Source: mybrownbaby.blogspot.com

Healthy hair is always the way to go. However, sometimes women occasionally sacrifice the health of their hair for style. But there’s ways to achieve stylish hair dos without doing hair don’ts and comprising your healthy hair. Here’s some do’s and don’ts of achieving the following great styles and looks while maintaining healthy hair.

Color me Blonde
Coloring your hair can be a great way to switch up your look and add some spice. But it can also be one of the most damaging style choices, especially if you’re trying to go much lighter than your natural hair color. Whether relaxed or natural, using permanent color to dye your hair can be a treacherous deed, so why not try an alternative natural dye? Henna is a great option, as you can condition your hair while coloring. LUSH Cosmetics offers a great line of premixed natural henna blocks that are easy to mix down and are infused with cocoa butter and other natural moisturizing oils. If you want to go black, brown, blue-black or red, henna is an easy option. For lighter colors, you might have to do several henna treatments to gradually lighten your hair.

Braids/Weaves
Braids and weaves are instant style changers and can also help to protect your hair and even help it grow, but you have to be very careful with how you install your styles. Protect your edges! Try to keep minimal tension on your edges. If you are getting a weave, be careful with the braid pattern and how tight the braids are. Remember that hair is being sewn on top of the braids, which is going to further tighten and pull your hair. Too much tension can result in severe hair loss and partial baldness. Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia (CCCA) is a real disease that leads to baldness and scarring and can be caused by poorly installed weaves/braids (cc: Naomi Campbell). If you are going to a hair salon where they blow dry your hair before braiding, either ask to have your hair blow dried on low heat or do it yourself before arriving at the salon. This is especially true for naturals with a kinkier and more fragile hair type. Before heading to the braid shop, stretch your hair and then gently blow-dry your hair damp with a heat protectant to minimize breakage.

Going Straight
Want to turn your curly coils or wavy hair to straight? Rather than going straight for the blow dryer and flat iron, try a method that doesn’t require direct heat such as roller setting your hair. There’s all these fancy flat irons that promise to protect your hair with new technology, but ceramic, nano tourmaline, whatever, is still direct heat, and if done too frequently or at too high of a temperature, it can damage your hair. If you’re relaxed, roller setting is great because it’s easy to achieve and leaves you with full body hair. Siting under a hair dryer set at mid-temperature is a healthy option for your hair as opposed to reaching for a flat iron. If you have a kinkier natural hair texture, shrinkage is real and many combat that by regularly blow-drying their hair out (blow out). Unfortunately, that causes excessive breakage and halts hair growth. Trying no heat methods of stretching your hair, such as braiding or simply washing your hair in braids can work wonders and be good alternatives to constantly blow-drying your hair.

Jouelzy offers tutorials on all aspects of Black hair care via her YouTube channel, focusing on women with tight budgets. You can also find her daily hair tips and inspirations on Facebook.

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By Chrissi J

There are 7 general different types of face shapes. This is a guide for both natural hairstyles as well as relaxed (and possibly weave-a-licious) that will suit you, with the help of examples from my clients and celebs…

1. Oval Face- length equal to one and a half times width

Most styles are suitable for someone with an oval face. The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is a straight down bang with your style. A straight bang will hide most of your face and isn’t flattering. One of my favorite styles for an oval face is an updo. Updos will show your face off and make you look glamorous. Plus, they’re pretty good to wear for a lasting style to go for a few days. If you wear your hair down, just try to keep it swept away from your face.

Instead of who’s that girl, I’m really wondering, where is that girl? Eve has been on MIA mode for a while, but when she pops back up on the scene on red carpets for swanky events, her hair is always different. And on top of being different, her ‘dos are usually the most intriguing and vivid points of her whole look. From really short firetruck red pixie cuts to Goldilocks braids, Eve’s hairstyles are as versatile as her rhymes (which I’m waiting to hear again…). So check out her looks that have been winners and losers over the years. It might “Blow ya mind!” Get it? No?

The title of an article published on USA Today today says, “‘Natural hair’ is making waves among black women.” Well, of course. If you look around you these days, so many more women are coming out of their homes with large eclectic afros, locks of all colors, TWAs that they proudly boast, braids, twists and pressed hair that have reached new and exciting links. The proof is in the pudding, and now it seems to be in statistical form.

The hair-care company, Design Essentials, started a study in 2010 to measure the popularity of natural hair. While the number of women who ditched relaxed hair was 26 percent in 2010, it has jumped up big time with a 10 percent increase hitting 36 percent for 2011. According to USA Today and Mintel, a consumer spending and market research firm, relaxer kit sales have also dropped by nearly 17 percent since 2006.  “Natural hair has been a movement for several years. What we’re seeing now is a confirmation that this is a lifestyle that is very important to a lot of women,” says Cyntelia Abrams, a marketing coordinator for Design Essentials.

There definitely seems to be an appeal in going natural these days. This might have to do with the money and time some women are saving by decreasing their salon visits, and from the comfort of knowing that whatever amazing or crazy things their hair may be doing everyday, there’s something fab about knowing that it’s all from their own scalp. And let’s not even get started on the rain benefits…I think all hair is beautiful (no pressure, do your thing), and I realize that natural hair isn’t the way most women are necessarily trying to go (yet), but it’s nice to hear that women are embracing their own strands one day at a time. I can only imagine that numbers are going to continue to increase as the years go by. I see 50 percent for 2012 easily!

Do you feel like you’re seeing a huge increase in natural-haired women as you move around? 

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