Yes, I’m going to talk about African hair again…
It’s because I’m in the middle of a dilemma of how much to spend in hair and skin products for the children and if it’s really necessary.
First about hair.
I’ve been reading sites about hair care, blogs by adoptive parents, blogs by African Americans, etc, etc, and still don’t have clear which is “the best” hair product and if it really exists or if it is just somebody trying to sell us something that we don’t need, as always…
I know, natural is better than artificial, organic is better that processed, but really how much do we need to take care of black hair?
After all it’s just hair, right? Different from Caucasian hair, but it can’t be that hard to take care of!
Up to now I haven’t had any issues with my children’s hair, even when I’m using really simple and cheap products available everywhere. For example, you can use just two products, a gentle shampoo (and even this one is optional) and a good conditioner and that’s pretty much it. Or if you prefer, something “natural” and non expensive like olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter. Nothing fancy, the most plain things you can find.
I saw how they combed a girl’s hair in Ethiopia, and guess what? They just used oil; I went to an Ethiopian store, and they just sell olive oil. So, what’s the mystery then.
I shouldn’t be surprised, because the same happens with white’s people hair… They try to sell us “the” product that not only will clean and make our hair shine like the sun, but will also make us forever happy (as long as we keep using it, of course).
I discovered the big secret of African hair… LEAVE IT ALONE!
Yes that’s it. Just wash it gently when it needs to be washed, usually just once a week, specially for a child. Then lots and lots of conditioner, everyday. And pretty much that’s it. Don’t mess with you child’s hair.
Water, conditioner or oil, soft combing and some simple styling is all you need to do for a kid’s hair, the rest is… well, status…
If you want to buy the same products that Angelina uses on her daughter Zahara, go ahead, but you don’t really need to. What you are really buying is the illusion of belonging to a certain group of people, the chance to feel famous just by using the same shampoo that celebrities use. But I bet that your girl won’t notice any difference, at least for now when she’s still is too young and innocent to be influenced by the ad industry… 
I’m not against fancy products, it’s a free country after all (for those who can afford it, anyway), but it’s necessary for us to learn the basics about black hair, not just keep buying things, specially during recession… 20 dollars for a bottle of shampoo? Really?
I have a page in this blog of adequate products for black hair and there are great ones of many brands and prices, but keep in mind that you don’t need to spend much to have healthy and beautiful hair.
If you really want to see how easy and cheap can be to take care of natural black curly hair read this website by Teri LaFlesh, she’s a biracial woman with gorgeous long hair, Tightly Curly. She has a list of all the products she used, all of them very easy to find and affordable and also has the complete procedure detailed step by step to have great curls.
Here you have the before and after photos of Feven, and to let her hair soft, untangled and curly only took me 5 minutes!! 
And about black skin, well it is the same story.
Do you want to keep your child’s skin healthy or you want something more?
Because if it is only about taking good care of the skin, the only thing you need to know is again… LEAVE IT ALONE!
The body has natural oils, that we remove every time we take a bath, so then we have to replace what we took away with some kind of substitute, that is to say, cream, lotion, oil.
Well, African skin is naturally drier that white skin, so the more we wash it, the more me need to moisturize it afterwards.
A baby doesn’t need to get a bath everyday, that’s a modern concept that probably was put into our minds by you know who… the ad industry again!
Moisturize daily, preferably at night and always after a bath, that’s the big secret.
And you don’t need to spend lots of money. Regular shea butter or cocoa butter will do the trick and leave the skin gorgeous.
AliciA
5 users commented in " How much do you spend? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAlicia, hay pelos afros muy difíciles de tratar (los 4c, como el de mi hija). Y, aunque tienes parte de razón en decir que no hay porque gastar mucho dinero para cuidarlos, no es tan sencillo como dices. O igual yo simplemente soy una madre torpe.
Gracias por tu fantástico blog.
No sé si conoces este foro de pelo afro en castellano: http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/peloafro/
Saludos,
Berta.
Berta,
Creeme que ya lo se… Feromsa tiene un cabello super complicado…
Aqui en Estados Unidos hay muchisimas variedades de cabello africano sobre todo debido a las mezclas interraciales. A lo que me referia es que muchos padres se sienten obligados a gastar mucho dinero e igualmente con cosas mas simples (y mas economicas) se obtienen los mismos resultados. Hay un poco de mito con respecto al pelo afro, simplemente porque es diferente del pelo caucasico y necesita diferente tratamiento. Al fin y al cabo en Africa se han venido cuidando el cabello desde el comienzo de la humanidad… (y hay menos gente calva!) Gracias por el link…
AliciA
I’ve read both of the hair blogs you mentioned and the issue I had with both of them is that they each present what works for that blogger, which is great for people with that exact curl pattern. But what works for 3a curls might not work for 4b curls. Climate and diet also have a huge impact on what hair needs, so a one-size fits all approach could be detrimental to healthy hair.
I agree that there is no need for expensive products, there are plenty of less expensive products that work well. I won’t pay $20.00 for a bottle of shampoo either. I recently wrote about that very issue on Happy Girl Hair.
I can say that I do get far better results with products that have natural ingredients and are pre-mixed. I have tried using just olive oil, just shea butter, just coconut or jojoba oil- with pretty bad results. It is important to understand what each of those basic ingredients do, sometimes on a molecular level. Makers of natural products understand what the ingredients do and how to mix them to best advantage. I have seen a huge difference in hair health after switching from stumbling along with just a few oils to using pre-mixed, natural products. Natural products are more expensive to produce and many are handmade in small batches by individuals or very small companies, not large corporations. Mixing those products in an art, as well as a science. Many of these companies grew organically out of need of better products. Oyin handmade, Darcy’s Botanicals, Alaffia, Qhemet Biologics, Jessicurl, Blended Beauty and even Carol’s Daughter are examples. I still wouldn’t pay $20 for a bottle of shampoo, but some of these companies offer fantastic products for far less than that.
I also want to add that the longer hair gets, the more it may need and the more complex issues like moisture levels, styling, tangling and breakage get.
Maybe I don’t want my daughter/son to think they have a “difficult” hair to take care of, to think they have to spend lots of money to have “good hair” from the very beginning of their lives. I really don’t care that much about hair, as soon as it is healthy and the kids are happy that’s fine with me. They came with much less from Ethiopia but they were happy anyway.
Just don’t want to keep nurturing the idea that black hair is “hard”.
I prefer to focus in what’s really important in life, the rest is just form not content.
Quizas es que no quiero que mi hija/o piensen que tienen un cabello “dificil” de cuidar, que piensen que tienen que gastar toneladas de dinero para tener “buen cabello” desde el comienzo de sus vidas. Realmente no le doy tanta inportancia al cabello, mientras este sano y los chicos sean felices, es suficiente para mi. Llegaron con menos de Etiopia y sin embargo se veian felices.
Solamente no quiero seguir alimentando la idea de que el cabello negro es “dificil”.
Prefiero enfocar en las cosas que son importantes en la vida, lo demas es solo forma no contenido.
AliciA
[...] here comes the hair thing… again. Some months have passed since I wrote the last post about hair and I consider that now I have much more experience to talk about it. Has my opinion [...]
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