Incorporating Oil Rinses Into Your Regimen For the Drier Months.

The winds are about to change on us (actually they ought to have changed by now but not sure why the rains have persisted) so it's a good time to switch up a few things in our hair regimens to address the extra dryness that is bound to occur. Knowing that our hair already tends to dryness, it is verrrryyy important to try and prevent any additional dryness before you end up with a head full of straw like strands!

Oil rinsing is really just adding some oil to your hair in between the shampoo and conditioner stage and trust me it is one of the best things you can do to aid moisture retention and detangling of your hair.

 I had an 'Aha' moment in the salon one day while working with a client's uber dry and knotty hair. I decided to do an oil rinse by applying oil to her hair before applying the conditioner and for added measure when I had rinsed out her hair, I used the LOC method (Liquid, Oil and Conditioner) and it was a breeze detangling her really really thick hair. Transitioners can also benefit from oil rinsing too because it makes detangling the 2 textures much easier.

Now, the type of oil you use is extremely important as this will determine whether moisture is sealed deep within the hair strand or not. The best oil to use is one that actually penetrates through the hair shaft, helping to bind the moisture (water) that's in the hair upon rinsing out your shampoo.

I've spoken before about the 3 oils that penetrate the hair's shaft - Olive, Coconut and Avocado and any of of these (or a combination of 2 ore all 3) will be the best oil to use when doing an oil rinse. These oils will penetrate the hair shaft, sealing moisture deep within thus enabling your hair to hold on to moisture for longer.

It's pretty easy - shampoo your hair, rinse thoroughly, apply your mix of oils, then conditioner and allow to sit for upwards of 10 mins before rinsing out.

I typically would mix my oils in my conditioner and then use heat or use the oils first as illustrated above and still use heat. However if you're doing a quick shower rinse then you can go ahead, cover your hair with a shower cap, get your other showering business out of the way (shaving, singing, day dreaming etc lol) and finish up with a nice rinse.

The benefits of an oil rinse are pretty cool:

1. Detangling is much easier
2. Moisture retention is enhanced
3. Hair feels smoother and softer
4. Increased shine
5. Those irritating single strand knots are decreased

You can't go wrong!

I'll be doing a Tweetchat on Thursday the 27th of November at 9pm (Nigerian Time) and I'll be talking about Building a good regimen for Harmattan. I think I'll probably do a post on that after it's done so that all the information I'll be sharing will be in one organized blog post.

If you can, log on to Twitter - my handle is @klsnaturals and the tweetchat is being hosted by @LumoNaturals (Hash tag is #lumotweetchat)

See you there!