Kinky Nikz 2.0 - Learning how to maintain your naps

How many of you remember lifting your shoulders to your ears and wincing in pain as your mother dragged a comb through your tightly coiled hair? Or loving that you get to undo your braids but hating when wash day came around? My first memories of a young girl with natural hair were never associated with positivity, just pain and unhappiness. As soon as my plaits were let loose I used to jump around and shake my head like the women on the television advertising hair products but I dare anyone to try and hold me down to get it washed...It was horrible and I swear my mum was trying to drown me. 
It is easy to reflect and laugh at the whole experience but I’m pretty certain that the actions of our parents/hairdressers is what allows those with thick curly/coily hair believe that are hair is unruly, unmanageable and bad. It makes us believe that this is the type of hair that needs to be tamed when the truth is; it was just never cared for properly. So, I thought that I would scrape the surface this week and discuss a few key factors that will ensure healthy, long (yes long!), afro hair.

1. No, dirt does not grow your hair lol

Growing up I was often told that I shouldn’t wash my hair too often as it was bad for your hair and would make your hair break. Seriously, this was the belief and I know people that only washed their hair every six months because apparently this was fact. What nonsense! The truth is that washing your hair often and using the right products can have a really positive effect on afro hair. Water is one of the few substances that can actually penetrate the hairs cuticle and acts as a moisturiser, hence why your hair always feels soft when wet. A problem only occurs when the hair is not fully cared for following a wash and moisture is not replenished. I will discuss the different moisturising products and methods in another blog.

2. Use the right equipment

I’m sure that most of you realise that to avoid breakage you should use a wide toothed comb to detangle hair when wet or damp but your comb should be seamless. Check the inside and edges of your comb and the line that goes down each tooth for bad manufacturing which can mean that the seams overlap and snag the hair during combing. Bone combs are typically made of resin and are seamless, wooden combs spread the scalps natural oil throughout the hair and tortoise combs glide through hair. Check out Sally’s beauty supply shop to find ‘tenderheaded accessories’ or ‘honeyfig’ which supply a seamless comb range. 
If you prefer brushes, try the trusty denman brush or if you feel like splurging the mason pearson combs and brushes although it does nothing but give me split ends.

3. Combing your curlies

Stop combing your hair so much! Excessive grooming can cause split ends. When I tell people that I very rarely comb my hair they look surprised but all l I need is my fingers. I spritz my hair with some water and coconut oil or an everyday conditioner (usually Pantene/ Aussie moist) and finger comb or use my metal rat tail comb for straight partings when I’m plaiting it. I would not even attempt to rake a comb through my dry hair, the more tightly curled your hair is the more gentle you need to be, so I gently comb through my hair from tip to root on wash day and then leave it alone. If I need to manipulate it into a style then a little conditioner and some braids or twists generally does the trick.
Detangling knotted hair 
It’s a good idea to detangle your hair before washing it. Once hair is wet, the cuticles can lift, causing hair to snarl even further.


1. First, identify the tangle and separate it from the rest of your hair with your fingers.
2. Start at the bottom of the tangle and use the detangling comb to gently start picking through the snarl.
3. Work your way up the tangle until you’re able to comb through it without tugging. This may take a lot of patience and you may need to turn the detangling comb sideways and use a single tooth on the end of the comb to work through a very tight snarl.
4. To prevent tangles in the future, be sure to comb out your wet hair after shampooing, conditioning and applying a leave-in conditioner. (Never, ever brush wet hair – hair is very fragile when it’s wet and a brush could stretch the fiber, causing it to snap).
That’s all for now folks but next week I will be talking more about hair processes that work.


KN

Calamity Jane #4 - Fourth Circle of Hell (Greed)

As an African, my fancy dress attempts at school (a fetish we blacks neither dare nor care to understand) were never up to par and the concept of it still leaves me mystified. As my friends exerted energy (their mothers up, all night sewing and stitching and sweating until the dawn) creating a teenage mutant ninja turtle outfit from scratch; my mother would simply blot some black powder on my face, draw dots with her eye liner, and with the rest of my body adorned in my usual get up, send me off to school as Anansi, the folk character (spider) only blacks had heard of. And there were to total of four of us in my school. Two of whom were related to me.

Non school uniform day, by comparison, was the social event of my year. Weeks were spent planning meticulously, discounting every outfit in my wardrobe and justifying to my mother the benefit of a trip to view the latest collection at Tammy Girl.  The hair, (remembering it is pre relaxer as I wasn’t old enough for the chemicals), raw and rock hard. Being surrounded by little girls with spindly legs (even as a child I had strong thighs, or athletic as my sports coach would refer to my physique) and long flowing blond locks that whispered menacingly in the wind, I knew I had to impress….

The braids were removed, washed, blow dried (breaking the forks of more than one comb as it fought its way through my wild roots to freedom) and combed ‘down’ to my delight. Move over Shingai (Noisettes), I was rocking my hard core fro, loud and proud, way back in the day! There was the obvious ‘can I touch it?’, but I was impervious to any mocking about the height as opposed to length of my hair. My greed for the bigness outweighed my childish desire to blend in with my (melanin deprived) peers.

  

My big hair wasn’t limited to my childish fro of yesteryear, but spawned a desire (even if it meant a return to the ‘can I touch it’?) for the big, the bad and the most brazen hair I could muster. The bigger the better, except of course when referring to the size of my thighs, arms or butt…

The only problem with my desire for big hair is that my head is relatively small by most standards. Imagine the wig Erykah Badu is rocking on her new album and you have some concept of the scale of my hair.

I was greedy for more, and what started off as a modest afro, spawned into a manifestation of my rejection of the straight, glossy, relaxed, homogenous hair of the masses. Keesha happily slapped on the hair (she’s like that with weave – there’s no holding back), using pack after pack, weaving and gluing to produce the lolly pop effect.  Like all things taken to excess at some point you can’t take anymore. I bored of the look (having revolutionised hair care, black women are in the enviable position of being able to radically change their hair from one look to another) and constructed a new image, premised on natural and boyishly short hair, to which Keesha simply said...NO!

It was then that the natural hair prejudice was revealed. You see it was acceptable for me to sew a mass of hair on to my head, but to cut it off to its natural state and this woman who once veered away from enforcing her opinion about my hair choices, was quick to speak with authority and certainty. She felt it necessary to save me from myself and after so bullishly endeavouring on this plight, like a child in a corner (in God Bless of all places) I backed down, afraid of the result that would ensue (Keesha had the scissors and I was scared of what she’d do) and haplessly resigned myself to a fate of wigs and weaves.

CJ.

Welcome to our Blog

Hello!

I'm Dionne Quarshie, Owner of Blackhairstudio - soon to become your one-stop shop for information about afro, frizzy and curly hair. At the moment me and my trusty team are working hard (very hard) to get blackhairstudio.com up and running. In the mean time I asked my dear friend Jane to dish the dirty about her experiences hair raising experiences as she battles her way through the salons of London as she tries to find the one that will give her the least drama and the best hair... lets see how she gets on.

Don't forget to checkout our website- www.blackhairstudio.com - our twitter @bhstudio - our facebook - www.facebook.com/blackhairstudio and email us at info@blackhairstudio.com - we would love to hear from you.

In the mean time - Enjoy!

Dionne xxx