Hair care after washing 4C natural hair is as important as washing it and other hair care practices between wash day. Natural hair needs tender, love and care to thrive.
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Experience dry and shrunken hair after washing your hair? This post is for you. In this post we’ll discuss how to keep your hair moisturized, stretched and free of tangles after washing it. How much moisture you retain after wash day is dependent on the after wash day hair care practices.
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Table of Contents
Essential Wash Day Steps
First, let’s talk the essential wash day steps that you should never skip. Start off wash day by sectioning your hair into small manageable parts. Why section you ask? It easier and faster to detangle small sections. Detangle a section at a time using a detangling product with a good slip.
Related post: 4C Hair Tangles: The Ultimate Detangling Guide
You can choose to pre-poo/ do a preshampoo treatment. This is where you apply an oil or a pre-poo product on your hair, let it penetrate your hair strands before washing your hair. The top benefit of doing a pre-shampoo treatment is to reduce the stripping effect of shampoos.
Related post: Everything you should know about pre-pooing natural hair.
The next step is cleansing. On this step, use your go to shampoo whether it’s moisturizing shampoo or clarifying shampoo to remove all the dirt and product build-up from your hair and scalp.
Once the cleansing is done, deep condition to restore moisture, elasticity, repair damage and strengthen your strands. Apply your go to deep conditioner, let it sit for a few minutes to penetrate your strands and hair shaft before rinsing off.
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Now that we have caught up on essential wash day steps, let’s talk about the essential after washing and deep conditioning steps that are as important.
3 Essential Things To Do After Washing 4c Natural Hair.
Moisturize! Moisturize! Moisturize!
Always moisturize after rinsing off the deep conditioner, don’t let your hair air dry before moisturizing. Moisturizing wet or damp hair keeps the moisture locked in your hair for longer and leaves your hair soft and manageable.
If you wash your hair in sections, moisturize a section at a time and if you don’t wash in sections, section your hair into manageable parts so that you can coat each strand with products. Apply your go to moisturing cream or leave-in conditioner to add moisture to your strands. The type of moisturizing products you use depends on your porosity type and how coarse or fine your hair is. With coarse hair use thicker and more creamy products and with fine hair, use lightweight moisturizing products.
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Lock-in the moisture/ Use Moisture Sealants
Using moisture sealants keeps moisture locked in your hair for long. Moisture sealants can be butters or oil, you can use either depending on your hair porosity and texture. Personally, I prefer butters to oils and sometimes I use neither just my go to African pride moisture miracle coconut oil and baobab oil leave-in cream and I’m sorted for days to a week.
Related post: African pride moisture miracle coconut oil and baobab oil leave-in cream review
Sealants are applied on each hair section immediately after applying a leave-in conditioner. Make sure all your strands are coated focusing more on the ends of your hair since they are the oldest parts of your hair that are exposed to surfaces and they tend to dry faster.
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Stretch your hair.
The next step is stretching your hair. Why stretch? Stretched hair shrinks and tangles less. If you struggle with tangles, consider wearing stretched hair and hairstyles. You don’t have to use heat to stretch because there are heatless methods to stretch your hair. Also, always install protective styles on stretched hair.
How can you stretch without heat? My favorite heatless method is braiding. Install braids after moisturizing and let your hair air dry while in braids. You can also choose to do flat twists/ cornrows or twists. Twists don’t work for me though. You can also do the banding method where you tye hair bands along the length of your hair. I love this method for stretching mini twists or twists to give them length once shrinkage happens due to moisturizing.
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After stretching you can choose to install low manipulation and protective styles. If you don’t mind shrinkage, you can style immediately after moisturizing your gorgeous mane.
There you have it curl friends. I hope you found this post helpful.
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