HAIR IN ST. LUCIA

By Emile Williams Phaze 1

Caring For Afro Hair: Highlights

In Cleopatra ‘s day dark hair was the rage. However, colouring hair today is more diverse and popular with the range of shades of manufacture labels to choose, from the bluest black to the whitest silver.

It is estimated, that 70% of women and 12% of men will colour their hair at some stage in life.

Afro hair is a hair type associated with people of colour, African decent or black hair.

Hair is given its colour by the formation of melanin – pigment granules in the hair follicle. Black hair is not necessarily truly black but rather a combination of black and red pigment, giving shades from almost true black through to dark brown and auburn.

According to doctor Philip Kingsley from the London clinic of Tricology, 40 per cent of black women have black hair to near black, about 50 per cent have dark brown and 5- 10 per cent have auburn shades.

This is why the hair stylist must always give the client a full consultation to establish the natural base or shade of the client before applying colour to hair.

When colouring this hair type it is therefore very important to choose hue of reds copper red, light browns, light auburns and copper, as they require very little lift from the natural pigment of the hair. Afro hair because of its twisted configuration and thin diameter this twisting variation can cause weakening along each hair. There is the tendency by some hair stylist to bleach the pigment out of Afro hair and hope for the best. This sometimes give the appearance of varying hues of orange which often is complete out of sink with the persons skin tone. This is destructive not only because Afro hair is weaker than it appears, it sometimes has other chemicals in it and its natural shade may not be black.

Colouring hair has had an undeserved bad reputation, because of the lack of education and ignoring the manufacture’s instructions. Some of the concerns are, colour will make your hair fall out, or colour dries my hair out, or colour will affect my scalp.

CARE: Frequent conditioning treatment is a must, because not only does the sun strip the hair, working in air conditioning offices, salt water and chlorinated water all damage, the hair. A two weekly visits to your salon either for a protein treatment or moisture to strengthen and protect the hair shaft is required.

Here’s what to do at home for your own treatment:

2 eggs, 2oz double cream, 1oz castor oil, 1 oz melted unsalted butter, 1 oz purified water, juice of half grapefruit. If this proves too much Hergen has a good leave in conditioner.