Hijab and curly hair

NourhanNasser78

Okay guys I wanna give you a quick review about my journey so you can help, I was natural all my life I just relaxed my bang 3 times and relaxed my whole hair once in my life and that was 4 years ago,  now I don't have any relaxed hair but I wear Hijab when I go out and I style my hair in a bun then I wear cotton or mixed fiber scarf then I go out. I used sulfate shampoos and silicon conditioners. One year ago I discovered the natural hair community and stopped using all these things and I designed a Satan bandana for my Hijab, slept on Satan pillow case and used diy shampoo and silicone free Conditioner. Also I do diy deep conditioning with banana, coconut milk and oils every week. My hair has so much breakage especially in the crown area and today I tried my 1st wash and go and I saw my 3c hair showing up while drying my hair but the frizz was keep showing up till my head was dry the frizz was so much, my crown area was not defined there was no single curl in the top and the front of my head only a fuzzy nasty strands of hair standing on my head not like the rest of my head was a 3c/3b curls but was so frizz also. I used diy leave in contain aloe Vera gel, diy moistrizer with Shea butter and argan oil and diy flax seed gel.also I used a brush similar to Denman brush so I get more definition.  I was so upset I wanted my wash and go to work and stop doing twist out, also my roots tends to be so dry and Buffy, BTW I have low porosity hair and I use heat with my deep conditioning, also I don't know what I lack moisture or protein but I guess I am protine sensitive...  Oh and I use diys because there is no curly hair products in my country except herbal essence hello Hydration and I  don't use that because if the silicon. What should I do with frizz and crown area breakage and can cotton scarf has done this to my hair and caused all this suffer even after I replaced it with Satan? 

bomega

Hi @NourhanNasser78 : Welcome to nc.com. Good for you for embracing your natural hair texture. It can be frustrating at times until you figure out what your hair needs. I had a few more questions for you:
1) So you said you have 3C low porosity hair. Can you tell us the hair width (coarse, medium, fine) and possibly the density?
2) What are you doing for diy shampoo and conditioner?
3) What about your other diy recipes - is your leave in just aloe, or does it include other ingredients? Also for your moisturizer and flax seed gel?
4) What are you doing for styling?
5) What is your daily and weekly hair routine like? How often do you shampoo/condition. How often do you deep treat?
6) You said you are protein sensitive, but what happened for you to find out?

Also, it looks like you have an "evil" autocorrect that keeps changing satin to Satan .

NourhanNasser78

OMG I am so sorry my autocorrection didn't recognize "satin" at all I am so sorry 
1st I am coarse and my I have medium hair density. 
2nd for my diy shampoo I use black African soap with water and tea tree oil and few pumps of argan oil. For my conditioner I  use ACV rinse but recently I found a silicon free Conditioner but some how I  don't like it. 
3rd for the rest of my diy I use for leave in: aloe Vera gel, flax seed gel, glycerin, coconut oil, and essential oil like lavender. For the moisturizer I use Shea butter, coconut oil, argan oil, olive oil, and some vanilla extract for the smell. 
And I use the flax seed gel it self to seal all this. 
4th for styling I use twist outs and braid outs and at the end of the week I do 4 loosen braids,  and I sleep in a bun. 
5th I shampoo 1 time weekly in thursdays and condition twice Thursday's and Mondays. And I don't feel comfortable to spray some water on my hair to refresh it in the morning after it was stretched out in the bun but I do it and follow it with moisturizer so my hair doesn't dry. For my deep treatment I do it weekly in my wash days. 
6th for the protien sensitivity I knew that when mom once made a hair mask with eggs and I was dieing after I rinsed it out although I was so young like 10 years old or something. 

NourhanNasser78

Oh and one more thing my hair is short like it is exactly above my arm but I have layers because of my crown breakage I guess

NourhanNasser78

I forgot to mention that my diy deep conditioning contains : 1 banana, coconut milk, olive oil and 3 drops lavender essential oil

Gretchen

I have to say I got quite a chuckle out of the "Satan" thing! LOL. Cracked me up. Welcome; we're so glad you've joined us. 

NourhanNasser78

Lol yeah my phone do that to me a lot the auto correction has like a storage for words and the it doesn't have a lot of words, satin wasn't saved and when I noticed the Satan thing I went to the storage and saved it.  I didn't even edit the word here in the discussion I found it halirious 

bomega

No worries about the autocorrect...we've all been done wrong by it.

It is a conundrum about your hair. Your diy solutions all look good. And low porosity hair usually doesn't do well with protein. The cotton hijab could have damaged your hair, but it would have broken at that time. Your hair should be growing now that you have switched the hijab to a smooth material.

I wonder if the glycerin is causing problems? Do you live in an area with very low relative humidity (very dry, whether it is hot or cold)?

Since your hair seems to be getting a lot of moisture, the next thing to try is a protein treatment. I don't blame you for not wanting to put egg in your hair. Have you tried a gelatin treatment? Here is an article on the Sciency Hair Blog that explains how to do it. (The owner of the Sciency Hair Blog used to be an active member of curltalk here.) She states repeatedly over her blog that this treatment is strong, and must be diluted if you want a milder treatment. Honestly, I would not do a protein treatment to my hair, because I know how it doesn't like protein. So if you don't want to, I wouldn't blame you.

Another option to try is henna treatment. I'm not sure if you can get henna powders where you live, but this is what I use to color my gray hair. As a wonderful side effect, it has strengthened my hair. I should say it is also why my hair can't handle protein - although henna is not protein, it repairs hair in a way similar to protein because of the way the dye molecules attach to the hair. The difference is the improvement is permanent. So, over time, to get the benefits of henna, you only have to do the roots. Henna is drying to the hair, so I do an oil treatment after henna and this makes my hair so wonderful and manageable. If you want to do henna treatment I would strongly recommend using amla (rather than lemon juice) in the mix because henna alone can loosen curl pattern...and not in a good way. In addition, if you want the benefits of henna without the color change, you can use cassia powder. (As a side note, henna will only darken hair, so color change only happens on hair that is brown or lighter.)

NourhanNasser78

Yeah I live in dry weather and Yup I can get henna here it's traditional to use it here I will try the gelatin treatment and the head and sure I will post about my results thank you so much 

bomega

NourhanNasser78 said:

Yeah I live in dry weather and Yup I can get henna here it's traditional to use it here I will try the gelatin treatment and the head and sure I will post about my results thank you so much 

If you live in very dry weather, I would leave the glycerin out of your regular styling routine. Glycerin is a humectant, and if you live in dry weather it will pull water out of your hair and into the dry environment. I know I said above that you might need a protein treatment, but now I wonder if it is just very dry from this process. I guess trying the gelatin treatment would be fine if you are up to it, and then follow with a deep treatment if it doesn't work for you.

By the way, it will probably be helpful to use glycerin in your deep treatment formula if you wear a shower cap when you apply it to keep the moisture in. Then it will pull the moisture from the treatment into your hair.

Anyway, good luck with your experiments.