by Kesha of We Got Kidz
When doing research for this post, I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice little article (little being the operative word) about how to take care of African American baby’s hair on the mainstream website babycenter.com. With that I realized that taking care of little brown baby girl’s tresses is important to most black mothers and is often times a trial that we face from day to day.
My little Ari’s hair journey began even before she was born. I began buying hair accessories and researching what would be the best regime for my child’s tresses early on. [*For my melanin impaired readers who aren’t sure what the big deal is, African American babies are usually born with very thick, coarse hair that if not treated properly is prone to excessive drying and breaking.]
When Ari was born, she had the prettiest silkiest hair you’d ever want to see. I hesitate in saying that her hair was “good” because I don’t want to imply that my straight from Africa brillo pad lambs wool mix of hair is “bad”… but my Ari’s hair was beautiful. Unfortunately, I knew that this was only temporary. Inside the womb, there are all kinds of nutritious juices and berries floating around. It’s the optimum environment for little brown baby’s hair to thrive. After being out of the womb and going through a few washes, I knew that her hair was going to change to its “true” state. My goal was to make that transition as smooth as possible.
The first thing I did was to buy a good all natural conditioner. Lack of moisture is the number one killer of black hair, (and can kill a romantic night with the husband too. He, he). I’m not going to name products because I’ve learned that the most important part of taking care of African American baby’s hair is choosing products that fit your baby’s hair type. No one’s hair is the same. It’s up to you to do some assessing to determine what type of products you need for your baby.
The second thing that I did, and continue to do, is to regularly give Ari’s hair a good washing with a moisture rich, all natural shampoo. Do I do it once a day? Nope. Every other day? Not even. I wash Ari’s hair once a week. Now before you cringe, know that African Americans in general don’t produce as much oil as our Caucasian counterparts. Over washing can strip away natural oils that we need to keep our hair from being dry, frizzy, and brittle.
I’m attempting to avoid using any bad chemicals on Ari’s hair. No parabens, glycerins, or any ingredient that I can’t pronounce. Only all natural hair products for my Ari. This should prove interesting because I had my first mini relaxer at the age of six. If Ari chooses to put chemicals in her hair as an adult, that’s fine. I ultimately want it to be her decision.
We’ll see how all of this progresses. Right now I think that Ari’s hair is growing and thriving amazingly well, but I have to admit, by nature my day to day activities tend to be a little erratic. I’m notorious for having three or four projects going on all at once: cleaning out the fridge, writing a post…
Wait, the twins just did something cute. Let me grab my video camera.
See, I’m a free spirit. I hope that I can take the time to give Ari’s precious locs the TLC that they need. I’m praying that she’ll still have all of her hair by her 2nd birthday.
Stay tuned.
Here are some great links to some other sites that give some pretty good tips on how to take care of your brown baby’s tresses:
African American Babies: Hair Care – BabyCenter.com
How to Grow Your Baby’s African American Hair – shwill.wrytestuff.com
Baby Big Hair – www.BabyBigHair.com
