Learn how to effectively use shea butter to moisturize your hair

Shea butter is an ivory coloured fat extracted from the nuts of the shea tree. It is used widely in cosmetics as a moisturizer and sometimes used in the chocolate industry as a substitute for cocoa butter.

The use of shea butter has increased in popularity in the last few years with the increase in demand for more natural products for black curly hair types. Although its popularity in the west has only increased in recent years, in some parts of Africa it has been used for hundreds of years!

The best shea butter to use is the unrefined kind as all its healing properties are still intact. The refining process apart from adding different chemicals to the shea butter raises the temperature to about 400 degrees F which makes it lose some of its healing properties. Unrefined shea butter comes in blocks or can be bought already packed in jars. It is odourless if 100% pure or can be bought ready fragranced with essential oils.

Using it on the hair can be in a variety of ways.

• You can apply it straight to damp hair. It tends to be a bit hard in its natural state but will readily melt and be absorbed when it comes in contact with the skin or hair.

• You can also make shea butter easier to apply. Place the shea butter in a double boiler and melt it on a low heat. Add a natural oil to the shea butter e.g. extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil and stir until thoroughly mixed. The natural oil should make up about ¼ the volume of the shea butter. Pour the mixture back into a jar. Due to the addition of the olive oil, the shea butter will remain relatively soft when completely cooled and set and is easier to apply to the hair.

• Another way of using shea butter is to whip it with a few other natural ingredients and essential oils to make a homemade butter. A simple recipe is below.

Shea butter crème

1. 4 tablespoons shea butter
2. 2 tablespoon cocoa butter
3. 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4. A few drops of your favourite essential oil for fragrance

Melt the shea butter and cocoa butter in a double boiler over a low heat until melted and add the olive oil. Pour the oils into a bowl and at this point, add a few drops of the essential oil for fragrance. Put your bowl over another bowl filled with ice to allow the oils to set faster. Whisk vigorously until the mixture is light and fluffy (you may want to use an electric hand whisk for this. Spoon into a jar and enjoy!

This recipe makes an excellent hair moisturizer and sealer for both natural and relaxed black hair. It also makes a wonderful body butter! See the article on how to choose a moisturizer.

What to look for in a moisturizer and what ingredients to avoid

Moisturizing hair is as important as deep conditioning to any black person who wishes to have long hair. As washing and deep conditioning the hair every day is quite impractical, a hair moisturizer is required to avoid dryness until the next wash.

Relaxed and natural black hair tends to be quite porous so loses moisture quickly. The key to long beautiful locks is to keep replacing the moisture lost. The easiest way to do this between washes is to use a good moisturizer.

First things first, let’s deal with a common misconception about oil. Oil is not a moisturizer! Oil lubricates the hair and ‘seals in’ any moisture you already have in the hair. If your hair is dry and brittle and you apply oil to it then you are doing your hair more harm than good. The oil will coat the hair and prevent any further moisture from entering the hair which will lead to breakage.

The best moisturizers should always be water based i.e. the first ingredient should be water; water is in fact the best moisturizer! Good moisturizers should also contain humectants. These are ingredients which attract water from the atmosphere, glycerine being the most popular of these. Honey is also an excellent humectant but more commonly used in conditioners and not moisturizers.

Always avoid moisturizers that contain mineral oil or any other petroleum based product in the first few ingredients. Mineral oil does nothing but coat the hair leaving it shiny but dry.

You may find that the best conditioners are the ones that are marketed to ‘wet type’ styles (jheri curl or wave nouveau) as they contain mainly water and glycerine. S curl is particularly good.

How to use hair moisturizers is just as important as getting the right product. If you plan to blow dry or roller set your hair, after towel drying apply a dime sized amount of a water and glycerine based moisturizer before you apply the same amount of heat protectant and comb through hair to evenly distribute. After the blow dry or roller set your hair will be left soft and silky to the touch and will remain like this throughout the day. If you plan to flat iron it then only apply leave in conditioner and a silicone based heat protectant to the hair. See the article on how to get movement in relaxed hair.

