Black Hair Care Guide

There are several “ingredients to avoid” lists out there. Here are some of the ingredients we found on those lists and why they’re there. This should not be taken as a recommendation from us that you should avoid all of these ingredients. Some of the products we offer contain ingredients on the “avoid” list. Why? Frankly, there are very, very few products that do not contain at least some of these ingredients. It has been estimated that 99% of cosmetic products contain some form of paraben (a preservative). If you think that’s scary (we don’t), after looking at this list, look at your toothpaste and deodorant ingredients.

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What is Shea Butter?
How can I tell if something is good Shea Butter?
How should Shea Butter smell?
How do I store Shea Butter?
My Shea Butter melted. What do I do?
What color should Shea Butter be?
How can Shea Butter benefit me?
How does Shea Butter benefit my skin?
What does Shea Butter benefit my hair?
Is all Shea Butter the same?
What can I tell by looking at the label?
Where can I get good Shea Butter?
What’s the difference between raw shea butter and refined shea butter?
Do I want raw Shea Butter or refined Shea Butter?
What about East African Shea Butter?

While you may have only recently heard of Shea Butter, its use is far from a recent development. The benefits of Shea Butter have been well known for centuries. Africans have used Shea Butter for many generations to protect and rejuvenate their hair and skin. Shea Butter is not only for those of African descent though. Everyone can take advantage of Shea Butter’s benefits. Today, Shea Butter is available in pure form and as an ingredient in many products to help with maintenance of the hair and skin and relief from many common ailments.

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First of all, natural is a relative term. How you define “all natural” may vary from how the next person will define it. Once you mix two ingredients together, one could argue the product is not “all natural”. We believe that God put many wonderful things on this earth to take care of our bodies inside and out. Generally, speaking the less refined or manipulated a product the better. However, we also believe God gave man the ability to improve on his environment and some chemical formulations (especially medicines) are extremely beneficial. Swamp water is natural. But, I wouldn’t drink it. Aspirin is not as natural (it is an extraction of a natural compound found in willow bark), but it’s a fantastic drug. Blood pressure medications are not natural, but many of use could not live without them.

We promote products that we believe are healthy for your hair and body. All things being equal, we prefer natural products over highly refined products. Even when man tries to recreate nature by manufacturing or refining products. Time and time again, man has made “extracts” of things proven to be beneficial and research comes along later saying the supplement is not as good as the whole fresh fruits or vegetables. Often, there are delicate trace substances, a balance of substances or some other thing that we cannot quite recreate. But, sometimes the extractions are necessary. How’d you like to have to find and chew on willow bark if you had a headache?

However, all things are rarely equal. All natural products will be less stable, may not look as nice, will be more expensive and usually have shorter shelf lives than less natural products. If you like a lot of lather, you may be disappointed with all natural shampoos. If you buy all natural products, you may find they separate or go bad more easily. We have had people who thought they wanted all natural products call and complain about the products separating (an effect of not using artificial emulsifiers) or not being as thick or not lathering as well as what
they are used to. Besides just saving money, manufacturers often use chemically altered ingredients to make the products more palatable to the average consumer and more stable.

So, the decision is really up to you. Personally, we use an array of all natural products, less natural products and some completely manufactured products, depending on the product itself.

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The same basic principles apply for children as for adults. Here are the differences. Find a good children’s shampoo if your child is very young (so that it won’t burn the eyes). Children who don’t understand keeping their eyes closed to keep soap out need a tear free shampoo. However, as soon as you can, move away from these. They tend to be drying for African American hair. I recommend avoiding perms for as long as possible. Children have more sensitive skin than adults. The chemicals in the perms are more likely to damage their skin and hair. Also, children don’t usually have the patience to sit through the process of getting the perm. My stylist told me the story of a three year old girl she was trying to give a perm. Once the solution was in the hair, the child decided she was ready to leave. The stylist had to literally wrestle the child to rinse the perm out of her hair. My older daughter is almost six now and has very thick and coarse hair. Her hair is natural. I did a lot of research on the best way to care for it. I intend to leave her hair natural as long as possible. It’s really not any more difficult to care for than if she had a perm. We use Natural-Laxer MIX on her hair to make it more manageable (not straight). That and just using the basic tips above have made caring for her natural hair much easier, she has less breakage and tangles than she used to and we love the way her hair looks natural.

