Natural Hair 101: Top 5 Tips for Beginners
The hardest part of going natural is the start of the journey. Aside from the courage to go natural, women lack the knowledge to grow and treat their hair. The hard part of natural hair treatment is knowing when to use certain products. And how to use those products to get the best results for your hair. Luckily, there are many things to do with natural hair to make it grow into a weave.
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Prepare for the Journey
First things first, you have to decide with your whole heart to go natural. Going natural is more than using a specific balm or shampoo. It is a long-term commitment to treating your hair until it retains its natural qualities.
With that in mind, treat this as a literal journey. For some women, it takes years before they get results that are satisfactory to them. Also, when you go natural, you have to abstain from any form of chemical treatment. But, more than anything else, make it a healing process. Going natural is all about returning to the root of your being as a woman. It means harnessing the innate beauty that was always within you.
Ditch Old Habits 
To harvest your true beauty, you have to ditch old habits. That means that you have to stop thinking of haircare as you once thought. Instead, embrace new routines, new philosophies, and take action.
Many women lack the understanding of proper hair treatment. They are unaware that you have to use several products during the shower to get that luscious effect. Also, they are unaware that they have to avoid products with sulfates and other damaging chemicals.
Often, going natural starts with a haircut. You have to cut your hair short, as in military shorts. Then, you can treat it and bring out its qualities. Also, it is a perfect moment to reject your old ideas about hair care. Most of all, it is a moment to learn anew all about the hair shower routine.
Shower Routine
If there is a single thing a beginner should learn about going natural, it is to learn about the hair shower routine. A shower routine is an order and the way you apply hair products during the shower.
While it sounds like an elementary thing, there is a whole philosophy about hair shower routines. The most common shower routines are the LCO method and LOC method. They both use liquid, creams, and oils in a specific order.
The trick is to apply the liquid (shampoo), use the cream (moisturizer), and apply the oil after the shower. If you do it right, you can heal your scalp, increase hair volume, and give a glow to your hair. For the first few months of going natural, use either LCO or LOC method. Read about hair shower routines all the time, talk to other women and experiment. That is how you get the natural weave.
Learn, Learn, Learn 
Another important thing is to continue learning about natural hair. Once you cover the basics, spend as much time as possible learning about hair and hair products. In the initial few months of going natural, you experience a lot of changes. Changes depend on the level of damage to your hair. For women that have strong hair, it takes less time to show results. For other women, it takes much more time.
Regardless, there is a plateau you reach within a year. Then, you want to learn more about hair products and routines. Learning leads to experimentation and later to the breakthrough in hair quality. Later on, you know what works for your hair and how to use specific hair products. Never stop learning.
Avoid Treatments
Avoiding treatments is a huge deal. The thing with going natural is that you have to avoid all chemical treatments. The source of hair damage is the chemical hair treatment. Each treatment you take takes a toll on your hair.
And, sometimes, that damage is the sort of damage that is untreatable. Therefore, you have to stop doing chemical hair treatments as soon as possible. Avoiding chemical treatments involves nothing more than a choice. You have to choose to enjoy your natural hair.
Discipline
That leads to the final thing you have to learn or acquire. And that is discipline. You see, natural hair is all about discipline. It is an undertaking that may take years to bear fruit. Therefore, you have to spend a lot of time on repetitive tasks to nurture your natural weave. In that sense, it takes a lot of will to continue doing the same hair routines for years.
Now, that is all your choice. So, you have to prepare for that undertaking. And the most problematic thing about it is that it all comes down to how bad you want to improve. Learning about hair products and routines is the easy part. Regular implementation is what determines whether or not you get results from going natural.
In the end, going natural is more about changing your lifestyle more than anything else. That is what going natural is all about. It is about changing how you live and how you treat your hair and body. Thus, natural hair is about the treatment of every aspect of your life. You have to be ready for that.
Go Natural
There you have it. These are the tips to help you treat your hair. After all, it is a choice you have to make to improve your life. However, avoid thinking that this is impossible to achieve. It is going to come naturally when you are ready to start loving your hair.
