5 Easy Tips to Make Shampooing Your Natural Hair a Breeze
Shampoo is designed to remove dirt, oil, and buildup. It has both lipophilic (oil loving) and hydrophilic (water loving) properties. The primary ingredient that does the cleaning work is surfactants.
After taking note of what we were doing to pretty much every client in the salon, we came up with The Wash Hour Process. The Wash Hour Process is comprised of 5-6 steps and can be completed in 30 to 90 minutes depending on your hair density, length and any treatments your hair needs.
The Wash Hour Process frequency should be determined by your unique Essential Elements. Frequency can range anywhere from every other day to every two weeks. These 5 shampoo tips listed below are sure to add some ease to your next wash hour session.
“The Essential Elements of Hair are the generally accepted principles (GAP) in the study of hair as understood by cosmetologists, dermatologists and lay people alike.”
Tip #1: Make sure your hair is completely saturated in water before adding shampoo
Before applying shampoo to your hair it is so important to saturate all your hair with water. Doing so ensures that you’re able to evenly distribute the shampoo through all of your strands.
Tip #2: Be sure to work with hair downward. No Herbal Essencing!
When working with shampoo on your natural hair, it is very important that your hair is hanging downward. Working with your hair in a downward fashion minimizes tangles and helps to reduce the overall time you spend with your hair. Please avoid working in a circular motion as this will add to your detangling time.
Tip #3: Start detangling in the shampoo
Detangle in the shampoo? Yes, gently detangling your hair with your fingers while shampooing has been a total game changer for our in-person and virtual clients over the years.
We have taught so many tight curl + natural clients how to incorporate this into their wash hour and it has saved them so much time and distress over “wash day.”
Tip #4: Agitate your scalp
Use the pads of your fingers to agitate your scalp. Doing so helps to remove the dirt oil, build up and whatever our skin has excreted since our last session.
Tip #5: Be sure to rinse out all the shampoo before adding conditioner
Shampoo has one job and that’s to cleanse our scalp and hair of oil, dirt, build up, whatever we’ve ingested and environmental debris.
When we rinse all those suds away, all of the gunk goes with it. We also don’t want to have a situation where the shampoo interferes with any other products we plan to use.
Want more shampoo tips along with specific recommendations of what type of shampoos to use? If so, we invite you to grab a copy of our digital guide—The Wash Your Damn Hair Styling & Product Guide.
This guide is a beginner-friendly resource for any tight curly + natural looking to simplify their hair care routines. It includes styling video tutorials demonstrated by licensed hair stylists, a robust curated product list from shampoos to stylers, our favorite product combinations to use on in-salon clients and much more!
We’d love to invite you to give our digital guide a try to help jumpstart your healthy hair care routine. Use the coupon code ELEVATE at checkout for $20 off your purchase.
