The question always arises of how can I grow African American Hair. Let’s face it. The good ole’ days for black hair care and the way we used to maintain our hair are over. Gone are the times when you used to walk into the room and everyone could tell you had just used a heavy hair oil or pomade in your scalp and hair. The familiar smells of products like SuperGro, Dax, Blue Magic, and Sulfur 8 were noted for their medicinal smell, and some had, believe it or not, a bacony smell, but they are a thing of the past and should be for good reason, although there are many of you who still use these products. For many years we as people of color were led to believe that since our hair is inherently dry, the next best thing to use to retain moisture in our hair is to load up the hair and scalp with oils and grease. The more we put on, the more our hair appeared shiny and stiff, but little did we know we were killing and suffocating our hair and scalp.
We are all born with natural oil producing glands in our scalp. When we try to overcompensate by loading up our scalps with synthetic or false oils, this smothers our scalps from breathing; our pores will become clogged, and eventually our bodies will stop producing the natural oils we were born with. A direct result of this is stiff, lifeless greasy hair with a dry itchy scalp and large flakes of dandruff. Needless to say, this is not healthy for both hair and scalp.
A good alternative to use on your scalp is absolutely no products at all. Let your scalp breathe for a change and soon your body will start producing natural oils. To combat severe dryness of the hair, using a concentrated cream moisturizer on the hair twice daily will work just fine for natural, relaxed or curly permed hair. Those of you who have curly perms are shining examples of what moisturizing lotions can do for the hair. Whenever the hair is doused with these lotions on a daily basis, the hair tends to really grow like crazy and grow fast because you are consistently adding moisture to the hair on a daily basis, yet allowing the scalp to breathe. I, myself, used to apply oils and creams to mine and my childrens’ scalps not realizing I was setting us up for hair breakage, scalp problems, slow growth and other hair disasters.
Now that I’ve seen the light and have noticed a remarkable improvement in our hair as far as growth and softness, I feel it is important to pass this information onto you by recommending a good hair guide that you will want to pass onto each generation.