How to Care for Natural Hair in a Dry Climate
If you live in a dry area, you might be totally confused about how to care for natural hair in a dry climate. All hair behaves differently depending on the weather and other factors.
Listening to YouTube vloggers can easily steer you in the wrong direction since their advice tends to be for their own hair. It’s not enough to follow your curl twin when you’re trying to create a good regimen.
And sometimes, it’s not about your hair at all. Rather, it’s about the climate in which you live. Humidity can make a huge difference in your routine.
Even if you’re only traveling to a dry climate (like Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon), you’re going to want to know how your hair will react to the weather.
In this post, you'll find the best ways to care for your hair in a dry climate. If you want to avoid breakage and damage that can happen in a dry climate, read on!
Check Out the Humidity Percentage
First thing’s first. You need to know exactly how dry your city is before you start following any of the advice in this post. If you’re unsure whether your city is dry, just have a look at the weather report.
Humidity is defined by how much moisture there is in the air. Every day, your city’s humidity level changes, and it gets listed alongside the temperature, usually in smaller writing.
Most of us are in the habit of looking at the temperature when we check the weather report. Hot and cold does make a difference, but the humidity level plays a huge role in how dry your hair is going to react on any given day.
Water constitutes a major part of your body and hair. The average human body contains about 60% water and a hair strand contains 10 to 13%.
When the air around you are dryer than you are, you’ll start to feel your skin and hair becoming dryer and more brittle. The air is looking to your body and hair to feed it moisture.
If you live in a city that gets down below 40% humidity, your hair and skin are bound to be affected. You’ll need to drink more water and apply more of it to your skin and hair to beat the dryness.
How to Moisturize Curly Natural Hair in a Dry Climate
So, you’ve just found out you live in a very dry climate and your hair is so brittle that your ends are starting to break.
How do you keep your hair hydrated and moisturized? Here’s a list of helpful things to do if you’re in a dry climate, where the humidity level often dips below 40%:
Cleanse Your Hair Once Per Week. Make sure you wash your hair at least once per week to remove product buildup and to allow water and high-moisture products to work their magic.
Use a Water Spray Bottle. Spray your hair with water every day. This may seem obvious, but keeping a spray bottle on hand in your bathroom is a good way to make sure your hair doesn’t get parched between wash days.
A spray is not as hydrating as letting the water completely saturate your head in the shower, but it will help. You can also add a couple tablespoons of Mango Moringa Moisture Max Conditioner to your spray bottle to make a leave-in conditioner.
Use Moisturizing Products. Avoid products that make the situation worse. Use high-moisture products like SwirlyCurly's Mango Moringa Moisture Max System to ensure your hair stay moisturized throughout the dry weather.
Add a Co-Wash or Rice Water Rinse. If your hair is still dry after washing once every seven days and using a water spray bottle, try adding a mid-week cowash or rice water rinse to your regimen so you can get your hair completely saturated in the shower more than once per week.
Drink More Water. Drinking enough water is a good way to create healthier and more lustrous hair. Your body produces better hair when it’s hydrated. Most experts recommend drinking about 8-12 cups of water per day.
However, 12 cups may not be enough if you live in a climate where the atmosphere is constantly leaching water from your body. Particularly in hot and dry summers, you’ll want to up your water intake to 3-4 cups every two hours.
Skip excessive oils. Moisture comes from water, not oils. When you live in a dry environment, you need all the water you can get. Think about this: When you’re stranded in the middle of a desert, you’re reaching for the water, not the bottle of oil, right?
It’s true that oils will help to seal in moisture, but that method only works if you have a lot of water in your atmosphere and you don’t need to constantly re-hydrate your hair.
Once you add water to your hair several times per week (and you do need to do this if you reside in a dry climate), you won’t want anything blocking your way and limiting the water’s chance of reaching the hair shaft.
What About Using Glycerin on Natural Hair in a Dry Climate?
You’ll probably have a question or two about glycerin if you’re in a dry climate. Glycerin is a known humectant that can draw water from the air and into your hair.
But, if your city’s air has little humidity, then the opposite holds true. A bottle of pure glycerin will take the water from your hair and distribute it into the air.
Glycerin can work with climates that are not too dry or too humid. This is why using glycerin works great for some people and is horrific for others.
Being in a dry climate, you probably won’t have much use for an entire bottle of glycerin. However, if you notice that glycerin is listed as an ingredient in one of your favorite products, just make sure the product contains water too.
Water-based products will give your hair the moisture it needs.
Dry climates don’t have to be a bad thing if you have curly natural hair. After all, you’ll probably enjoy being able to hold your curl defintion and styles longer since there’s very little humidity in the air.
However, make sure you add lots of water to your routine daily and follow the above tips to keep your curls soft and luscious.
Whether you're in a dry climate or a humid environment, you're going to want to make sure your curly natural hair is healthy and moisturized.
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