Best ways to color ethnic hair

Rae of Sunshine

Hi all! So I'm semi-new here, I've posted a couple threads. I have high porosity, type 3b hair. It's been colored a couple times, but the last time was nearly a year ago. My hair tends to be dry and resistant to being moisturized. I don't know it's protein needs, but I've used protein containing products and my hair doesn't seem to care either way. The front is the most rebellious and remains the driest and least defined, often being the stuck up frizz while the rest is mostly well defined curls, though make no mistake my whole head likes to frizz-ify and the curls come apart and together in awkward ways. It still looks good, but it could look better.

It's reacted well to aloe, though it's not necessarily any better than other products I've used. My hair likes to show off my Native American, African American, and Polynesian blood and just make my life difficult XD It's lucky I love it or I'd have chopped it off by now lol I use VO5 conditioners to cowash every day to every other day and once a week I use VO5 Clarifying or Garnier Fructis Triple Moisture Shampoos and Organix Olive Oil Deep Conditioning Treatment. I use GFTM Conditioner as my leave in and I recently tried an Aloe Gel.

Anyway, I'd love to color it again (red, I don't plan on stripping it because I don't really want it super bright. My hair is naturally sable). However! I'm aware that there are good and bad ways to do it since I am a curly and since my hair is naturally dry and highly porous, which means that the color doesn't show for literally an HOUR. You can see why I'm here for help, yes? Anyway, any advice for minimizing the damage from coloring, best products to do it, and how to protect the color?

Curls-a-poppin

Have yOu considered semi permanent color? If your hair is really porous it would really hold manic panic[COLOR="rgb(244, 164, 96)"]:toothy10:[/COLOR] vampire red- it'll last a month and no damage!

Rae of Sunshine

Curls-a-poppin wrote: »

Have yOu considered semi permanent color? If your hair is really porous it would really hold manic panic[COLOR="rgb(244, 164, 96)"]:toothy10:[/COLOR] vampire red- it'll last a month and no damage!

No, I haven't considered semi permanent lol and I don't exactly want it fire engine red XD any brand suggestions?

AfroBuddhaDoll

Your hair won't be bright red with the Manic Panic. It shows and works better on bleached hair. If your hair is dark it will come out a Burgundy color. I tried the Vampire Red and it was a nice color but I hated it while others loved it, lol. Also it'll stay longer than a month actually. Manic Panic is like a conditioner with food color. It won't damage your hair but it will stain anything not coated lol. Best results would be to keep it on for longer than 2 hours. So 2-4. Some have done an all day process. My hair is resistant and thick.

Anything with a Rosemary will help maintain color. You can even put a little bit (of the color) in your shampoo/conditioner.

The dryness could be due to over-washing. Have You tried a hot oil treatment before deep washing your hair?

Rae of Sunshine

AfroBuddhaDoll wrote: »

Your hair won't be bright red with the Manic Panic. It shows and works better on bleached hair. If your hair is dark it will come out a Burgundy color. I tried the Vampire Red and it was a nice color but I hated it while others loved it, lol. Also it'll stay longer than a month actually. Manic Panic is like a conditioner with food color. It won't damage your hair but it will stain anything not coated lol. Best results would be to keep it on for longer than 2 hours. So 2-4. Some have done an all day process. My hair is resistant and thick.

Anything with a Rosemary will help maintain color. You can even put a little bit (of the color) in your shampoo/conditioner.

The dryness could be due to over-washing. Have You tried a hot oil treatment before deep washing your hair?

hot oil treatments make me nervous, I'm the sort perfectly capable of burning myself XD and it's always been dry like this. Always. When I was young and my mom was doing my hair, now that I'm older and have control of my own hair. Hour with conditioner on and it's still dry. Deep conditioner, regular conditioner, CG conditioner, olive oil, coconut oil, jojoba, sunflower, grease, hot six oil, nothing works or works for very long. The front is absolutely determined to not feel fully healthy. And yes, it's very dark. The only light parts are the ones still dyed since I got it done at a salon, with bright hair color, sitting for about 90 minutes XD but's it's grown out like four inches since I had it done, and it's all curled up so you'd never know lol

AfroBuddhaDoll

Vitamin E oil/Fatty Oils help with damage if you feel that could be part of the dryness as well. I add Wheat Germ Oil to my Conditioners and Homemade Oil Mixtures/Serums to help with damage and breakage.

