A Black Toddler’s Hair Journey

Hey! 🙂 Thanks for joining me again this week. It’s good to see you here!

I have friends who reach out to me with questions on how I take care of my daughter’s hair. They want to know what products I have been using and what her hair routine is, in general. For those who are new here and for some reason are not familiar with me, here’s a collage I put together to show how we started, and where we are now:

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Now let’s jump right into it, shall we?

First of all, I would like to say that I am not a hair expert, neither do I guarantee that what worked for my daughter, will also work for you. Like I said in my previous post, I love to share my experiences with people and I think having this written down will be great. Also, you never know if something works for you unless you try! I should also add that when I was pregnant with her, I specifically prayed for long hair…lol! Yes, as silly as that prayer request may sound, I actually did.

Like we all know or should know, prayer without work is dead! 🙂 So, I did some research on how to take care of a black kid’s hair. The best routine and products that works best for our texture. Hair textures are different and so you don’t want to be using the wrong product for your child’s kinky hair. I watched YouTube videos of black babies’ hair routine. Eventually, I figured out some of these shower gels/ baby oils (I won’t mention names) that we tend to buy when we have a new born are a no no for black kids! They contain ingredients that are not good for kinky hair. I learnt the best shampoo and conditioner that will work well for my daughter, will be the ones I was already familiar with as a loose natural at the time (my hair is now loc’d, story for another day). The only difference will be that these are specifically for kids. I started using this Sheamoisture shampoo (for kids) for my daughter since she was born. I made sure I only washed her hair once a week with this shampoo and other days when I wasn’t washing her hair, water was not going to touch her hair- washing your child’s hair everyday does not help in any way. Once a week is absolutely fine. Just oil the hair during the week. I also used this Sheamoisture conditioner (for kids) after washing with the shampoo. I continued this routine for a long time.

When she became three months old, her hair had grown to the point that I could put it in small puffs. The second picture in the collage shows the small puffs I am talking about. Those puffs were her go to hairstyles for months! I practically did not do any other hairstyle. Every week, after washing, I put it in puffs. Of course, these small bands I used for her puffs could fall off during the day or week, you can easily put them back on. Also, we know these kids put anything in their mouths, so be careful mama! I love these bands because unlike the rubber ones, they don’t cause breakage.

As her hair grew longer, I could start putting them in cornrows. The forth picture in the collage shows one of those cornrows I could do with her hair at that time. Her hair routine also changed as her hair grew longer. I started washing her hair once every two weeks. As of today, I have moved to washing her hair once every three weeks, just because Mama can be tired too …lol!

I want to believe most of us understand the struggles of detangling our kinky hair. I found this detangling comb early last year and girl, when I say this comb works like magic, I mean it! The trick about detangling is starting from the top and working your way down to the bottom. Also, you do not want to detangle when the hair is dry. Please don’t even try!!! I recommend using this detangling spray. Once you spray this on the hair, you can go ahead and start detangling. You will also realize that with that detangling comb, your child or you tend to lose smaller amount of hair.

To keep my daughter’s hair moisturized after washing her hair, I do the LOC method (for those who are not aware , LOC stands for Leave in conditioner, Oil and Cream). I did not start doing this LOC method until her hair grew longer and she got older. So I don’t recommend doing this when your baby is still an infant. I already mentioned the hair oil I use for her. That may be too heavy for some people, so you can also try this. I also use other brands. That’s why I use this for leave in conditioner and this for cream. So far, I have only used these two brands for my daughter and they have worked so well on her hair. I also recommend you have a spray bottle that contains this LOC mixture. The essence of this is to do a touch up during the week so the hair stays moisturized.

I hope you found this post helpful and it has answered some of your questions. Please feel free to leave any more questions you may have in the comment section below 🙂

Have a great week! 🙂