Vigorol

The Liquid Relaxer from Hell

I often monitor my hit stats to see how many people visit Nappturology 101 on a regular basis. Those stats also tell me the search terms used to find my site, and it also gives me a link back to the site my visitors came from.

 

Well, I actually find all of this fascinating, particularly since those search terms can give me ideas about the type of information that people are looking for when it comes to nappy hair and otherwise. When I see that a particular word, term or phrase is used to find Nappturology 101 often enough, if it’s not there, and if it makes sense to, I’ll make plans to add that info to the site, Like Vigorol for instance. In fact, this search term turns up so much in my stats, it has prompted me to share my brief experience with this dreadful product.

Cutting and Trimming

The case for using a pair
of good quality hair scissors

Recently, I saw an online post where someone was asking for advice on doing their big chop, but didn’t have money to go to a barber or beautician to get it done. Posted advice included telling the young lady to cut her hair with just any kind of scissors. I had to weigh in on that with a resounding noooooooooooo! You don’t go cutting or trimming your hair with a regular pair of scissors. In her case, I don’t think I got to her soon enough because she later posted that she had used a pair of finger nail scissors. Now that’s just asking for trouble. Even with the highest quality pair of shears, which are designed to leave a good clean edge, cutting the hair traumatizes the shaft…so just imagine what any ole pair of scissors will do to your hair. Well actually, no need to imagine. Simply take a look at the picture below:

Detangling

If you wanna keep hair on your head, you gotta figure out how to detangle your hair in a way that minimizes breakage and in some cases, quite literally pain. If you’re nappy, you know that’s not necessarily an easy thing to do. However, the key word here is minimize — not prevent. Because of the way nappy hair is structured with weak spot that correspond to all the twists and turns along the hair shaft, some breakage is inevitable. But if you become a master at detangling, you can pretty much limit the hair in your comb or brush to normal shedding and just a little bit of breakage. Here is a list of tips that can help you become a master at detangling your hair.

• Use your fingers to gently pull the hair apart
• Use a wide-tooth comb and detangle from the tips to the roots. If you run into a snag stop combing immediately and use your fingers or the tip of a rattail comb to untangle the knots
• DO NOT snap a knot out with your fingers; that can unnecessary damage to your cuticles and cortex. If you can’t detangle a knot, use a pair of good quality hair shears to cut the knot out.
• If you’re getting ready to shampoo, detangle hair and band it in sections to prevent shrinkage and retangling.
• Don’t detangle dry hair
• If you shampoo loose hair (because it’s too short to band) then saturate your hair with conditioner before combing through with a wide-tooth comb.
• DO NOT rip your twists apart. Take them apart gently starting from the bottom. If you do them from the top, you risk knotting up your ends.

As you can see, there’s lot’s to consider when you go about the task of detangling your hair. And I’ll come back and add more tips as I think of them or run across information from other sources that are worth sharing with you. But doing it properly takes time, patience, and somtimes a bit of creativity, but in the end, you’ll be rewarded by seeing fewer broken hairs in your comb and over time longer strands of hair on your head.

Protective Styling

Twist it up. Braid it up. Tuck it under. It doesn’t matter what you do, but if your goal is waist length hair and being able to wear a BAA some day, you gotta protect those precious ends! I had never heard of protective styling until I joined Nappturality.com, but really, it makes sense. When I was a kid, my mom hardly ever let me and my little sister wear our hair down and curled. That type of a do was reserved for very special occasions. When I asked her why, she said “wearing your hair down breaks your ends off.” Well, she must have been on to something with all those plaits and twisted ponytails because every last one of us had hair that reached below our shoulders.

Permanent Coloring

Another moisture buster. Permanent hair color, by design is damaging to your hair. First, the cuticle has to be lifted and the color molecules are deposited into your cortex. These molecules have to be large enough to not wash out, hence become your permanent color, and as a result, will make your hair shaft swell slightly. A slightly swollen hair shaft means your cuticles separate even more. If you’re simply enhancing your natural color and trying to totally cover up gray hair with something close to your own, you may not experience any horrible adverse affects. The bigger issue comes into play when you lighten your hair. First your natural color has to be lifted (striped…bleached) out and then the new color has to be deposited into your hair shaft.. Quite frankly this two step process literally traumatizes most nappy hair and in many instances ends up leaving it feeling straw, which eventually will have to be cut off. Even nappies who swear they don’t have any “problems” admit that they have to jump through a lot of hoops just to keep it moisturized.

 

Still wanna color? Best to stick with something close to your own that doesn’t involve a two-step process. Maybe a semi- or demi-permanent hair dye. These are designed to coat your hair shaft and deposit a small of color under the cuticle but not into the cortex. The color molecules are small enough to wash out over time, but how long the color lasts depends on the how often you shampoo. Also, demi permanent hair dyes last longer the semi and neither provides total coverage of gray hair. There are other options on the market as well such as hennas and other organic hair dyes that are supposed to be gentler on the hair than regular ones. But I suggest you be proactive and do your research before deciding to put anything on your hair that could cause potential damage to your hair. That way, at least you’ll be making an informed decision.