Am I Damaging My Hair

Hi Nina,

I have been natural for a little over a year. My hair is not very long - it comes to about the bottom of my ear. When I wear wash and go hairstyles I get a lot of shrinkage so that I am left with a TWA. For the past couple of weeks I have been wearing a flat-twist out.

I am concerned if my nighttime regime is good for my hair. I re-twist my hair each night after applying a leave-in conditioner and 100% natural shea butter. My question is it ok to do this each evening. My hair is not long enough at this point to do a lot of the protective styling that your website mentions. My hair is also not long enough for me to sport twists only pulled back into a pony tail. I would welcome any and all suggestions from products that I could try to suggestions on what I could do at bedtime.

My main priority is to get healthy hair, length would be great but not my main concern. I also read your list on how to tell if your hair is healthy and I was wondering if this list is also the same for tightly kinky/coily hair.

I'm pretty obsessive about my hair so I will probably be writing you again. Where I live there are very few women who are wearing their hair natural so this has been a challenge for me, but I'm committed to doing this.

Thanks in advance for your help.


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Nina's Response

Hi there,

The routine that you're doing at night sounds perfectly fine. In fact, I think you're giving your hair lots of good moisture with this method. And you're right to focus on the health of your hair first.

You should be able to follow the same guidelines for determining the health of your hair. Lots of breaking or shedding can happen whether your hair is curly or kinky!

Keep up the good work. It sounds like you are doing everything right. It just takes time in order to see progress. Before you know it, your hair will be longer and very healthy!