I was in line at the grocery store the other day and the woman behind me asked who did my hair. I 
told her I did. She then asked me if I was a stylist and I said no but that might change as I think I’d like to own a salon one day because I’d like to teach women about their hair. Then she said something that irked me and I kinda snapped at the poor delusional lady. I couldn’t help it…people irk me when they say dumb stuff.
Her: My hair doesn’t grow. It’s been the same length all my life.
Me: *sigh* That’s ridiculous. If your hair didn’t grow, you wouldn’t need to get a touch-up.
Her: (puzzled expression) Huh?
Me: When you get a touch-up, it’s to relax your NEW hair growth right?
Her: Yes. But my hair sheds a lot.
Me: Your hair sheds from the root…is the hair shedding you speak of the length of your hair or is it shorter?
Her: Shorter.
Me: *sigh* Then that’s BREAKAGE…not shedding.
Her: Oh.
Me: Unh huh.
Her: Well what do I do about that?
Me: Drink more water, eat healthy, stop using products on your hair that include alcohol, deep condition regularly, stop using heat daily, only use a wide tooth comb, and moisturize with a good moisturizer daily just to name a few. Oh….and relax your hair less.
Her: Oh.
Me: Yeah. Good luck.
This is the kind of conversation I have with women more than I thought I did actually. But when I sit down and focus on it, these types of conversations happen all the time. And it always amazes me how little black women actually know about their hair. I mean geez. It’s been sitting on top of their heads forever. And all it really requires is a little common sense in your thought process about your hair.
To be honest…I blame these women’s stylists. I have watched stylists use inferior products on women’s hair and further add to the damaging that’s being done. And I just can’t stand it. Further…some hair is in such a state of shock that adding ANY heat to it at all is going to make the damage that much more difficult to treat. Now, I’m as vain as any other woman. So I understand that walking around looking a hot mess for a while isn’t something any woman relishes…BUT…she’s gotta understand the reason for her to have to go into a serious treatment mode for her hair before it starts to cause more serious issues such as hair loss.
The key is moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Black women seem to think that their hair can withstand all kinds of harsh treatments when in actuality….black hair is very, very delicate and must be treated as if it were fine antique lace. It should never, ever be handled with a heavy hand neither should anyone ever pull the hair back taunt against their scalp. These are the first things you can learn to do in order to help any problems you have associated with breakage.
The next thing you can do is to learn about black hair. There is this book called Brown Skin by Dr. Susan Taylor. She has researched black hair and skin through and through and has wrote a pretty good book. I do think that a lot of the information is good but one thing I have always been conscious of is that everyone’s hair is different. Black hair is a mixture of all kinds of different races and it can’t be lumped in together. So YOUR hair needs to be studied and a hair therapy plan just for you needs to be developed and adhered to.
Smooches!
