How to Create a Healthy Hair Regimen

By Taliah Waajid September 21, 2020

If you’re visiting our blog, you’re interested in learning about how to create a healthy hair regimen for natural hair. Welcome! We’re excited to share what we know and help you take care of your beautiful locks.

There’s one thing to keep in mind before we begin: you know your own hair best. If there’s something in this healthy hair regimen that doesn’t work best for your hair…that’s okay! There’s something that could work well for 80 to 90 percent of hair out there that won’t work for your hair. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to stand up for your hair and find out what works best for you. Are you ready to get started?

Get started with the right tools

You can’t create a healthy hair regimen without the right tools. This is where a lot of sisters get overwhelmed when it comes to caring for their natural hair. They aren’t sure what products to use because there are so many out there. Below, we’ve linked our favorite products. These are quick links that you can use to get started with the rest of our healthy hair regime suggestions.

How to create a healthy routine

1. - Create a healthy hair regimen based on your hair

Often, people try to pull together a hair routine by copying someone else’s. Whether that person’s hair looks like theirs or they just like the products they use, they don’t stop to consider whether or not the regime is right for their hair. When you create a hair routine, you need to factor in hair type (porosity, thickness, density) as well as lifestyle and other factors. So, you should make sure you’re considering all the individual elements that come with your hair. There is no cookie-cutter regime that will instantly work for you.

Furthermore, if you find that your hair routine isn’t working for you after a month or two, give it up! When you’re first creating a healthy hair routine, you will need to adjust and experiment to find something that works for your hair. Just because you’re following a suggested regime you found online doesn’t mean it’ll work perfectly for your hair. Go with the flow and listen to your hair!

2. - Cleanse your hair

A healthy hair regimen for natural hair has a lot of different products, and over time you’ll gain build up in your hair and on your scalp. To maintain healthy hair, your scalp needs to breathe, and as such, you’ll want to cleanse your hair with a gentle, sulfate-free shampoo somewhere between once a week and once a month depending on your hair.

How do you know how frequently to wash your hair? Well, you’ll need to experiment. Hopefully, at this point in time, you have some idea at what frequency works best for you. If you’re doubting your current shampoo schedule, here are some clues that indicate you need to change your current routine up…

Your hair feels greasy, dirty, lifeless, dirty, or your products don’t seem to work anymore shampoo more often
Your hair feels dry, brittle, or frizzy shampoo less often

Also keep in mind that if you shampoo less often, then you’ll probably want to go lighter on the products that you’re using. Cleansing more often means you need to stay on top of moisturizing your hair to ensure your hair isn’t becoming dry and brittle.

3. - Condition, condition, condition

There are quite a few types of conditioning when it comes to creating a healthy hair regimen for natural hair. You’ll want to have a rinse-out conditioner that you can use weekly or bi-weekly on your hair when you’re in the shower and your hair is wet. You’ll also want to have a leave-in conditioner that you can apply after your hair is washed. This will help replenish the moisture and assist you with styling. Finally, a deep conditioner is also great to have on hand. This is a treatment that most people will use once a month or every couple of weeks. It’s an intensely nourishing treatment that you leave on your hair for a certain amount of time and then rinse out. It’ll help you detangle and soften your curls for the best results.

4. - Moisturize like it’s your job

With natural hair, moisture can solve almost all of your problems. Natural hair (type 3 and 4) has problems with breakage, dryness, matting, and tangling. The porosity of your hair will also come into play here. Hair porosity has to do with your hair’s ability to absorb and retain moisture. For instance, if you have low hair porosity, your hair finds it different to obtain moisture and will need assistance getting it.

To treat this, you can moisture regularly with the above-mentioned products. We recommend focusing on the ends of your hair and adding moisture right before you go to bed. Also, don’t forget to seal in the moisture with a sealer or an anti-humectant! Good choices are either shea butter or Jamaican black castor oil for thicker/coarser hair or jojoba oil, avocado oil, or olive oil for finer hair.

5. - Detangle regularly

Detangling is crucial because it will help prevent hair loss, matting, dryness, and breakage. To effectively detangle your hair, you’ll want to use a wide-tooth comb or your fingers and work your way through the ends of your hair. Always pull down and work your way up. By doing this, you’ll prevent breakage. Detangling your hair damp and with a detangling product can also help.

6. - Use protective styling

This part is truly up to you because everyone has different preferences for protective styles. Protective styles help you maintain moisture and protect from damage. It can be anything from buns or braids during the day to covering your hair with a bonnet at night. If you’ve never been someone who uses protective styling, this could be a real game-changer for you. However, you should watch out from product buildup if you use styling products to help your styles hold. This may alter your washing schedule.

7. - Stick to your routine!

It’s hard to stick to your routine – especially when it’s new. However, your healthy hair regime won’t show you the results you want if you aren’t consistent. It’s also essential to note that your hair will take time to adjust. You should give your hair a month or two to see how it does with the new products and routine. If at that time it doesn’t seem to be doing well, then you should consider altering it. Here are some tips that can help you stick to your routine.

Create a routine with a weekly or biweekly structure to help you keep track of it
Keep it as simple as you can so it doesn’t get confusing
Coordinate with calendar days (ex: Monday is wash day; Friday is condition day)

Need an example?

Okay, so we know we said that no one else’s hair regimen was going to be perfect for you. But some women don’t even know where to start. How do you put together a healthy hair regimen? What does it look like? How often do you wash and condition? How do you make sure your hair stays moisturized? We’ll lay out a basic routine that you can read through and then adjust for yourself. Remember, this isn’t necessarily perfect for your hair, and you need to modify it for your hair type.

Full wash day once a month (shampoo, conditioner, deep conditioner)
Co-wash or deep condition biweekly
Use a protective style during the week
Wear afro or twist out during the weekends
Use products like detangling spray, growth serum, butter/oil to help style
Sleep in a satin bonnet to protect hair
Trim your hair every 3 months

Again, this is just an example of how to start a regime. You can modify based on your own hair type and what works best for you!

Final thoughts

Creating a healthy hair regime for natural hair often feels overwhelming. Many women are still learning about their hair and what works best for it for years into adulthood. As you begin to work out a hair regimen, you can feel confident that you’re the person that knows your hair best and you’re the one best equipped to devise a routine to care for it.

Use our tips and products to create a healthy hair regime and run with it! You’ve got this.

Visit Taliah Waajid for more information.

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How to Create a Healthy Hair Regimen

Get started with the right tools

How to create a healthy routine