porosity you can use light oils such as jojoba and grapeseed for low porosity hair. And for high porosity hair, heavier oils like castor oil are best.

Porosity speaks to how porous your hair is. I will cover this topic in another post 🙂

Many oils, due to their molecular make up, are able to penetrate the hair shaft thus effectively nourishing the hair from within.

In addition to nourishing and strengthening from within, applying an oil or oil blend helps to seal in the moisture added in the Liquid step.

Cream

This entails a heavier, creamy product to lock in everything. It can be a butter or a styling cream.

You can use LOC or LCO or LC or LO. The choice of which to use can depends on whether your hair is fine or thick and your hair porosity.

You can start with general guidelines but trial and error may be necessary to figure out what is best for your hair.

Always remember that water (L- Liquid) should always be first.

Why you should not apply oils and butters on dry hair

The simple reason is that your hair will break. Only water provides hydration, and when your hair is hydrated it is more elastic.

Ok, I’ve said a mouthful in this blog post, and I hope you’ve been following. I know I need to delve deeper into some of the topics I mentioned here (like hair porosity, hair type and texture, etc) but I’ll use other blog posts to do that.

To sum it all up, here are the steps to properly moisturise your hair:

Wash your hair with warm water

water is the real hydrator
warm water lifts up your hair cuticles and allows water to enter the hair strand and reach the cortex
clean hair provides a good base for moisture retention

Apply a leave-in conditioner to your hair while it is damp

It provides ongoing moisture throughout the day
Products containing humectants are best

3. Apply an oil

use an oil that can penetrate the hair shaft and provide nourishment from the inside out
Examples are jojoba oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil

4. Apply an cream

Shea butter is an excellent choice to lock in all the moisture
Other examples include mango butter and styling creams.

NB: Apply your hair products down the full length of your hair strand, add extra to your ends! They the most prone to breakage as they are the oldest parts of the hair stand.

Do this once a week.

And if your hair feels dry and thirsty between wash days then you can replace the washing step (step 1) with spraying your hair with water or a mixture of water and a bit of oil of your choice and glycerine.

Let me know if this was helpful, comment below. Let me know what you would like me to cover next.