Harmattan, Winter and Your Hair

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Happy new year ladies,
I am surprised I haven’t written a post about this subject until now but better late than never I suppose. This year I intend on getting straight to the point in my blog posts so jumping right into it, I will be discussing the effects of winter and harmattan on our hair and steps we can put in place to reduce the risk of hair loss in cold weather.

How Harmattan and Winter Affects Our Hair?

Winter and Harmattan tends to leave our hair and skin feeling dryer and more brittle than normal. Some ladies’ skin and scalp becomes very flaky as a result of the cold dry weather. In harmattan, the high levels of dust in the air makes our hair get dirty much quicker than normal.

 

Why Should You Care?

You should care because dry brittle hair has a very high chance of breaking. Off course your hair won’t get shorter in just one day but if your hair is breaking in small amounts daily over the winter and harmattan months you may have lost a few inches by the end of the cold season.
In addition to this, hair grows best from a clean and healthy scalp rather than one clogged with dirt, dust and dead skin flakes. A clogged scalp may not be able to grow hair as fast or as healthy as it should be able to genetically.

 

What Should You Do

1) – Increase the frequency of your wash and deep conditioning
If wearing your hair out (ie without extensions) and you normally wash your hair every two weeks, you should consider washing and deep conditioning it once a week. This will ensure your scalp is kept clean and flake free. The contact with water and deep conditioning will also boost the moisture levels of your hair and scalp. Ensure you use a sulfate free moisturising shampoo rather than harsh shampoos that contains sulfates as these will dry out your hair even more.

2) – Be consistent with moisturising and sealing
If you sometimes skip on moisturising and sealing your hair, try to be much more consistent during the cold months. Moisturising and sealing regularly will keep your hair hydrated and give it the elasticity it needs to fight breakage.
Some ladies find that they need to moisturise and seal their hair twice a day during winter/harmattan. You may also need to review the products you normally use to be sure that they are still effective. Some ladies switch to using heavier/thicker moisturisers and oils/butters during this season.

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3) – Long term protective styling (wigs, braids and crotchet braids, weaves)
For ladies who may not have the time or simply do not want to wash and moisturise their hair more often, another option is to wear long term protective styles for some of the cold months. Long term protective styles usually involve using extensions to create a style that can be worn for 3 to 8 weeks depending on the style. Putting your hair into a long term protective styles will reduce the amount of time you spend on your hair daily however please note that long term protective styling can very easily lead to severe hair loss if correct procedures are not followed before installing, whilst wearing and when taking out such styles. To learn more about wearing long term protective styles safely click here and read the relevant posts.

Please also note that if your hairline and hair is very damaged and/or breaking, you should stay away from long term protective styling.
If you cannot wear a long term protective style for various reasons such as religious beliefs, you’re still in school and are not allowed to wear such styles, cash constraints (most of us have been here at some point, lets keep it real in 2018 😊) or if your hair is too weak or damaged to wear such styles, wear your own hair in short term protective styles that hide the ends of your hair and prevent them from drying out too much. If you love wearing hats and head scarves, wear them to the max (safely) in these months.

* Image source- Pinterest

 

If you are a regular on Hairducation you’ll know that I am a huge fan of wigs like the u-part I have on in the pictures in this post.  I wear them all year round and that is how I get through the winter/harmattan months. I am way too lazy with my hair to fuss with the way I would need to if I wore it out in cold weather. I make my life easier by simply putting it away in a style that I know my hair and hairline can tolerate….and in my case, that is wigs but I make sure I follow good hair care practices whilst wearing them. How do you care for your hair in winter/harmattan? Which of the options do you think you’ll adopt going forward?

In my next post I will share the first of many new additions and upgrades to Hairducation this year. Let’s just say we will be looking at hair in much more up close and personal way, some might find it a little bit too up close even but we will all learn soooo much from it. It’ll make much more sense when you read the post so come back soon.

X

Lade
Learn | Change | Grow

 

Playing With Colour

Hello ladies,

I am sure I have mentioned a few times that if your hair is chemically straightened then you should avoid colouring you hair with a chemical dye.  Using a chemical hair dye on relaxed or texlaxed hair means your hair has been exposed to two types of strong chemicals and will be severely compromised.
If you are relaxed or texlaxed colouring your hair with either a temporary wash out colour like a rinse or a natural dye like henna is a much safer option.
Looking at my wigs recently and comparing it to my sister’s collection of wigs I realised that all her wigs are coloured whilst a vast majority of mine are a good old colour 1b.

coloured nazuri 1
She recently purchased the Nazuri curls straight hair that I have been rocking recently and had it ombre’d
I really loved how the colour looked on her wig and think I might get mine coloured too.  It’s a great way for me to play with colour without any damage to my hair.

