How to Protect Your Hair from the Winter Cold

For those with curly natural hair, you probably struggle with maintaining your hair during the colder months and experience healthier hair during the warmer month. What you might not know is that different seasons require different techniques and products to help keep your hair healthy year-round.

During the summer, you might wear your curls out much more often in carefree styles when it’s warm outside. However, your routine may change during the winter if you want to protect and maintain healthy locks during the cold weather. The winter weather can wreak havoc on curly natural hair if no extra care is taken, since excessive dryness leads to hair breakage and a dry scalp.

Protect Your Hair in the Cold Weather

1. How to Prevent Breakage

If you experience breakage in one or two specific areas of your hair, it’s likely not from how you care for your hair, but rather what you’re wearing on your head. Wool hats and scarves can rub against your scalp and pull on curls, causing them to break off at the nape of your neck or at the crown of your head.

A great option to prevent breakage is to invest in a satin or silk-lined hat, as this will make for less friction. If you’re wearing a wool scarf, make sure your hair is out of the way, in a protective hairstyle, or secured beneath your properly lined hat.

2. Deep Condition More

During the winter months, heated homes, cars, and workspaces can dry out your hair. To prevent your hair from experiencing winter dryness, use a deep conditioner and moisturizing hair masks. Look for products that hold moisture in the hair.

If you’re worried about the deep conditioner’s intense water-binding properties having a negative effect in cold weather, try natural oils instead. Natural oils are great for holding in moisture that you get from water.

3. Wash Hair Less

While it's not necessary to shampoo your hair every day, washing curly natural hair too often can strip it of its much-needed natural oils, especially during the winter months, when the hair and scalp are drier than usual.

Shampoo and condition your hair once a week, or co-wash in-between shampoos to lock in moisture. Use cooler water when wetting your hair, and use a leave-in conditioner, brush with a wide-tooth comb, and dry with a soft towel to prevent breakage.

4. Dry Curls Before Leaving

Leaving the house on a frosty morning with wet or damp hair, particularly in freezing temperatures where your hair might actually freeze and break off if you step outside while it’s wet, can be extremely damaging to your hair.

Before leaving your home, use a diffuser on the lowest heat setting to dry your curls before facing the cold weather. Here is a quick guide on how to diffuse curly hair:

Step 1: Prep Your Hair: Choose your favorite styling product, and run the product through your curls and shape them. All curl products are formulated to provide both conditioning and styling benefits to hydrate and hold the shape of your curls. Next, use a heat protectant before diffusing your hair to provide proper thermal protection.
Step 2: Choose the Right Heat Setting: Select the right heat setting for your natural hair. Most blow dryers have high, medium, and low settings as well as a “cool” button that blasts hair with cool air instead of heat.
Step 3: Work in Sections: Begin drying the ends of your hair, use the diffuser attachment to gently cup your hair, and softly scrunch the curls from the ends up as if it was your hand. Move around your head, working in small sections, and moving up toward the roots as you go.
Step 4: Diffuse Upside Down: Once you’ve got some of the moisture out of the ends of your textured hair, flip your head upside down. Diffusing your hair upside down will add volume to your look, and it will allow you to dry hard-to-reach spots in the back of your head and at the roots.
Step 5: Apply a Finishing Product: Once your textured hair is dry, finish your look with a favorite natural oil to boast shine and moisture. Massage it into your roots to add even more volume to your look.

5. Use Heat Even Less

Indoor heating can increase dryness, but also the excessive use of hot tools is the quickest way to cause breakage. Avoid using flat irons, blow dryers, or curling irons.

Winter is an ideal season to practice techniques like completely drying your hair before you head out the door, Bantu knots, cornrows, box braids, and 2-strand flat twists – you’ll notice, none of these styles require heat.

6. Look at Your Diet

Eating foods that are rich in natural oils, minerals, and vitamins will help give your body everything you need to keep your hair looking healthier. Make sure your diet includes plenty of Vitamin C, A, E, as well as iron and selenium, which can be found in a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, nuts, and cereals.

This will help boost your immune system and damage repair that can occur to your hair.

7. Visit a Full-Service Salon

When it comes to keeping your curly natural hair in a healthy condition, regular salon appointments are the key. We recommend scheduling a hair appointment every four weeks to ensure your hair is cared for properly.

Klassi-La’Chiq

Klassi-La’Chiq Beauty Essentials is a beauty supply retail store and fashion boutique in Asheville, NC. With all-natural beauty products, hair supplies, wigs, and head-turning outfits, there's something for everyone in our Arden, NC location.

If you have any questions, you can give us a call at 828-676-2422.

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