Me and Deep Conditioning
When I was permed, I only remember once or twice that my beautitian deep conditioned my hair. When she put conditioner in after shampooing, she would let it sit for a minute or two, but only once or twice did she actually put me under the dryer for a DC. The only time I heard people even mention deep conditioning was when someone had severely damaged hair, like edges that were thinning or hair that was falling out. I came to the conclusion that that was the only time you used one. It was not until I came into “the natural hair world” that I found out it was use for general upkeep of healthy hair! Blew me away.
When I Big Chopped, I deep conditioned every week. My hair needed it because my hair looked “wiry” (as a stranger called it). It was dry. After wetting my hair daily and a couple of rounds of deep conditioning, it felt softer and looked better. Ringlets started to come through! The benefits of DC’ing were noticeable almost instantly.
Now, 4 months in, I deep condition every other week, but my hair doesn’t feel as vastly different after DC’ing like it did since the initial turn around from my BC, no matter the method, dry or wet, 10 mins or overnight. It has stayed very soft and manageable. My thinking is that I don’t get those same raving results is because my hair is seemingly never without moisture, now-a-days, as I wash and go so much. With my routine, I am constantly introducing water to my hair under the shower head, and I use water based products. My leave in’s (whether a cream, custard, a regular leave in conditioner, or a deep conditioner that I use as a leave in, such as Curl Junkie Curl Rehab) are rich in oils and extracts in addition to being water based. Actually… thinking about it, I’m essentially deep conditioning all the time! I just figured it out! Eu-flipping-reka! I’ve been keeping my hair a its optimum moisture level consistently by using quality conditioners with great moisturizing capabilities and my hair has shown out! And maybe that’s why after deep conditioning, I don’t feel these miraculous everyone talks about.
I’m not saying that deep conditioning isn’t beneficial to my hair. NOT AT ALL. But I can see that if I was one to style my hair once a week, like in a braidout or twistout (which I have yet to do) and maintained it or other protective styles for any length of time, I would imagine the moisture levels of the hair dramatically faltering and a good DCing yielding immediately noticeable results.
I do deep condition every other week on shampoo day using Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Conditioner in the dry formula. I love the ingredients and it has a heavier thicker consistency than my regular everyday rinse out’s and leave in’s. I get tons of slip in my ‘everydays’, but I only choose to finger comb my hair with them in the shower (this is where I do my hair, I don’t have to actually be in the shower to finger comb using these products, though). But when it comes to a thorough detangle using a comb (which I do every other week after shampooing), I LOVE the AO coupled with EVOO.
I’ll continue doing my DC on a regular basis with the purpose of giving my hair the nutrition it needs to grow up big and strong. I might not feel a whole lot of difference, but maybe that’s a good thing; maybe that means I’ve been keeping my hair at its paramount? Who knows, I just know it feels good at the moment and it’s growing from what they tell me.
Until next time…
Curls and Lipstick 