You need a oil also that's thick (Primary Oil) to help with the Secondary Oils. Jojoba is a nice oil but if used with other secondary oils you don't have anything to make it STICK. Olive Oil is considered a Primary Oil because it's a little thicker than Jojoba, Peppermint, but oils like Castor Oil are much much thicker, Coconut Oil non-melted is nice too though I prefer it on my scalp than my strands. Shea Butter is nice too, does Shea Butter help you with moisture and sleekness or do you find it too heavy?

Do you mix and make your own oils/butters/creams?

Rae of Sunshine

AfroBuddhaDoll wrote: »

Vitamin E oil/Fatty Oils help with damage if you feel that could be part of the dryness as well. I add Wheat Germ Oil to my Conditioners and Homemade Oil Mixtures/Serums to help with damage and breakage.

You need a oil also that's thick (Primary Oil) to help with the Secondary Oils. Jojoba is a nice oil but if used with other secondary oils you don't have anything to make it STICK. Olive Oil is considered a Primary Oil because it's a little thicker than Jojoba, Peppermint, but oils like Castor Oil are much much thicker, Coconut Oil non-melted is nice too though I prefer it on my scalp than my strands. Shea Butter is nice too, does Shea Butter help you with moisture and sleekness or do you find it too heavy?

Do you mix and make your own oils/butters/creams?

I find Shea to be too heavy for me, in fact, hot six oil can be too. Though it's possible that my long time, unknowing use of silicone-containing products might have something to do with that. Oh and I just absolutely cannot stand anything feeling heavy, greasy, oily or thick on my hands, hair or scalp. It's a huge aggravation because I can't use oils for my skin easily, I often make it moot by immediately washing my hands. As an added bonus I have allergies and eczema, though I'm not sure if it's on my scalp.

I always feel silly using olive oil because I cook with it, so it's like "mmm, salad" XD and "mmm fried strands" for the occasion I straighten my locks. Of course the sheer effort it takes to straighten my hair keeps me away from it even more than my awareness it hurts my curls. Same thing with blow drying. I rarely blow my hair dry(haven't done so in months), and I haven't flatironed my hair in months. I basically did my best to cut out silicones, it's very hard since I'm minimum wage and part time and the vast majority of items "natural" or not, contain some type of silicone. You'd think working at CVS would make it easy but it's not T-T

I wish I could mix and make my own oils, butters, and creams. I would love to try some shampoo and conditioner recipes, though I imagine my grandmother and boyfriend would give me serious WTF faces. My grandmother would likely be willing to try, but my boyfriend, I can see his expression already as being a priceless real-life version of "O.O" lol speaking of which I recently half whined, half negotiated my way into getting my bf to try a new shampoo and conditioner (CG lol) regimen. He has dry, extremely flaky scalp and his hair is dry too, but it's cut typically short and close to the head so it's not exactly noticeable that his follicles are gasping for a drink, just that his head is flaky (and drives both of us crazy, for different reasons XD). Just one try and his head was looking and feeling better though to be fair I basically did all the work and actually made him use my Tresemme Naturals condish XD his words afterwards? "I can't wait til we live together cuz then I won't have to remember any of this." lol

Back to my hair, it's really just my front. Usually if my ends are misbehaving it's because they're split, but nothing really gets dry and tangled like my baby hair. The underside near my neck can be that way too, so it's very frustrating. My recent attempt (that I started yesterday) is one of the VO5 Tea Therapy conditioners as my cowash and the Tresemme Naturals Silicone Free Conditioner as my condish with GF Triple Moisture Condish as my leave in. However, I'm considering switching one of those around at the end of two weeks. I want to give the new regime time to make a difference. I also bought the lower sulfate Tresemme Naturals Shampoo for my weekly shampoo and deep conditioner. The GF helps, but like everything else it just doesn't do it fully and I've been using it steadily for a month. Oh, and I don't wash my hair everyday, I never have. It used to be once a week, or every other week, sometimes longer (much to my chagrin) but I've never shampooed more than once a week. Most of the time, because of how early I have to get up for work and the funky schedule of my shifts, I only cowash every other day though I do rinse and leave-in every day.

I'll post a picture of me freshly washed, combed, and dried tomorrow (aka "today" since it's three am where I am lol) thanks for helping me

letta510

I am very color treated myself and the best thing I do that truly helps is first, go to Sally's and ask for protein filler and you poor it in your hair color mixture before you apply it to your hair. Second, every week I deep condition my hair by beginning with cleansing it then putting in a protein conditioner cover with a shower cap and sit under a hooded dryer for 30 mins then rinse with cold water and put in a moisture conditioner and do the process again. I suggest getting a brand color for black people because the tones look better with our skin and doesn't damage as much in my opinion. Sorry for the long reply