Listening to your hair

I know this sounds ridiculous. 

But listening to your hair is important if you want to achieve beautiful healthy hair. A lot of people, me included, just go through the motions when it comes to their hair. Wash, style, and go. If we're feeling special we might do a deep conditioning treatment here and there or we may even try a tea rinse or something our friends recommended or something we've seen on youtube etc. But most of us don't really know when or why they should use these things on our hair. Listening to your hair means paying attention to your hair, deciding what it needs and what it doesn't need, what your hair likes and what it doesn't like.

This was my biggest mistake when I started my hair journey. I was paying attention to what everyone else was doing for their hair and applying their methods to my own hair without taking the time out to determine if my hair liked/disliked the treatment. I thought, shoot, I'm doing way more stuff than I used to do to my hair it has to be helping! Right? Wrong.

I used to do protein treatments once every four weeks, because that was what someone on youtube was doing. I did apple cider vinegar rinses or tea rinses just because I saw it on youtube. I used a t-shirt instead of towel to dry or I deep conditioned without heat, all because of what I saw somebody else do on youtube. Not because I figured out that these methods were better for my hair. Just to be clear I'm not saying that these methods don't benefit your hair, I'm trying to point out things that I did only because of watching others without listening to my hair.

Okay so at this point you may be wondering..

How does one LISTEN to their hair anyway?  

• Make a mental note of any differences in your hair for the next few days after trying a new treatment/method- you can even write it down if you want in a hair diary- record how your hair does during the week afterwards in comparison to how it is normally
• Check for dryness- does you hair feel abnormally dry after trying a new treatment or does it feel supple and moisturized?
• Check for differences in your scalp. Is it more itchy than normal? Do you have less dandruff than normal
• Are you experiencing more split ends than normal in a short time frame?

These are just a few examples of things to pay attention to. 

The important message I want to get across is to pay attention to your hair! Do not blindly try new things without accessing the results afterwards. How is your hair normally? Did it change for the worst or the better after trying a new method/treatment? This will impact the health of your hair greatly! However, it may be hard to tell if there are changes the very first time you try something new. You may have to try it a couple times to determine if it is helpful or not.

Happy hair growing :)