Chicoro
5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
@snoop,
I'm glad you posted the pictures of your hair to provide a visual, point of reference for the discussion. I would need to know exactly which herbs and oils your were using, along with knowledge of your exact routine to comment on what exactly may have influenced the current health and beauty of your hair - with more certainty.
But based on what I see in the washed hair picture, that deep down sheen is consistent and present in the washed hair as well. The loose hair is of course not elongated as most afro-textured hair shrinks. The point to be made here is that the coils on your head shrink up tighter. This creates more coils and texture per inch. Your twists add in more hair per section and elongate the hair, decreasing the number of coils/kinks/turns/waves per inch of hair.
It's like holding a slinky in the palm of the hand, with your palm up. The Slinky is shorter and there are more metal coils in a shorter distance. But, turn that palm right side down, and let that slinky descend toward the ground or pull the Slinky up in the air from the palm, then you will have fewer coils in the same amount of the distance. Those metal coils will hang longer, but the girth or thickness of the coil will decrease. In other words, the Slinky will not be as 'fat' around, the longer it hangs. The metal coil will adjust for the length extension by tightening the circumference and/or diameter of the Slinky.
Using the slinky analogy, as your twists make your natural hair thicker because you are twisting two larger sections together, this weight makes the hair hang longer because it is heavier. Stretching the strand provides more surface space for the light to hit the coils on your hair as the twisted hair becomes 'straighter' than the naturally coiled, untwisted hair. The twisting process thereby amplifies the sheen more so on your twisted, dry hair.
In addition to this, the fact that you are not combing your hair is minimizing the mechanical damage that you wreak upon the hair. When we comb afro-textured hair, there is more a likelihood that we are flicking off, breaking off and removing cuticles. Thus, your hair probably has many of the hair strand cuticles still intact on the hair strand than it would if you were still combing. The intact cuticles create a smoother surface, or consistent surface than a hair strand with missing cuticles. Thus, a strand that has minimized damage, in the form of intact cuticles, has more of a possibility to have sheen and shine than hair strands that have lost cuticles. If I had to put the three in order based upon most impactful to least as it relates to the current deep, natural, healthful sheen on your hair strands, I would venture to say that the lack of using a comb would be first, then the oils and herbs and third it would be your smoothing technique.
Lastly, I don't know which oils and herbs you are using. But, based upon the most popular hair oils around, I would assume that is another reason your hair is shiny. Oils not only penetrate, but more importantly to me in terms of shine, some of the more popular oils help the cuticle to lay flatter. As a result, this helps the hair strand to be smoother. This smoothness impacts the way it reflects light. Areas of the hair strand that are smoother, or have more space or distance on the strand that is straight, in turn helps to impart more of a sheen or shine on the hair strand.
Being transparent in that I do not know exactly which products or processes you use for sure exactly, I would be comfortable in saying that all three (3) components you mentioned above have contributed and culminated in the results you see before you, in the form of your healthy and shiny hair. Congratulations on your success!
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