Newbie Experiences:Regimen building and Choosing my hair products

I love to read about the hair regimens of ladies on healthy hair journeys. I am always interested in knowing what these ladies are doing or have done to grow and maintain their hair. Initially I was taking note only of the product used instead of the hair care habits. Later after reading several regimens I began to pay more attention to what they did to their hair and how they choose their hair products.

Firstly, I noticed frequent washes were a common factor. Secondly, I noticed that the product choices differed from lady to lady but for black hair I discovered the emphasis on moisture. Moisture, moisture and more moisture! Previously I had the 'oil' your hair mentality, and this was using products laden with petrolatum and/or mineral oil. Also i discovered it was not just about introducing moisture to the hair, that moisture had to be sealed in, using natural oils or commercial oil mixes. These two discoveries revolutionised the way I thought about hair care and armed with this information I cleared aside my old hair products and set out to acquire new ones.

I already had olive oil and shea butter which I normally use on my son but then I needed a moisturiser to seal in. So on my first hair product shopping list were; water based moisturiser, sulfate free shampoo and a conditioner. I spent quite a few minutes reading ingredients lists in my local supermarket and ended up purchasing these;

I was very pleased to have been able to get these basics on my first trip. I was unable to get any sulfate-free shampoo (difficult to find in stores here in Nigeria) so I opted for black soap to use for my first wash, Dabs of nhcg mentioned using it in one of her posts. I wanted a growth aid and picked up a small tube of virgin hair fertilizer, I had used this products before and it did increase/aid my hair growth however I was now doubtful because I read the ingredients this time. It contains:

Herbal extract, petroleum jelly, peppermint oil, lanolin and fragrance

After a bit of online research I decided to use it overnight only before wash days so that it would not build up on my scalp.

A rookie mistake I made was not realising the difference between instant and deep conditioners. For my first wash day, I made use of the V05 conditioner after shampooing, while on my second wash day I did a homemade protein deep treatment using eggs and olive oil. We spent the holidays (Christmas, new year) at my parents and luckily my mum had some ORS hair mayo! I used that while I continued my research into protein and moisturising deep conditioners.

I ended up with the products shown below, these are what I am using for my current hair care and regimen building, I will be outlining that in a future post.