People have asked us what our opinion is on hydroquinone. Hydroquinone is a fairly controversial ingredient used in many skin lightening creams and gels. Hydroquinone is highly effective, which is why it’s used so commonly. It has been established as probably the most effective treatment for hyperpigmentation; although other treatments are coming along and we offer alternatives on our website.

Over-the-counter products can only contain up to 2% of hydroquinone by law. Hydroquinone, at this level is relatively safe for most people. And hydroquinone is effective. At higher concentrations (it is available in 4% and even more by prescription), it can have pretty serious side effects. Hydroquinone is not a bleaching agent. It prevents skin from making melanin, which gradually leads to skin fading. Hydroquinone doesn’t actually lighten skin, it disrupts new pigment production. As the older skin cells are sloughed off and the newer ones rise to the surface, the replacement skin cells don’t contain the excess pigment and skin gets lighter. This is a slight but important distinction.

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Q.) What’s the best hair style and/or type for black women who work out everyday? I have relaxed hair and I’m strongly considering going natural.

A.) This is a pretty complicated question. Which style is best for you is going to be dependent on your personal preferences, the texture of your natural hair and the length you have. For example, you’re not going to be able to wear certain styles until your hair reaches a certain length. If your hair has a loose curl pattern, you might be able to wear a fairly maintenance free style with some “flow”. If your hair is in a very tight curl pattern, you might have to wear a ‘fro until you get some length.

If you’re going to natural though, you probably are not going to be able to wear your hair straight (either pressed or flat-ironed). Again, this will be dependent on your hair texture. If you have a tight curl pattern, you’d have to put so much heat on it daily that you’d end up breaking it off. So, you should consider something like a ‘fro or wearing it in braids, locks or some other style that will not require heat to maintain.

Probably the most common question we get concerning face care is how to take care of dark spots on the face. This is followed closely by how to prevent acne and the questions often come together (people who are still having active acne outbreaks and want to get rid of scarring from prior outbreaks). To treat this you actually have several choices. Keep in mind the regimens we sell are only suggested combinations of products designed to treat specific conditions. Each person’s skin is different. So, we encourage our customers to work with your skin to develop the regimen that is best suited for you. Here’s how we would suggest building a regimen to treat this type of situation. This is just an example to show how you might go about selecting products. We are not suggesting you need to follow this regimen exactly.

• Always start with a cleanser. For acne prone skin, you want a very mild cleanser. You do not want to use a cleanser with scrubs in it as acne prone skin is easily irritated. Cleanse at least twice a day using lukewarm water and your fingertips to cleanse. Do not use a washcloth as it carries bacteria and causes mechanical irritation.
  • An excellent cleanser would be HumiNature Deep C Cleanser or HumiNature Oil Defense Cleanser.
• The second step is to tone. The toner should be a very mild astringent that tightens up pores. Be very gentle with the face while applying. A spritzer bottle is great for applying toner.
  • HumiNature Oil Defense Toner would work.
• Next you will want to treat any active acne outbreaks.
  • This can be done with one of the Black Opal products (Blemish Target Gel for example).
• You’ll want to spot treat the dark spots.
  • Use a Fade Gel or Cream (such as HumiNature’s Dark Spot Fade Gel with hydroquinone at night)
  • Use a fade cream and a sunblock during the day. HumiNature DayTime Fade Cream includes the sunblock in it.
• Lastly, use a moisturizer, if necessary.