Moisturizers should then be applied daily or as needed. Only a dime sized amount is required for shoulder length hair. A touch more for longer hair. Always comb the moisturiser through the length of the hair with a wide tooth comb to make sure that every strand gets its share. You can apply a bit more to the ends if desired. There is no benefit in loading your hair with moisturizer as hair is only about 10-14% water and all you are trying to do is regain the moisture balance in your hair. You are more likely to ruin your style by leaving relaxed hair looking greasy or reverting natural hair altogether by applying too much moisturizer! When you use a moisturizer well, it should keep your hair from drying out without weighing the hair down or being sticky.

Oil free moisturizers are also good option. They contain silicones that help ‘seal’ the moisture into the hair but their first ingredient must also be water and hair should be washed every 3rd day to prevent build-up. Some good examples of natural oil that can be used to seal in moisture after a wash are coconut oil, avocado butter, mango butter or Shea butter. Remember that these are oils and will just lock in whatever moisture you already have in your hair. It is advisable to dampen the hair slightly before applying any hair oil to it.

So coconut oil has been making the rounds in the good health community for a good few years now. This yummy healthy fat is extracted from the kernel or meat of matured coconut harvested from the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). Throughout the tropical world it has provided the primary source of fat in the diets of millions of people for generations and not the nasty omega 6 heavy vegetable oils you get in the supermakets these days (yes I’m sorry but rapseed oil ain’t food!).

What does this have to do with hair care? Well it’s no secret that coconut oil has been hyped as an excellent hair oil for eons but what makes it different from any other oil is the fact that coconut oil is a triglyceride of lauric acid. It has a high affinity for hair proteins and, because of its low molecular weight and straight linear chain, is able to penetrate inside the hair shaft. This is why you will hear it occasionally described (in hair care) as the only moisturizing oil. That’s not strictly accurate as the word moisture would imply the presence of water so it would be better described as the best conditioning oil.

Here is a study comparing the effect of mineral oil sunflower oil and coconut oil on the prevention of hair damage.

Previously published results showed that both in vitro and in vivo coconut oil (CNO) treatments prevented combing damage of various hair types.

Using the same methodology, an attempt was made to study the properties of mineral oil and sunflower oil on hair. Mineral oil (MO) was selected because it is extensively used in hair oil formulations in India, because it is non-greasy in nature, and because it is cheaper than vegetable oils like coconut and sunflower oils. The study was extended to sunflower oil (SFO) because it is the second most utilized base oil in the hair oil industry on account of its non-freezing property and its odorlessness at ambient temperature.

As the aim was to cover different treatments, and the effect of these treatments on various hair types using the above oils, the number of experiments to be conducted was a very high number and a technique termed as the Taguchi Design of Experimentation was used. The findings clearly indicate the strong impact that coconut oil application has to hair as compared to application of both sunflower and mineral oils.

 

Among three oils, coconut oil was the only oil found to reduce the protein loss remarkably for both undamaged and damaged hair when used as a pre-wash and post-wash grooming product. Both sunflower and mineral oils do not help at all in reducing the protein loss from hair. This difference in results could arise from the composition of each of these oils. Coconut oil, being a triglyceride of lauric acid (principal fatty acid), has a high affinity for hair proteins and, because of its low molecular weight and straight linear chain, is able to penetrate inside the hair shaft. Mineral oil, being a hydrocarbon, has no affinity for proteins and therefore is not able to penetrate and yield better results.

In the case of sunflower oil, although it is a triglyceride of linoleic acid, because of its bulky structure due to the presence of double bonds, it does not penetrate the fiber, consequently resulting in no favorable impact on protein loss.

With black hair we already have enough to deal with in terms of loss of moisture and breakage, loss of protein is not something I want to be worrying about so I happily use coconut oil both for sauteeing my vegetables and in my hair as a prepoo or before blowdrying. Go for pure unrefined virgin coconut oil brands that are not hydrogenated. Coconut oil should have a mild sweet coconutty scent and tastes absolutely marvellous (I make a mean coconut oil and cream cheese icing for cupcakes!).

