Natural Hair Care Guide

Coily Hair Styles

If your hair is coily it is best to look for a style that works with and complement your hairs natural tight coils and twists.

Short length coily hair (1 - 3 inches) can be worn in: 

• Tiny Weeny Afro (TWA)
• Afro puff
• Comb Coils
• Finger Coils
• Double strand twists
• Braids
• Cornrows

Medium (4 - 8 inches) to long (8+ inches) length coily hair can be worn in all of the above styles plus: 

• Flat twists
• Twist Out
• Braid Out
• Curled Twists
• Curled Twist Out
• Curled Braid Out

Some things to keep in mind when choosing a style for your coily hair:

• Styles that work with your coil will last longer than styles that try to loosen you coil or make your hair look straighter.
• Try to find a style that allows you to wash you hair with out worry.
• If the style requires hours to achieve but the results only last a day or two it may be impractical.
• Styles that create other styles are double blessings.
• Try to find few styles that you can maintain yourself and that you think are nice. It is easy to fall back on chemicals when your hair is standing all over your head and you have no clue what to do with it and no one to do it for you.

Curly Hairstyles

If you have curly hair you have many options as well.  If your curls are the diameters of a pen or larger and pretty uniform all over you hair you can probably do the wash gel shake and go as well as many of styles mentioned above. 

Some things to keep in mind when choosing a style for your curly hair:

• Depending on the size of your curls braids and twist will look looser.  That is fine that is just what your hair does. 
• As your curls get bigger and the "s" shape gets longer. Some styles may not works as well but still can be done. Although a picked out afro could make your hair look like cotton candy a curly afro is very pretty.
• Extension may slip out of your hair easier, so if you want to get extension try to find someone who is accustomed working with curly hair or know different methods of anchoring hair.
• Your natural braided and twisted styles as well as styles with extension will start to get frizzy faster than coily hair.  It is very important to tie your hair up at night as well as when you pull things over your head to keep your braided or twisted to keep you hair looking neater longer.

Wavy Hairstyles

Wavy hair was made for wash and go since it doesn't change shape when it dries.  You can wear your hair braided and twisted but you will need to secure your ends with something to keep your hair from coming undone immediately.

Since your hair doesn't naturally coil and is usually resistant to curling, trying to make wavy hair behave like coily hair can be frustrating and will require a lot of time and products.  In the end it is always better to enjoy the styles that work with your hair.

Some things to keep in mind when choosing a style for your wavy hair:

• Extension will slip out of your hair easily, so if you want to get extension try to find someone who is accustomed working with wavy hair or know different methods of anchoring hair.
• Also braids, extension and natural hair have a shorter style life you may want to think twice before investing a lot of money in a style that may only last a weeks or two.
• If a style requires your hair to behave like another type it may be better to select different style.

May be you have found that you have more than one type of hair on your head. May be the back of your head is curly while the front is coily or maybe the back is coily and the top is wavy. Or maybe you are like me and have a little bit of everything.

The hair at my crown is wavy and soft. I have curls a little smaller than a pencil in various spots around my head and the back of my head is garden of coils.  When I would finish washing my hair the back would be close to my head and it would get longer and fuller as it went to the crown.

Finger coils and twist would look nice in part of my hair but no amount of gel or twisting would make it work in others. When I locked my hair half would be almost there while the other half was just deciding to begin. You get the idea. So if you have mixed types of hair I can completely empathize with you.

I have found that it best when choosing a hair style to try to keep in mind how the area that is  most resistant to the style will react and then style may hair accordingly.

For example when I would double twist my hair I would sometimes put black rubber bands on the ends of the areas of my hair that were wavy to keep them from coming undone.  When I would wear a loose natural, braid out or twist out, I would part pin and gel the front in a way that made the fact that some of my hair was coming undone look like it was planned.

If you have mixed type hair, you may find mapping your hair types helpful. If you can't feel the difference in textures have a friend look through your natural unprocessed hair and tell you what they find.  It might give you an answerer as to why some styles don't come out the way that you were hoping that they would.