I am one of those naturalistas who just loves washing her hair.  Yea, I know about the great benefits of co-washing. (Co-washing is "washing" your hair with a conditioner instead of a shampoo, see my youtube channel for a demo).  I have also read that it is good to co-wash as often as every two days. Co-washing helps prevent natural hair from becoming too dry from frequent washing with shampoo. Knowing all of this, I always choose to wash my hair anyway. I just like starting my styling days off with fresh, clean, non-weighed down hair. My experiences with co-washing my hair have ranged from ok to just plain horrible.  The "plain horrible" experience left my hair feeling like it had a residue on it. This made it difficult to style.  

     Now that I have colored my hair, it's more important than ever that I properly condition my hair so that it will not be damaged.  With that being said, coloring my hair has made me revisit the idea of co-washing my hair more often.  I don't want my hair to break or my color to fade too fast. I set out to co-wash my hair yesterday and I was having a hard time choosing a conditioner.  I absolutely love the As I Am Coconut Co-Wash Cleansing Conditioner but I also love the Giovanni 50:50 Balanced Hydrating-Calming Conditioner. I could not decide which one to use, so I decided to use both of them. My results were amazing! My hair is really soft and shiny. It was also easier to detangle. The moral of the story is that if you have two conditioners that both offer benefits that you desire, don't be afraid to try them both.  You may be surprised at the results.  I will say that a good rule of thumb for selecting your co-wash conditioners is to be sure that they don't contain any sulfates or parabens. Also, stay away from silicones. These ingredients can make your hair heavy and also leave a residue.  Nobody likes weighed down curls. I followed my cowash with a brief deep conditioning using Eden BodyWorks All Natural Deep Conditioner.  When I got ready to style my hair there was no residue.  See my next tutorial to see the results of my first flat twist out!

One of my worst experiences with being natural has been adding moisturizers and oils to my hair, only for it to look dry by the end of the day. Nobody likes a dry fro, twist out, wash and go, etc. I wondered why my hair did not seem to be retaining moisture no matter how much I added to it.  After some research, I stumbled upon the term porosity.  
     Porosity  is your hair's ability to absorb and hold on to moisture. Your hair can be high, low or normal porosity.  How do you figure out your hair's porosity?  It's simple:

1. Grab a glass and fill it with room temperature water
2. Find some of your shed hairs on a comb or brush, not a broken one (a shed hair will have a white bulb on the end)
3.  Clean the hairs with a little shampoo 
4.  Drop the hairs into the water
    
      Low Porosity-hairs will stay and float on the top
      High Porosity-hairs will sink to the bottom
      Normal Porosity-hairs will slowly and gradually sink to the bottom.

Washing and detangling natural hair can be a headache!!! If you suffer from shrinkage like me, your curls probably clump together when they get wet. Combing through your hair without proper sectioning is just not an option anymore.  Shrinkage and curl clumping make it really hard to properly detangle your hair.  Well, I recently viewed a post by MeechyMonroe (twitter, ig, fb, YouTube) where she washed and detangled her hair with ease.  My washing and detangling method is inspired by that but I did not braid the detangled sections, I twisted them.  Much easier! This method takes a little time, but I assure you, your hair will be well conditioned, softer, more manageable and ready for whatever styles you have in mind for the week.  I hope this video makes your next wash day less of a headache! How do you wash and detangle your natural hair?