How To | Find The Best Products for YOUR Hair

NaturallyCurly.com recently released winners of their 2016 Best of the Best and Editors Choice annual survey and testing.  In years past, many of you have enjoyed seeing products you yourself have tried and tested, use on a daily basis, and those making it to your holy grail status on these lists.

Being new to This Natural Thing, I haven't tried very many products, I also prefer to DIY a lot.  In any case, have always taken such lists with a pinch of salt, I use them for guidance, and with heavy reservation.  Actually, it's the way I take most label promises, suggestions and product reviews, especially those for 'natural' or otherwise described hair - curly, kinky, straight included.

 
While I am on natural hair journey, I don't believe the products I use am aware of that.  Products don't know your hair?  How is it, that any particular product can be designed therefore, specifically for curls? Or kinks? Natural or relaxed hair?  

I find marketing a product in this way to be very misleading. 

If hair is dry, whether curly or straight, what it will respond to is moisture.  

Products can be designed for dry hair, by having moisturizing ingredients. They can be designed for the purpose of detangling, by including ingredients that provide slip. They can even be designed for thick or fine hair, by having heavier or lighter ingredients.

Relaxed or Natural hair is much less of the issue.

It comes down to the ingredients in the products that determine how effective they work with your hair. Whether straight or curly, or wavy, or kinky.  Product marketing should be based on what ingredients are contained and what those ingredients do.

Playing on key words that are the end result of caring for and obtaining healthy hair is irresponsible.  

This brings me back to the well known, accepted and trusted lists released by NaturallyCurly.com (and others).  I am in no way against the design of such lists and am very much appreciative of them. They do a lot of the weeding and filter through the hype.  I myself find NaturallyCurly to be one of few online sources that provide information about hair care taking into account hair characteristics and the full hair profile.  That being said, selection of products, even from these lists, should be determined by the ability of the ingredients to provide what hair needs, it's characteristics, and achieving and maintaining healthy hair.

What I have observed though, is that many run out and purchase the items listed only to be disappointed and even enraged when they don't work as touted. Mainly because the reviews and ratings are based on others' hair; hair we know nothing about, and very well may not have shared any similar characteristics or profile.  I don't know about you, but I don't have money to sit in the bottom of product drawers or the back of shelves unused.

So, before filling up the shopping cart, might I suggest taking it a step further than screen value.  The hard work has been done for you, the best have already been identified.  Now, all you have to do is turn those products around and look at their labels, investigate the ingredients and select only those products whose ingredients provide what your hair needs to achieve and maintain health.  If you need moisture and hydration look for ingredients that provide that.  If it's conditioning and strength you seek, likewise.  Opt for ingredients that work with your hair to achieve desired styling results: thick hair requires 'heavier' ingredients, or volumizers may be appropriate for finer strands.  

The point I'm making is, when selecting your products, don't be swayed by reviews that sing praises, or bribed by promises of popping curls. Remember healthy hydrated hair with moisture balance pops, whether curled, kinked, or coiled.  Focus on the ability of the product to deliver what you need and, how it presents to do so ie the ingredients it contains.

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Being that I'm currently in the market for some new products, the timing of this release couldn't have been better.  Like I said, the hard work is done. Now, all I need is to assess the products' ability to deliver for my thick, dense, coarse, (I think) low porosity, 'Type 4' hair.  I'll be looking at both the Best of the Best, and moreso the Editors' Choice winners for ingredients I already know work with my hair, and those that can provide for it's needs and things I want to achieve. I love that the Editors' Choice list also has so many new natural ingredient product brands, which means there are actually products I would be comfortable using, since I have embarked on this journey to natural living - and prefer to stick to using products that fit that criteria.

~Josie Jo ~

How do you determine the best products for your hair?