African American Hair Tips in Japan

Black in Japan?

It’s hard enough managing hair and trying to find the right products that positively impact African-American hair. The task becomes all the more difficult when you go to a country where they have little to no products for hair that is not similar to Asian/Caucasian hair. That’s OK though! Keep in mind that one of the first steps to maintaining healthy hair is to also have positive thoughts towards your hair :). I know at times it may feel difficult with the lack of knowledge and products for our type of hair, but I’m here to help! Your hair is beautiful and so are you!

Hair Po-po-porosity

First things first, do you know your hair porosity and what type of hair you have? You’ve heard it time and time again, but we’ll just review briefly.

Hair Texture

You need to know your hair type in order to know what may best suit your hair. Here is a chart that can help you identify that.

We have all kinds of hair types that typically range from 3B all the way to 4C. Asians and Caucasians typically have hair that ranges from 1A to 3A. My hair is a mixture of different textures ranging all the way from 3A to around 4B. (Image of my hair wet)

To keep this short and simple:
Low porosity hair means that your hair has difficulty absorbing water into the hair follicle. This is because the hair shaft is closed or is very tightly wound.

On the other hand, high porosity hair can easily absorb moisture, though it may not be able to hold the moisture for very long because just as easily as moisture comes into the hair strand, it goes off.

You can easily check your hair’s porosity by getting a glass of water, taking a strand or two of hair, and putting it in the water. If it floats at the top, then it’s probably low porosity hair that you have, however, if it sinks to the bottom, then you have high porosity hair. Of course, there is also an in-between where the hair strand kind of floats in the middle, which means you have a medium/normal amount of porosity.

Short Cuts for Hair Products!

It’s very easy to find products online if you go to iherb.com. They have a lot of products for you to try! Not as many as in America, but it’s a great start. Don’t hesitate to try out what may or may not work for you when it comes to products. Now that you know my hair porosity and my hair type, if you think we have similar types of hair, maybe these products might work for you.

Perfect Combo

I recommend getting leave-in conditioners online because you won’t find any here. There are other products I’m going to suggest in Japan to use as a daily moisturizer and that should serve as an in-between to help you keep your hair healthy and moisturized between washes.

Online Products:

1)Garnier Fructis, Sleek & Shine, Leave-In-Conditioner
2)Aunt Jackie’s, Quelch!, Leave-In-Conditioner

Products in Japan

3)Momori Moist Hair Cream (also around 600 yen at Don Quijote)
4)Pantene Treatment Extra Damage Care Intensive Vitamilk
5)Pantene Leave-In Treatment Water

Again, it’s just a matter of testing what works for you and seeing what your hair responds well to. So if these don’t work for you, try, try again!

Food

Again, I know, I’m a broken record that’s been played time and time again, but you should really analyze what you’re eating because that heavily impacts hair growth and hair health.

Are you drinking about 2 L of water a day?
Are you making sure to eat your veggies?
Are you getting sunlight?
Getting enough sleep????

All of these things and so much more impact your hair health. Really think about trying to eat some superfoods, more vegetables, and making sure that you’re getting what you need on the inside so that it can help the outside. As they say, hair is like a flower. You’ve got to water it well so that from the inside, it can have the power to grow and be healthy

Media is Your Friend

Use media to your advantage.

Youtube

I have been watching Miss Karen for years and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results I get from following her advice. She focuses on not just hair health and hair growth, but how the body and everything is connected to hair and the science behind it. (So she’s basically like a scientist for hair which I feel gives her more credibility and more sincerity which you’ll see in her videos.) She’s passionate, kind, and genuinely wants to help people :).

Pinterest

The link to the Pinterest board, make sure to follow so that you’ll get all the updates but I have, you can even make her own.
Hair Styles for African Americans

10 Tips I Swear By

Lastly, some tips for you!

1)Start with water to moisturize your hair. Your hair will not absorb any products that you put on it if it does not have water on it first. It’ll just sit on top :/.
Water—> cream —>oil to the scalp that you finger brush down your strands

2) Listen to your hair. I know they say that African-Americans should only wash their hair once a week or even less than that because of how our hair doesn’t get dirty/retain oil in it. However, I feel that I need to wash my hair every three days and that my hair needs to be moisturized every single day, sometimes twice a day.

With my lifestyle, running around for work, and going to my exercise class, my hair thrives with what I’m doing now. Don’t just follow the tips, listen to what your hair needs and respond accordingly.

3) Sleep with a scarf/use silk pillowcases. I got some cheap ones from off the Internet and they’ve been saving my hair from split ends for a while now.

4) Try to do mini/low manipulation hairstyles. The easiest ones that I do religiously are a loose bun and tying up my hair with one of the cute hair claw clips from Daiso.

5) If you’re going to dye your hair, at least do it with henna so that it’s not as damaging and so that it actually helps your hair.

6) I swear by keratin treatments that you can do once every 4 to 6 months. I do mine at home and my hair is always so silky smooth every time after ( It’s cheaper to do at home and gives me the same results as a hair salon would).

7) Always detangle in the shower. My process after washing my hair is to section off my hair, put in the leave-in conditioner while I’m still in the shower, and use a comb or my fingers to brush it through before wrapping it up with a fuwa fuwa  <fluffy> towel (not cotton!) and letting it dry like that.

8) Hair oils should technically only be applied on your scalp or from the top of your hair and then brushed through.

9) DEEP CONDITION EVERY WEEK!!!

10) Four minutes. Every day. Do a scalp massage. Thank me, or rather Miss Karen, after. She talked about a Japanese study that showed how beneficial scalp massages. I’ve been doing them for the last month and I love it!
Remember, your hair is great so long as it is healthy and moisturized!