My Top 5 REALISTIC tips to growing healthy hair

Growing natural hair can be challenging for many of us who are so used to salon visits being the only thing we ever did for our hair. So here are a few tips that can help you transition into growing your hair yourself and I believe these were really important for me to learn (the hard way lol) In order for me to stop growing limp hair and start growing healthy hair.

1. Drink Water and Spray water on your hair - Water is the single most important thing we need for our hair to grow. Without water, all the other tips I’m going to discuss next are next to nothing.

Drinking water helps our bodies to flush out toxins faster, and regulates the circulatory system and feeds our hair follicles. Let’s say you barely drink water in a day, the movement of water in the circulatory system will be slowed down. The body will use up whatever little water you have in your system to feed vital organs. Your hair is one of the last parts of your body to get any good stuff, including water. So if water levels in your tresses are low, you will experience dry and brittle hair. Sounds like a long process? Not to your body it isn’t.

2. Deep Condition religiously- I know many people will wonder thy deep conditioning is a MUST in my list. After all, many women just wash and regular condition their hair and they grow their hair just fine right? Wrong. Take a look at the many relaxed and even natural haired women in Ghana. How many of them do you see with waist length hair? Your answer is 0 (or 1). That doesn’t even prove that deep conditioning is the reason but for many of them it is one deal-breaking factor.

Different types of deep conditioner. The more natural the better for you so choose wisely

Deep conditioning strengthens and thickens hair, gives your hair the ability to trap in more moisture, imparts elasticity (gives it a nice bounce), it adds shine and makes it super manageable. I’m just going to leave this here… by: Deep Conditioning Nazi

3. Sleep with Ends Protected- The ends are the oldest and weakest parts of our hair. They are also the parts of our hair that we need to retain length. So the tugging and pulling we do when styling is already bad enough (a necessary evil if you ask me). The friction caused by sleeping and moving your head around is more likely to cause frizz, dryness and breakage.

Sleeping in a scarf, a satin bonnet or with a silk pillowcase can save you tons of money buying vitamins and hair gummies and not seeing any results.(not saying they don't work tho)

If your hair is long enough, putting it in a bun with the ends tucked in is okay as well as long as your hair is tucked in.

4. Research-Yes, these are not your average tips but they are equally as important as mixing concoctions and plastering them on top of your hair. Lucky for us, YouTube is the perfect place to start. Before you decide to put anything in your hair you should look it up. See any reviews on it, do patch tests and read the ingredients list. It is also important to research into hair types and porosity for your hair. There are various tests online to check hair porosity it can help you know exactly what oils are perfect for moisturizing your hair type and so much more. I believe the first year after my Big Chop was truly wasted on the fact that I didn’t do my research tailored for my 4c hair type. No amount of knowledge will help you though if you don’t study your hair. How it behaves when you put it in braids, how long moisture stays in your hair before you need to seal moisture in again etc. These could make your hair journey so much easier than it is.

5. Massaging Scalp- I cannot preach this enough. About the only physical activity we can actually do to boost growth of healthy hair. Many people won’t see the need to massage your scalp; scalp massages are even completely ignored when we pay for massages. So it is really funny to me how Spa’s focus on body massages only help you relax when in fact massaging the scalp(or the entire head) can eradicate stress, improve quality of sleep, reduces or cures migraines and headaches as well as stimulate growth for healthy hair. It does this by increasing the blood flow to the scalp when massaged, allowing the hair follicles to feed on the nutrients it needs to accelerate growth.

Even more so when you massage your scalp with penetrating oils like coconut oil, olive oil, etc. If you want to use oils though make sure you only use them 2 times a week. Using oils on your scalp daily can disrupt your scalps ability to produce sebum which is your hair’s natural oils. This could cause dry and flaky hair or dandruff. So limit using oils for your scalp daily. My tip to you is to massage your scalp daily with no oil and once a week with oil.

There are many more tips, such as keeping a good routine, products tailored for your hair type, etc. But start from here and you'll be rocking a healthy big fro in no time!