Y'all talking about me?
J/K
OK, here's the thing, I discovered
www.blackwomenrejoice.com and bought the report and read about how grease was unnecessary. Now I don't remember if Brenda (the author) wrote this or it was just my mind making comparisons, but some of the stuff like washing hair often, not using products was what white folks did and it didn't seem to hurt their hair. I had proven from about the age of 10 that my scalp didn't need "oiling/greasing" after a teacher dared me not to apply anything to my scalp. With a lot of apprehension, I had taken the challenge and never looked back.
So here I was adopting another practice that white folks seem to get away with: washing hair often. (I had never found hair boards and so knew nothing about how our hair might be different beside the fact that it looks different.) In my comparison-locked-mind, I misunderstood Brenda's regimen as stating that you were to use nothing at all post the wash. I did remember you could leave some conditioner in your hair when you rinsed, but I got tired of leaving Humectress in my hair (Felt safer with it coz it does say on the bottle you can use it as a leave-in) and preferred to just be w/o anything.
Did my hair feel drier w/o products? Yes, but I got used to that feeling and so didn't mind it. What's more, I have slept in a plastic cap since jheri curl days so I think that, as well as frequent washing, stopped it from turning into a brush.
I know you're still wondering what good there is in baggying dry hair? Back then, I didn't know. It was just a habit. But now I think I know and I'll explain shortly.
Now when I talk about 4B hair having coils, I've mentioned that I didn't know I had coils until 2004. My guess is until then my hair was dry, and not just because I didn't use leave-ins, but rather internally it was crying for moisture. I discovered DCing in 2003, so that was the first step in getting moisture
inside my hair. The other change I made is I stopped using CON which used to coat my hair to the point that it looked gray/whitish. While I hate baking soda, I have to thank it coz I thinkthe curse of using it turned into a blessing of finding a regimen that I like.
In those days, I was still jumping on bandwagons and the latest one at the time was adding baking soda to shampoo to make it a clarifying shampoo. When I did that,
panic galore! I smelled that scent you get when relaxing your hair the minute I put it in my hair. I quickly rinsed it off and my hair was harder than I remember and rough and dull. I conditioned my hair with some L'anza samples for moisture (not sure which)--I'd received them in the mail so just used whichever had a name that sounded like it'd revive my hair--then ACV rinsed, and I think that's when I first saw my curls. The next time I DC'd with heat, then rinsed with ACV, I saw a sheen I'd never before seen in my hair. I didn't have a real digicam and my 1 megapixel webcam couldn't really capture the wonder my hair had become so I never took pics. I did capture pics of my coils at the end of my twists though but more than that, I wished there was a way I could let you all feel my hair. It was softer than I'd ever known it to be. And that was WITHOUT PRODUCTS!!!
I baggied as usual and my hair still felt soft and it was as if all the work I was doing before was just messing up my hair coz it seemed keeping things simple was all that was needed. My hair felt softer without products so I decided I would not use them. But I did keep Brenda's rule of washing my hair frequently since after hearing from Cathy and LHCF how important moisturizing is, I had to make sure I was getting mine. (Pre-LHCF, I washed my hair when it felt dry--which was about twice a week, but now I just wash it then without waiting for it to feel dry. I get a headache anyway if I don't--Go figure.)
So why baggy my dry hair? Because DCing has enabled moisture to penetrate my strands so that my hair is soft from being well-moisturized and I baggy to retain that. Secondly, I believe baggying encourages sebum production so that my own natural moisturizer is produced to keep my scalp and the base of my hair happy and kept within the cap. Thirdly, it hasn't hurt me to do this and I tend not to fix what isn't broken so I continue to baggy dry.
Besides, if I baggied with any products in my hair (except the one time I had a bald patch and was using a blend to regrow my hair), my scalp itches like crazy. I cannot DC or pre-poo overnight because my scalp rebels. Even DCing with heat sometimes makes my scalp unhappy, it's as if opening the pores of my scalp with product on my hair is a no-no for me.
I know some people have said baggying makes their hair smell. Not mine. My hair smells like conditioner and not funky at all. Mind you I wash my hair every 3 days or so, so that might help. But I think products have a way of heating up and getting funky, especially if you have a mixture. I also think wet hair can get moldy especially if it gets warm and if it's been a few days since you washed it.
Dry baggying may not be for everyone, but it works nicely for me.
