There are plenty of ways to treat your coils with tender loving care during all steps of your hair care routine. All the little improvements we make at each step contribute to the overall health of our hair and to maintaining and growing that big afro. Healthy hair will grow sky high! Here are three ways to gently dry your coils after you’ve cleansed, conditioned and detangled.
1. Shake or squeeze
Think of your hair like a sponge. There’s more water hiding in there than it seems, so a quick shake or gentle squeeze along the length of your hair can remove the excess moisture from your coils. Since your hair won’t be sopping wet, you’ll spend less time with a blowdryer in hand (if that’s your lifestyle”> or less time walking around with wet hair.
2. Swap that towel for a T-shirt
The cotton/polyester towels we use to dry our bodies aren’t the best way to gently dry our coils. First, they’re so fluffy and absorbent that they quickly suck much-needed moisture from our hair. Second, the fiber is rough and can snag on our coils, especially if you rub the towel back and forth over your head. Trade in the towel for an old t-shirt or a microfiber towel and squeeze firmly and gently, but don’t rub, to remove excess moisture from your hair. A t-shirt is absorbent enough to dry your hair, but thin and gentle enough to avoid snags. Microfiber towels are absorbent, but their surface is not abrasive to hair.
3. Need heat? Use a diffuser
If airdrying your hair isn’t an option and you have to use heat, try attaching a diffuser head to your blow dryer. Instead of harsh, direct heat, the diffuser will spread the hot air to a bigger surface area. The force of a normal blowdryer also moves your coils around and can disturb the curl pattern if you’re going for a defined wash and go look. You should also use medium or low heat setting to avoid heat damage.
Anything you’d like to add? How do you gently dry your coils?
