Black Hair Care Products

I’ve always been a low-maintenance-hair kind of girl. Even in the big-hair 80’s when friends were getting up at 5 a.m. just to perfect their ’do’s’, I would come to school with hair still damp. These days easy is still important to me. My hair cuts have to pass two criteria: long enough for a pony-tail, and short enough that it dries fairly quickly. But these days I also have two Ethiopian daughters, which means hair has assumed a new importance in my life.

When my first daughter came home from Ethiopia she was 20 months old and had very little hair. The longest bits were maybe 2 inches long when stretched out. Patches all over were much shorter. A friend with a bunch of biracial and AA kids recommended Physique hair conditioner as a nice moisturizing conditioner/ detangler. It’s a wash-out conditioner, but she recommended working a dollop in and leaving it. Sure enough, it worked great for Em’s soft curls. But as her hair grew, needing progressively more product, the $8 a tube price became harder and harder for frugal $1/month-Suave-lovin’ me to stomach.

I embarked on a search for something cheaper. Bought tube after tube of nasty stuff that worked like crud but remained on the edge of the tub for months anyway –I had spent good money on it, after all. One item I’d had especially high hopes for was the “Motions” line of hair care products– I had to drive to a store 40 minutes away to pick it up, but since it is designed specifically for Black hair, I figured it would work for sure. Nope. The comb didn’t glide near as nicely as with my hideously expensive but much-loved Physique. Onto the tub edge with the rest of the rejects went the “Motions”.

I gave up the search a few times, resigning myself to the big price of my Physique. But then I’d be back in the hair care aisle, looking for a new packet of barrettes for my girl, and my eye would fall upon another product I hadn’t yet tried. Finally I spotted a tube of Suave 2 minute conditioner and decided to give that a try. Jackpot!!! It worked perfectly–even better than the Physique, in fact. And the price? $1.50. Finally, something I could live with.

About the time I had my 3 year old’s hair figured out, along came the baby. More hair at 7 months than big sis had at 2 years. We used my Suave with some success. But the longer and thicker it got, the less well the Suave was working. They both have soft ringlets about the right size to wrap around a pencil., but the baby’s is a tad bit different… crisper somehow. The Suave just wasn’t cutting it. But I really didn’t want to embark on another search for the perfect stuff. I dug thru my stash and came across the Motions’ I’d hated so bad on the 3 year old. Eureka! It worked perfectly on the baby. Who’d have guessed?

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