You can find unrefined coconut oil in some health food shops and a few supermarkets. Here’s where you can find it online:

Where to buy Coconut Oil

The Baggy Method Defined
Put simply the baggy method is a technique used to lock in moisture for an extended period of time using conditioner, oil and a plastic cap or bag. Baggying can be done on the entire head or it can be done on a ponytail.

In unusually cold weather hair may tend to feel super dry, un-moisturized and tangled. If you shampoo but bypass your normal deep conditioning routine opting for a quick wash out conditioner, the harsh winter weather will not give your hair the chance to retain any moisture. To rectify this situation you could opt for a quick co-wash in the morning however I baggying which is what I used to do when I first went natural can be quite as effective.

Here’s how I do the baggy method; below is a pic of my hair before starting the baggy process – Hot mess!

I decided not to apply the conditioner to my whole head but rather to proceed with doing it on two ponytails.

You will need:

1.) Two sandwich bags/conditioner caps – Or however many depending on how many ponytails you decide to have
2.) Your favorite moisturizing conditioner: I used my Lekair Cholesterol
3.) Oil – I used Castor Oil
4.) Goodie Hair bands
5.) Water

My process

-I separated my hair into two ponytails ensuring that the top half of my hair is moisturized and spritzed each ponytail with water. No need to have it dripping wet but damp. By separating my hair into two I could cover more of my hair with conditioner in comparison to just having one ponytail.
-I applied the conditioner liberally, I am very heavy handed!
-I applied my castor oil on top to seal in the moisture.
-I twisted my hair into messy bun of sorts and then used the small sandwich bags to cover each pony tail securing the bag with a goodie hair band as shown below:

  
-In the morning your hair like mine should feel super moisturized. The next step would be to co wash your entire head in order to get the excess conditioner out.

This method works wonders on my hair and I would recommend it whether your hair is natural or relaxed. If it’s cold, using double or triple ponytails will allow you to give the benefit of baggying more of your hair without the discomfort of having to wet your entire head, especially when leaving the bag on overnight.

I’ve heard it said that with boar bristle brushes, you either love em or hate em. If you are one of those who hate them, then you are using it wrong. First things first, a boar bristle brush is as it sounds made from the hair of a wild boar/hog. There are synthetic versions too but since the plastic used for the bristles are not absorbent, they won’t have the superior ability to spread your hair’s natural oils as effectively as the authentic tool.

They come in all price ranges from suspiciously cheap to outrageously expensive but you should be able to get a pretty good one online or at  you local BSS without breaking the bank. An easy way to tell if you have a good boar bristle brush is to run the palm of your hand over the bristles quite firmly to see if you lose any fibres. If you do, then it’s not worth your money!

The most important thing to remember about a boar bristle brush is that it is NOT a detangling tool. Whether you are relaxed or natural, whether your hair is it’s natural curly state, or straightened, trying to use this brush to detangle black hair will always end in breakage. A boar bristle brush should only be used during the styling process or to work product into your ends (in certain situations) but not much else.  Once you understand those limitations however the brush may just end up being a firm favorite in your healthy hair journey.

Styling

First and foremost you should never use the brush from root to tip. People with naturally straight hair may benefit from using the brush this way but African American hair is way too fragile for this kind of manipulation. You should think of the brush as a tool to help you smooth your hair and to get a polished neat look to your styles. Think, smoothing ponytails if your hair is being worn straight or working in gel into your edges and hair when you are slicking it into a puff or bun.

There is minimal risk of breakage when using the brush to slick your edges and any natural headed sister will tell you that no other brush can lay your edges down like a boar bristle brush!

Working Product Into Your Ends

Unfortunately this does not apply if your hair is being worn in it’s natural state. You may already know that when your hair is dry and in it’s natural state, you have no business manipulating it! If you are wearing your hair straight on the other hand, you will find this brush indispensable during your nightly grooming process.

After applying your water based moisturizer (I use S Curl) and smoothing it with your fingers over the bottom couple of inches of your hair, a couple of  light swipes with the boar bristle brush will ensure complete coverage of each strand. Repeat the process with a couple of drops of your favorite oil to seal (I favor coconut or castor oil) and your dry ends will be restored to shiny smooth sleekness.

The pictures below show how effective a boar bristle brush is at distributing product through the hair strands.