Dry mixed hair is a frequent challenge moms with mixed kids are faced with.
Biracial hair is prone to becoming dry and in order to prevent your child’s hair from drying out, you have to actively do work to keep it moisturized.
Everyone’s scalp makes oil that makes its way down the hair as a natural moisturizer. But because curly hair has a lot of twists, zigs, zags, and bends in their shape, (aka it’s not straight) the natural oil the scalp makes to keep the hair healthy, can’t make it all the way down to the ends.
This is why your child’s ends are often the most fragile and dry part of their hair.
What makes it more challenging is your kids biracial hair will probably change over time so the hair care routine or products you use will probably need to change too.
As my daughter’s getting older, her hair is becoming more dry. So we’re having to adjust products and parts of her biracial hair routine so her hair stays moisturized.
Tips To Get Rid Of Dry Mixed Hair
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Use the right products
When using products for mixed hair, you need to make sure you’re choosing ones that are putting, and keeping moisture in the hair.
Regular shampoo and conditioner won’t cut it for your child’s mixed curly hair.
You’ll likely need some kind of leave in conditioner or other leave in products to keep their hair moisturized.
Keep a close eye on your child’s hair and reassess if it used to be soft and moisturized, but is now feeling dry.
You may need to stop using products that previously worked, or try adding new ones into the mix to see if those products are the right combo to get moisturized curly hair.
Understand hair porosity
I can’t stress this enough…
You need to understand your child’s hair porosity! You can grab the freebie below that’ll walk you through how to figure out what their hair porosity is.
Once you know that, it’ll help you know what products you should and shouldn’t be using on your child’s hair.
High porosity and low porosity hair have very different needs and using the wrong products will create unhealthy hair.
Grab your copy of The Secret to Soft, Healthy Mixed Hair here and have all the knowledge about hair porosity at your fingertips!
Deep condition weekly
Using a deep conditioner is something I recently added to my daughter’s hair care routine.
I use it once a week, and this is the deep conditioner we currently use.
After her hair is detangled, I coat it in the deep conditioner, and let it sit for 15-20 minutes and then rinse it all out, (although you can leave it in for up to 30 minutes).
You may find your child needs a steam cap to force the moisture into their hair while you’re deep conditioning. Typically it’s low porosity hair that needs a steam cap to get moisture to stay in the hair.
Just another reason to understand your child’s hair porosity!
Don’t over wash curly hair
Again, because of the shape of the hair, the natural oil in curly hair doesn’t make it all the way to the ends, which makes it dry.
When you wash your child’s hair make sure you wash it once or twice a week. If you wash it more than that you risk washing all the natural oil out and the hair becoming even more dry, which will cause breakage.
If you’re using regular shampoo to wash your child’s hair, you may want to switch to a shampoo without sulfates or a co-wash as these are more moisturizing options.
Keep biracial hair in protective hairstyles
If constantly kept down, your child’s hair will become dry, tangled and damaged. This can happen because of the weather (harsh winters, harsh sun), swimming, physical activity, and from sleeping.
It’s imperative to learn some protective hairstyles to keep your child’s hair healthy. It’s intimidating if you aren’t used to doing hair, (this is coming from a mom who couldn’t do any hairstyle except a regular braid and ponytail!) but it really is important to learn.
I’ve got several tutorials that’ll walk you through how to do some basic protective hairstyles, (no braiding involved!) up to medium/advanced styles based on your skill level.
This is a cute, easy, mixed girl hairstyle
You can try a braided hairstyle for mixed hair
Or you can try a two strand twist
Another option is a banded ponytail
Protective hairstyles will also help speed up your hair care routine for mixed hair because their hair won’t be as tangled as it is when it’s left down.
A fast detangle process makes for happy parents and kids!
Avoid heat
Constantly blow drying your child’s curly hair will lead to split ends and if you don’t get regular trims, those split ends can split even farther up, causing hair that breaks easily.
Heat is harsh on curly biracial hair, (unless you have low porosity hair and you’re using a steam cap) and can leave the cuticle open which invites damage.
Constant exposure to high heats can also eventually alter your child’s curl pattern permanently.
So use a very gentle method of drying your child’s hair. The best way is by using an old t-shirt and gently blotting and scrunching the hair up towards the scalp and then letting it air dry. This’ll soak up extra water and encourage your child’s curls to take their natural shape.
Related: 12 Common Mixed Curly Hair Mistakes and How To Fix Them
Final thoughts
Dry mixed hair is really frustrating especially if you feel like you’ve tried everything! But try these tips for a few weeks and reassess your child’s hair. These tips can make the difference between dry, damaged hair, and soft, healthy biracial curly hair!
Related Reading
Overnight Biracial Hair Care: 3 Things You Must Do To Protect Curly Hair
How To Grow Biracial Hair: 7 Tips To Get Longer Curly Hair
Got Frizzy Mixed Hair? Here’s The Secret To Eliminating Frizz
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