Blog

I don't know if you remember your school sports days, but they would usually take place in the summer, which meant the grass you had to run on was scorched and dry from the hot sun. If you picked it up it would crumble away in your hands because all of the moisture had gone.

In my new book, A Beginner’s Guide to Afro Hair Care, I write about the different hair types. It's really important for you to know your hair thickness and texture because it will pretty much dictate what hair care products you should buy, what hair styling processes would be best for your hair and what level you should use within the styling process you're using.

When I was growing up, Blue Magic was our family grease and, I have to be honest, as a habit I still keep a tub of it in my cupboard. I'm sure many of you will remember what hair grease you grew up on, whether it was Dax, Blue Magic or something else.

I often get questions about specific hair topics by email, and I was inspired to write this blog by someone who contacted me about her hyper-sensitive scalp. One of the things I really appreciated was that she was honest about the fact that her hyper-sensitive scalp may have been caused by relaxing, but that she still had a desire to relax her hair.

I'm often asked why I decided to become a trichologist, more specifically one specialising in Afro hair. Even though I believe I was destined to go down this path, I was motivated by a lot of the hair problems I saw around me when I was growing up.

When I ask women what they would do to make their hair healthier, they almost always tell me they would buy a hair care product. Buying good-quality hair care products will give you healthier hair, but, if you don't know much about your hair, the health of your hair will only last as long as you're using the product.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I don't believe in co-washing, i.e. washing only with conditioner, and I want to tell you why.

Hair is made up of long chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. Our hair can become damaged if it is over-processed with chemicals such as relaxers and bleach or if too much heat is used. This leaves gaps along the length of the hair shaft, making the overall structure weak and easily broken.

Our hair can become weighed down, lank, greasy and unstylable from using everyday products. Although shampoos are effective cleaning agents, many of them no longer provide the deep clean the shampoos of yesterday once did for a few reasons.

One of the things I like to do when examining a client's hair is identify their hair texture and thickness. It's not just important for me to know when giving advice, but it's also important for the client to know. Knowing your hair thickness and texture is absolutely key to making the right choices for it: how you style your hair, choosing products, how often to moisturise and so on.