HAIR CARE 101: THE HAIR REGIMEN

Yes, you read right. This is indeed a hair related post. I know I have shied away from posting regularly about my hair care journey of late but hopefully that will all change as I have an idea of what I want to talk about now. Last year, for this series, I covered the structure of hair, the classifications of hair (Pt 1 & Pt 2) and the breakdown of relaxed hair. As you must have deduced from the title of this post, I am going to ramble about what 'The Hair Regimen' is and the key elements that make up a reasonably good one. Oh! Just to clarify- I am by no means an expert in this. I just thought I would throw in my 2 p on this subject matter as well as have something written down that I too can refer back to when I have a dark hair day lol.

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Source: Top (L-R): 1, 2, 3, 4 ; Bottom (L-R): 1, 2, 3, 4

So, what is a Hair Regimen? This is basically a collection of tasks you complete in a certain order to obtain  and maintain a clean and healthy scalp and head of hair... or at least as close to that as you can get. The list of the steps that can be included in a hair regimen are as follows:

Wash Day

Detangle hair

Apply a pre-Shampoo (a.k.a pre-poo) treatment to scalp and hair

Shampoo/ Co-Wash (a.ka. wash scalp and hair with conditioner) hair

Condition hair

Apply leave-in conditioner

Apply hot oil treatment to scalp and hair

Moisturise hair

Seal moisturised hair

Apply heat protectant

Style hair

Logistics

Wash hair  M No. of times a week

Protein condition hair M No. of times a month

Moisture and seal hair M No. of times a week

Condition hair using a moisturising conditioner M No. of times a month

Put hair in a protective style M % of the time

Detangle hair using  fingers only and/or a seamless comb

Only use heat styling tools M No. of times a month

Air dry hair M % of the time

Wrap hair in silk/satin scarf at night

Use a silk/satin pillowcase as a fail safe

The arrangement and/ or inclusion of these steps does differs from person to person but there are some key steps that are -or at least should be - present in all regimens- cleaning the scalp, conditioning the hair, sealing the nutrients gained into the hair after rinsing out conditioner and moisturising & sealing the hair throughout the week. Your regimen may change slightly when you are experiencing some hair problems- dryness, breakage, excessive shedding, overly moisturised hair etc which is encouraged. We have to learn to listen to our hair, find the products that best solve the problem we may be having and adapt our hair regimens to cater for the needs of our hair.

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I will be picking apart each feature of a hair regimen in the coming months and attempt to share science-y bits and bobs about the benefits of them as well as some of my own thoughts and/or experiences. As time goes on I will update this as I discover more aspects of a hair regimen and share my own.

Mo xx