Mariama's Hair Regimen

I’m sure none of us have days to waste doing our hair, so I’ve had to reduce down my regimen so I spend as little time as possible during the week doing my hair.

I was...

• co-washing once or twice a week, but who has time for that?! When you have kinky-curly Type 4 hair, your hair can take hours to wash and condition. I tried washing my hair once a fortnight/ once a month but it would get too dirty and dry. Now I try to wash my hair once a week with either the full prepoo-shampoo-deep condition or I co-wash with a deep conditioner (Yeah that’s right, I said deep conditioner!)
• detangle three times, THREE! What a waste of a day! I used to finger detangle, use a wide-tooth comb and then use a Denman. But to be honest, once your hair is detangled, it’s detangled. Doing it three times is just pointless. I tried just finger detangling for a while instead of combing but didn’t notice any difference in the amount of hair I was losing, it took FOREVER and my hair was more knotty than when I was using combs. Now I detangle my hair wet once a month with a Denman and the rest of the time using a wide-tooth comb.
• have a lot of conditioners (…in fact I still do, heh) but I’ve decided to stop experimenting and stick with two or three conditioners. But I have allowed myself the pleasure of experimenting with leave-in conditioners, but I am only allowed to buy one at a time!
• buy expensive oils because everyone was raving about them. Now when making my own products I use only a few ingredients and I cut out the more expensive oils like jojoba oil, argan oil and vitamin E oil. Instead I use much cheaper alternatives that were already high in vitamin A & E. Macadamia nut oil is a much cheaper alternative to jojoba oil, and like jojoba is similar to sebum. If you’re allergic to nuts and would rather avoid them then you can use the even cheaper apricot kernel oil. Altogether I have a collection of six oils that I buy in bulk and use to make my skin oil, hair oil and hair butters. 

Products I use (this list isn’t here to make you run out and buy these products, it’s more to encourage you to find products that work for you.)

Prepoo, Shampoo & Deep Conditioner

L’Oreal Expertise EverSleek range + my hair oil. There are two sub-ranges: Smoothing & Intensely Nourishing or Smoothing and Moisturing, what the difference is I’ll never know. I just buy whichever one is there. I tried the EverRiche line for dry hair, but I prefer these ones instead. 

Co-wash

Depending on which one is on sale (because I like to save my pennies) I use Herbal Essences Hello Hydration, Beautiful Ends Intensive Mask (the conditioner was kind of meh, but this I like) or Dove Nourishing Oil Care Hair Therapy Conditioner.

Styling Products

I make my oil mix and hair butter myself.

For my edges, buns and puffs, I use aloe vera gel and sometimes Zainab’s puff cream (which she told me she’ll tell you about soon).

Phew, all done. Tell me about your regimens!

Maz xx