Biracial Hair Care Tips To Keep Curls Defined, Soft, and Frizz-Free

Inside: Amazing biracial hair care tips to maintain, moisturize, and define curls

Let’s face it, if your child has biracial hair it can be challenging to figure out how to maintain it. You’re learning as you go. Part of the challenge is that their hair isn’t like yours.

I don’t know about you, but it took me well into my adult life to figure out how to maintain my own hair!! Then I had to learn all over again how to take care of my daughter’s hair when she was born.

I struggled to figure out how often I should wash her hair, and what products I should use. (Because there’s a bazillion!) Should I shampoo or not? What’s the best way to detangle her hair? What are the best products? When should I switch products? What are the best hairstyles to keep her hair as tangle free as possible??

You can read more on biracial hair care for babies here!

Then there is a wealth of (mostly) well meaning advice given to you by people who have no idea what they’re talking about…

People would tell me to use grease or baby oil on her hair (I knew she didn’t have hair texture that needed this), or asked me all the time why I don’t just brush her hair (no, just no!), or suggest I use other specific products to make her hair look straighter (NEVER!).

Ugh…it was maddening and exhausting wading through all of the advice and going through all of the trial and error! But the good thing is I now have an arsenal of tips and tricks to share with you on how to maintain that gorgeous biracial hair!

These tips will help you keep those curls as defined, beautiful, and frizz free as possible! (I wish I knew these when I had my daughter!)

First off, you’ll never stop learning how to maintain your kid’s biracial hair (or at least it will be an evolving process for many years). This is because over time the texture of their hair might change and you will need new tools and products to maintain it.

Or as it gets longer, you need new protective hairstyles for bedtime, or in school. Or as the seasons change, your child’s hair needs change too.

Biracial Hair Care Tips

Hair Care Tips For The Car

When your child is in a carseat, their beautiful hair that you just did, can get frizzy and flat. All that work for nothing! (I don’t know about you, but after all that work combing out hair, that shit makes me wanna cry!).

So to avoid the dreaded flattened, frizzed curls, you can take a satin cap and have them wear that in the car, or a satin lined hood in a jacket or hoody.

Once your child gets out of the car, you can fluff out their hair and it won’t be frizzy. It may look flat depending on how long you were in the car for, but the curls recover much nicer than if you didn’t have the satin cap/hood.

The pineapple protective hairstyle

You can also throw their hair up in a pineapple (a very high ponytail) with a scrunchie. Be sure to only wrap the scrunchie around one time to keep the pineapple as loose as possible, (to avoid crushing the curls) and take it out once you get out of the car.

Hair Care Tips for Winter

During the winter, I’ve always hated having my kids wear hats because it completely flattens their hair and makes it super frizzy.

Frizz equals tangles…not cool. But I also didn’t want their little ears to freeze either!

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So my mom made a hat for my daughter that has a hole on the top so I can pull her hair through the hole and into a ponytail. That way her hair isn’t smushed or frizzy from the friction of a hat, and her ears and head are still kept warm! You can look at more knit pony tail hats here!

You can also get earmuffs for your kids (the kind that go around the back of their head under their hair as opposed to on top).

I like using earmuffs for my son because I can’t use a hat with a hole on the top like I do for my daughter. And the earmuffs prevent the flattened hair issues.

Washing and Combing Hair Care Tips

Do not over wash their hair!

Usually once or twice a week is good because curly hair is so dry it doesn’t need to be washed often. But when you do get it wet, condition it A LOT!

Comb with the conditioner in it, and only use a wide toothed comb (no brushes ever!).

(Read this if you want the full cleansing, detangling, and moisturizing hair routine for mixed girls hair.)

While you don’t want to wash their hair too often, you also don’t want to go too long without combing it out or you will begin dealing with tangles that get to the point of becoming matted. Definitely something you want to avoid!!

When you’re combing out your child’s hair, know where their sensitive spots are, or the spots that are hardest to comb out.

This will depend on the type of hair they have.

For my daughter I know she has more coarse hair in one section right on the back of her head, and that spot is the hardest to comb out.

I’m very aware of this so I use even more conditioner on that spot and I section it out as much as possible to avoid pulling the tangles.

If you do come across a particularly nasty knot, learn how to get mats out of curly hair.

Speaking of sectioning, you’ll want to separate their hair out when you are combing it.

The sheer amount of hair can be overwhelming when you are trying to comb it out all at once. So putting it in sections and working through each section can be helpful in avoiding your child’s hair/tangles being pulled.

I section my daughter’s hair into 3-5 sections with hair clips and then when each section is combed, I take out the clips and comb it all together.

You may also want to come up with a bath time routine. Your child’s hair routine will likely be lengthy especially as they get older.

If they dislike getting their hair combed (totally my kids!!) or they get bored while you are combing out their hair coming up with a fun bath time routine can help.

Tips For Using Hair Products For Mixed Hair

Your child’s hair texture will probably change as they get older so the hair products you use now may change over time.

If you notice your child’s hair is getting frizzier faster, the curls are limp or sticky, or you don’t feel like the products you’ve been using are still working for their hair, change it up!

Mixed curly hair by nature is dry so you need to make sure the hair products you use are putting, and keeping moisture in their hair. You can use a leave in conditioner or leave in cream to do this.

To define their curls, you can use gel. With gel though you want to start off using less so you don’t end up with stiff, crunchy hair.

Even if you put their hair in a protective hairstyle, putting some product in will help to keep it soft and defined.

Some of my favorites are Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie, Cantu Conditioner, Kinky Curly Curling Custard, and Cantu Curl Activator Cream.

These are the rest of the products for mixed hair that I use to keep both of my kids hair soft, sleek, and defined.

The satin hat for overnight and french braid protective hairstyle

Bedtime Hair Care Tips

For bedtime, use a satin pillow case or a satin cap to protect their hair.

Put their hair in a protective hairstyle as well. Braids and pineapples are some good protective hairstyles.

Again, be sure with the pineapple to only wrap the scrunchie one time so it’s loose. You want the hair to be up but not tight.

Use scrunchies when you can as they’ll be easiest to get out of your child’s hair.

Tight ponytail hair bands can easily get tangled in your child’s hair and you may end up having to cut them out if they get too tangled. You obviously want to avoid that at all costs so use scrunchies that will easily slide off their hair.

And please, never ever use rubber bands!!!

Read more nighttime biracial hair tips here.

Conclusion

Biracial hair care can be difficult for you to figure out because their hair texture is different than yours. You have to learn a whole new way to take care of hair than what you’ve been used to doing for years with your own.

I know it can be overwhelming. I had to learn from scratch too and had to weed out a lot of bad or not useful information. That’s why I wanted to share these biracial hair care tips with you.

Now you can have the confidence to know how to maintain those beautiful curls and help keep them frizz free and tangle free!