Kinky textured hair definitely experiences some dryness after washes, but thankfully there are measures that you can take to reduce or avoid it completely. Steer clear away from dry matted hair using this tips:
Pre-Pooing before Shampooing
Use a conditioner or a moisturizing oil before you wash your hair. This prevents your hair from becoming too dry and stripped after you shampoo. Coconut oil in particular, 
is known for being able to penetrate the hair shaft giving it moisturizing abilities, while also being a preventative measure that can be used to avoid hygral fatigue. For those who don’t know hygral fatigue is when your hair absorbs water, expands, then quickly drys up, and shrivels.
Deep Conditioning
As often as you can fit in some room for a 15- 2o minute good deep conditioning session under a hooded dryer (if you don’t have a hooded dryer supplement with a warm towel). Not all conditioners qualify as deep conditioners, look for conditioners that contain hydrolyzed proteins. For example,Elasta QP DPR-11+ Deep Penetrating Remoisturizing Conditioner Unisex 15 oz.
Moisturize, Twist, and Sit Under a Dryer
If you don’t like to use direct heat on your hair (i.e. blow dryer) for stretching purposes, but you find that if you let your hair air dry with twists or braids your hair ends up being too dry there is another solution. Once you have applied moisture and twisted or braided your hair sit under a hooded dryer for 10-15 minutes. This will help the moisture penetrate your hair better and will help you to avoid matted dry hair. You don’t have to sit under the dryer very long, just long enough so that your hair is mostly dry or semi dry.
Before implementing these tips into my regimen, I always found my hair to very dry and shrunken up after washes; which definitely is not a good luck. These tips definitely have helped me and I hope you find them useful.
Thanks for the tips…!!! Pre-pooing helps me a lot with my dry scalp issues.. and oh yes.. deep condition deep condition. . I can’t say that enough.. it’s a must with my 4G tresses. ..!!! I uusually air dry when I twist my hair but will try the dryer routine.. Thanks again..!!!!
I found that using a good creamy moisturizer helps. Before I was just sealing with oil over wet hair. Now I add extra moisture before sealing with oil and it’s made all the difference.
These days I’m having success with Thank God I’m Natural’s butter cream moisturizer.
Hello there. This is my biggest problem with my natural hair. Its always sooo dry and crunchy after it dries from washing, no matter what I do. I tried castor oil and it helped soften my hair but my hair is so greasy and weighed down because I need to use a lot in order for it to work. And it clumps my hair together which makes look and feel thin.
I do not have a hooded dryer though and blow drying just dries my hair out way too much. Any other tips maybe?
Forgot to add that I do use the LOC method.
Hi
My hair is natural 4C- doesn’t go past my shoulders- and after i wash it it’s a clump but i’s soft…until it dries. If i get my hair plaited when i take it out it’s soft again. When i’m done washing my hair, if i don’t want it to be a clump but curly but i don’t have rollers or a head dryer what can i do? Oh, and pleasee break down any advice ’cause i’m new to this and may get confused.
Thanks!
Follow these steps:
1 wet your hair thoroughly.
2 deep condition using 2 tablespoons each if honey, olive oil and tresemme naturals conditioner.
3 sit with heated cap on for half an hour
4 wash out deep conditioner
5 put hair into five sections and add conditioner and a little olive oil to each section and comb through.
6 rinse each section separately and put each section in a clip or plait.
7 wash out each section individually and keep in clips.
8 now moisturise in 3 parts.
9 use a good leave in such as qhemet biologics heavy amla and olive
10 then comb oil through
11 then use a creamy styler such as shea moisture coconut styler or kinky kurly curly creme.
12 your hair should still be separated into parts with clips.
13 now twist each section into about four.
14 put in your parting
15 air dry or and sit under a dryer for half hour.
16 take twists out gently with oiled hands.
17 your hair should be lovely and soft.
18 at night twist hair in larger sections and sleep with hair covered
19 wash hair once or twice weekly.
20 deep condition at least weekly.
21 no need to add extra product until next wash.
22 be gentle with your hair.
Hope this helps. It took my hair from brillo pad to bouncy curls. X
I just clarified my hair for the first time and I think one wash should have been enough. I shampooed twice. Now my hair feels super dry and has a very fragile texture feel. Usually I just co wash and hair comes out awesome. I did add oil, spray, grease. But it still felt weird. Not soft and supple but streaky and over clean if I may say. Please help. I’m thinking maybe I should just co wash the next day. I used IC 100% pure tea shampoo. O think it worked to good
I used a clarifying shampoo once. Had the same results as you. My hair became rough and hard to re-moisturize! I thought I was going to have to chop it off, but instead, I just kept spritzing with water, every chance I got. I babied my hair for weeks, gave myself hot oil treatments (on DRY hair) before every cowash.
BTW, I threw that clarifying shampoo away! Maybe it works for some, but not for me.
Put some kind of oil or conditioner in your shampoo
I have 4c hair that is low porosity (which means it takes a long time for it to absorb water). My daily spritz mix is a 11 ounce bottle of 90% water, 10% safflower oil, with 2 drops of vitamin E oil and 1 drop of bay leaf essential oil. I dampen the hair, I don’t saturate it. Then I lightly coat it with UBH Satin Cream Moisturizer.
I use my oil spritz on the once-a-month shampoo day. I dampen a section, put Carefree Instant Moisturizer on my fingers and run them through the section, then comb the section gently with a very wide tooth comb. When I finish all the sections, I give myself a 20 minute heatcap hot oil treatment with safflower or canola oil, coating each section heavily. Then I shampoo each section – once. After the shampoo and a couple hours of air dry, I make 3 to 6 two-strand twists, coating each section well with Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie with Silk Protein & Neem Oil and Curls Unleashed. I then rub each twist with UBH and plait them into some single concoction, tucking in the remaining end. I put regular drug store castor oil on my edges – because I bought it before learning about JBCO.
Lately I do see that I am retaining more length, probably due to a combination of tactics – seldom manipulating my hair, rarely wearing it loose, spritzing daily, cowashing when the softness stars to fade. I even survived getting demi-permanent color, I could smell the ammonia! I got it done at a salon and when the process was done, I had the stylist use Wen to co-wash and UBH to leave-in my hair and had her do a protective two-strand twist style. So, yes, I left with a damp head because I wanted to air dry and end the manipulation! My 4c hair breaks when you look at it funny! It is quite a breakthrough for me to be retaining length.
I have two ways of cowashing. I separate into sections, put UBH deep conditioner on my DRY hair and heatcap for 20 minutes, then wash with WEN and retwist as described above. Or I put WEN on my dry hair, let it sit for a few hours, then rinse in the shower, and retwist as described above.
If my hair is already in a twist style and not looking too shabby, I sometimes just let water run over my head when I just want to freshen up without a big production. Air drying with something wrapped around your head tightens up the hairdo, and your hair feels softer.
damp hair
mix water with oil of your choice
apply with conditioner and let sit
wash out