Bonding With My Daughter While Caring for Her Hair

It's Saturday evening and that means my daughter, Arsema, and I are getting ready for our weekly hair sessions. After a warm bath full of giggles and a lot of splashes (because Daddy gives the baths) we head down to the living room armed with creams, combs, clips, and hair ties. I grab the remote and let her choose a movie. This week it's Mary Poppins - something I'll enjoy too.
As I start the movie I open the laptop to show Arsema the pinterest board I made full of hair style ideas and she scrolls through the pictures while I detangle her hair. Once she chooses her style we rub a curl cream into her hair together before I start making parts and putting in clips. She watches the movie and munches on a snack with her ankles crossed, sitting quietly.

As the white mother of a beautiful black daughter, hair care has been a steep learning curve for me. I want my daughter to love her hair and be proud of the springy black curls that cover her head. I want to be able to care for and style her hair in a way shows I understand that her hair is different and I celebrate her unique beauty.
So I reach out to my friends of color to ask questions. I research and watch YouTube videos and learn. While I already knew how to do braids and pigtails I expand my technique to include cornrows, twists (flat and rope), and terms like "co-wash" and "protective style" and "sleep caps" and "twist out."

When she was just 8 months old I started looking for ways to style her hair, make it fun, and help her learn to sit for an extended length of time. We started with two little puffs and eventually worked our way up to braids. At first I would get one row in before she'd crawl away to something more interesting. I'd wait a few minutes and bring her back for another row. Her style took took ten times longer that way but we giggled, played, and snuggled our way through it. By not getting frustrated or forcing her to sit longer than she was able we kept it a positive experience.
Learning about my daughter's hair has been meaningful and fun, but the true gift has been our weekly hair sessions. Every week for an hour or two we bond and continue to create a special mother-daughter relationship. She loves being involved in the process by choosing her own style off the pinterest board. We chat and sing songs and talk about the movie while I work. We take breaks every so often to wiggle and giggle and hug. She has my undivided attention while I put in the time to invest in her.

The style is finished and she runs to the mirror to inspect my work. A huge smile spreads across her face as she turns her head to the left and right to see every angle. She reaches up to softly feel the braids and turns around to grin at me. "You are so beautiful!" I tell her and she nods, agreeing. Day by day, week by week I try teach her positive body image.

I'm not an expert by any means - my parts aren't always straight and my braids aren't perfect. Someday she may ask to go to a professional and that's okay. For now, I'm soaking up each weekly session. These moments are precious to me because they are regular opportunities to bond with my daughter, show her that she's worth my investment, and reinforce in her heart that she is important, beautiful, and unique.

Source: http://community.today.com/parentingteam/post/bonding-with-my-daughter-through-caring-for-her-hair

Doing it yourself hair care tips

 If you have ever though of doing it yourself hair care tips, it centers more on home remedies or solutions that do not take time to prepare. We do not have to live our hair un kept. We should take proper care of our hair just as we do to our skin. Hair is also as important as the skin. You do not have to expose your hair to

unnecessary chemical hardship and conditions. It is important you take a good care of your hair to avoid being bald and damaged. To get an insight of getting used to hair care tips continue reading.

Before you can apply any of the homemade hair care tips, you will need to know first the type of the hair, whether oily, dry, long, short or normal. The knowledge of this will assist you to know the hair care products to apply. If you are a person whose hair is normal, you will need to wash your hair two times in a week using mild hair conditional and shampoo. Dry with towel lightly and blow dry for a minimum of 5 inches apart. For the oily type of hair, wash more often so that it can help the hair to be less oily and look glow and cleaner. We recommend that you do not scrub the hair too hard when washing your hair to avoid damage to the follicles. The follicle is very delicate especially when you are carrying oily hair.

As for those with dry hair, wash them twice in every week and apply shampoo and conditioner. If you have dry and flaky type of hair, always apply anti-dandruff shampoo. Try all means to avoid the use of styling hair products to tame the frizziest of your hair as this will make the root of the hair to secrete inadequate flow of sebum oil. Give your hair a massage of oil before you wash to assist loosens the flakes.

For more homemade hair care tips, read on:

For hair care tips for long hair, ensure you do not pile up your hair on your head when you are washing your hair using shampoo for it will result to tangling of the hair leading to more breakage.

To get great glowing and shining result on your hair, adopt homemade hair care tips like adding lemon when rising the final one. Also, observe the hair care tips as discussed previously. Wash you hair every other day to avoid damage and breaking. The hair should be properly washed and oiled to prevent lodgement of dirt in the hair surface and this will cause dandruff and some other skin related problems that sometime spread to you face, chest area and back.

For chemically colored hair, use henna conditioner. Add two egg yolks, small quantity of water and milk to make the hair soft and easily managed for least ones in a month.

Using a home made conditioner mixture of vinegar, egg yolks, water, honey and curds can be very nice for the hair. This mixture should be applied at least one hr before you rinse.