If You Have Dry Gray Natural Hair Try This!!
Why is gray hair dryer?
Do you notice your hair is drier since it is gray? Gray hair tends to be dryer than pigmented hair because the loss of melanin also means loss of sebum or oil to keep hair moisturized. If you are gray AND natural you have more reason for dryness with your gray hair because kinkier hair has a harder time for the sebum from the scalp to reach the whole shaft of the hair. All the more reason to try to do a pre-poo treatment to help keep your gray hair moisturized.
What is a pre-poo?
It is what you do to your hair BEFORE you apply shampoo to your hair.
Why do I need to pre-poo?
Pre-poo has many benefits.
1. Pre pooing helps to reduce hygral fatigue. Hygral fatigue occurs when the hair swells from repeated and excessive swelling and deswelling of the hair cuticle when it takes on water. This article goes into more detail about hygral fatigue and the signs that your hair has it.
Gray hair is more porous than pigmented hair so helping our gray hair to take on less water will help our cuticles. When they are lifted too much from the swelling of water it can damage hair. So water is the best way to add moisture but we have to be careful because too much of a good thing can be bad for our hair.
2. The second benefit is especially for those with gray natural hair. A game-changer for me when I went natural is detangling BEFORE I shampoo my hair. Using a pre-poo to help detangle my hair before shampooing helps wash day to be a lot smoother. When you have natural hair especially type 4 tighter curls detangling is your friend and helps with length retention.
3. The third benefit of pre-pooping is that it helps to reduce breakage which in turn helps retain length.
Do you pre-poo on wet or dry hair?
Since we are trying to reduce moisture loss it is better to do pre-poo on dry hair. So it is ok to do a pre-poo on dirty hair.
What can you use as a pre-poo?
Our hair prefers oils over water. What oils are the most penetrating?
Penetrating Oils that help reach the hair cuticle:
Babassu Oil
Coconut oil
Do you remember V05 Hot oil treatment? When my hair was relaxed I used it a lot. A tip for using your oil is to warm it before applying. It is an amazing detangler.
Greek yogurt
Aloe Vera
Conditioner
Pre poos
How do you pre-poo?
Here are four different ways I pre-poo my hair. Watch here.
I do these methods on dry dirty hair before I shampoo.
One method with greek yogurt I learned from the lovely Naptural85
My new favorite detangler for my hair is from Nature’s Little Secret. You can see how I compare using this detangler and my favorite conditioner. Nature’s Little Secret won the battle because of the ingredients like Irish moss and slippery elm which are amazing for slip when detangling.
How often do I pre-poo?
As often as you wash your hair you can pre-poo. Especially if you have high porosity hair pre-poo is worth the effort to add to your routine.
Do you pre-poo? If so, what do you use to pre-poo? Let me know in the comments.
Remember to love and accept the wings you have been given. 🦋