Nazuri coloured 5
 

I might write a blog post however to share some tips about different types of colour for ladies who would rather colour their actual hair.

I am pre-pooing my hair as I type this up and should have a wash day post up pretty soon.

Happy hair journey

X

Lade

Learn | Change | Grow

 

MY NEW TEXLAXED WIG: My first impression of textured hair extensions by Nazuri Curls

Hello ladies,

 

It’s no secret that I love wigs. I have owned many wigs over the course of my hair journey and I am so excited about a new addition to my collection: a texlaxed textured wig.

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With the rise in the number of ladies with afro and texlaxed hair, it’s great that there are now hair extensions created specifically to match our hair texture. Over the last year or so I have been noticing a type of textured hair extensions which I thought would blend very well with texlaxed hair. I decided to get my hand on some from a company called Nazuri Curls and I have made a u-part wig with it. I can sum up my first impression in one word: love!!!!

 

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ABOUT NAZURI CURLS

Nazuri Curls is a hair extensions brand which produces textured hair extensions and closure pieces.  They are based in the UK and have a distributor in Nigeria however their wefts can be shipped worldwide. There are four types textures created by Nazuri which are Afro, Kinky, curly and Straight.

I first noticed the brand at a few hair related events last year. I attended a small hair care gathering a few months ago and noticed the organiser had some beautiful textured hair extensions. I asked her what brand it was and when she said Nazuri I was sold.

I was about to place my order when I received an email from Nazuri asking if I would be interested in reviewing their extensions and off course I jumped at the opportunity. I was given a discount on my purchase and one of the main reasons why I accepted the offer is because Hairducation readers get a discount too.

 

 

THE HAIR
I chose to buy two bundles of the straight texture in 18” and 20”. Nazuri Curls advise that the hair is low maintenance and sent me a very detailed care guide. As a wig lover and more importantly as a wig maker I have come across many types of hair extensions over the years so I recognise great hair extensions when I get my hands on it.

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Some of the things I love about the straight texture include it’s:

Softness
For some reason I expected the hair to feel dry and a little scratchy.   I was pleasantly surprised by how soft the hair felt.

Density/fullness
Normally when making wigs with long hair extensions you are advised to buy 3 bundles. I decided to buy just two and as you can see from the pictures the wig is so full. At some point I was even concerned it would be too full.

Weight of the wefts
Now this point is really important from a hair care perspective. Wigs and weaves can be great protective styles but if they are too heavy, they will do more harm than good. The Nazuri Curls Straight wefts are light……super super light weight. When I wear a wig I don’t like to feel the weight or tightness of it on my head. Having worn the wig for the first time it certainly scores 10 out of 10 on this point.

Smell
Yes, you read right….. smell. I have come across hair extensions from some brands that smell unpleasant and this can be a little off putting. The Nazuri hair smells sooooo lovely.   On the day I received the wefts, I was playing around with my mum and had the wefts in my hands, I covered my mum’s face with them and waited for her to say something like “get it off”…but she said was “oh that smells nice”

Texture
Its crazy how much the kinky straight hair matches my texlaxed hair texture. It looks so much like how my own hair does on my wash days. The extensions are however more lush looking, fuller and certainly feels softer than my own hair.  It is also thicker at the ends than my own hair.

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The pictures on the right are of my own hair on at the end of my wash day. The picture on the left is the texlaxed wig made with the Nazuri Curls straight hair extensions. Don’t they look so similar???

I have was seen the hair on a natural haired lady (her hair was blow dried), it blends well with my texlaxed hair and if the extensions are straightened, will blend well with relaxed hair. Talk about killing three birds with one stone.

 

 


ROCKING IT

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I have only begun wearing the wig this week and I can’t wait to style it in a multitude of ways. I am glad its low maintenance because I don’t want to spend too long looking after the wig, after all it is supposed to be a mini break from hair care responsibilities.

 

There are only two little cons I have noticed at this point. One is that the top part of the weft has a slightly different texture to the rest of the length. I think the top part looks like a braid out whilst rest of the hair looks like texlaxed hair.   When I actually put the wig on it wasn’t an issue at all.

I am not quite sure if this next point is a con…the hair is full. I am a slim woman so I was a bit concerned that the hair would be so big it would wear me rather than the other way around. However now that I’ve actually worn it, I don’t think it’s too big….and its fullness is growing on me more and more.

 

I will write another post soon to show how well my own hair blends with the wig and how the hair is holding up. Don’t forget you can get 10% off Nazuri Curls hair extensions by using the Hairducation discount code.

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You can see their other curl types by clicking here.

 

My next post will be about how I care for the hair I leave out when wearing u-part wigs. I have learnt how to prevent my leave out hair breaking and thinning out and will share my secrets in the next post.  Come back soon ladies.

X

Lade

Learn | Change | Grow