Before we try to sell anyone any product, we like to make sure we set proper expectations for what you can expect from an over-the-counter product. There are limits, set by the FDA, on how much of certain ingredients (the most effective ones) can be included in treatments available without a prescription. That is because the most effective ingredients, in high concentrations, can have side effects. That does not mean over-the-counter treatments aren’t effective. They are extremely effective, for the conditions, they can handle. What it means is your condition, if not responding to over-the-counter treatments may require professional help. Our suggestion is to try one or two over-the-counter treatments, if your condition is fairly mild. But, don’t run from place to place looking for something that is going to do “miracles”.

Skin being darker on the face and neck than the body is extremely common. What we have found is most people who notice this on themselves and think it’s a major problem have so little difference in actual shade that nobody else even notices. Unless others have mentioned this to you, we’d recommend you step back and ask yourself if it really is a problem worth you spending time and effort on.

Having said that, most over-the-counter products address what’s usually known as hyperpigmentation. Hyperpigmentation is usually caused by irritation of the skin, most commonly acne scars. Uneven skin tone, (where the skin is blotchy) is much more difficult to treat with over the counter remedies. Products designed to treat hyperpigmentation basically stop the skin that is over producing pigment (right next to skin that is “normal”) and reversing the process. If your skin is two very different shades, products are not smart enough to know what shade to make your skin. Uneven skin tone on the face is mostly addressed with foundation (makeup). Skin lightening products can help with evening overall skin tone. But, they will only help to a certain extent. They generally work by lightening the overall skin tone, preventing repigmentation of the darker areas. Products with hydroquinone (and just a good sunblock) can lighten overall skin tone over time. And this can help because many times, with uneven skin tone, the lighter areas stay about the same while the darker areas lighten up.

If you’re going to treat hyperpigmentation there are two basic methods, mechanical and chemical. Mechanical methods would include microdermabrasion (which rubs the top layers of skin off) and dermabrasion (done in a doctor’s office). Chemical methods work by exfoliating (as in the case of peels) or by preventing the skin from producing so much pigment. Hydroquinone is the most common and effective over-the-counter medication that chemically works on hyperpigmentation. Some people are sensitive to hydroquinone. There are sensitive skin lighteners. But, they are generally not as effective.

It’s difficult to say which is more effective, chemical methods or mechanical methods. If you have extremely sensitive skin you might not be able to tolerate the chemicals use in the most effective chemical methods. However, the mechanical methods leave the skin a little sensitive for a few days also. When using any method, it’s vitally important to take care of the skin immediately after treatment, using a sunblock and a moisturizer. Here are some skin lightening products you can check out: http://www.treasuredlocks.com/skin-lightening-fade-products.htm

Stephon Sherriffe is the Owner-Operator of StephStyles Natural Hair and Beauty Salon in Loxahatchee, FL (suburban West Palm Beach). StephStyles does both natural and chemically treated hair. Stephon discovered Natural-Laxer MIX and has found it to be a boon to both her retail and services business. Since adding Natural-Laxer MIX to her portfolio of services, Stephon has seen a marked increase in business and in client satisfaction. Stephon told us “We are having good results with Natural-Laxer MIX and getting good feedback. Clients are seeing results and seeing it is making a difference in their hair. They are telling other clients about it.” Stephon placed a Natural-Laxer MIX poster up in her shop. This gets clients curious and they ask about it. Stephon describes the product and the results. She tells them that it is not a relaxer. She explains that it strengthens the hair and brings back elasticity. She tells them how it helps hold a press longer. Natural-Laxer MIX is not a chemical relaxer or straightener, but a spa-type of natural relaxation for the hair. This is very important to the growing number of clients who want to avoid harsh chemical procedures. Many clients coming in for a press and curl like the product as it makes the “hard press” last up to three weeks; even in hot, humid Southern Florida. Her chemically treated clients are using it to fortify and protect the hair after chemical treatments. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, I’m Tywana Smith and I own and operate TreasuredLocks.Com. Treasured Locks is a small, black owned company that sells high quality hair and skin care products, predominantly for the needs of African Americans and people of color. While most of our products are excellent for all hair and skin types, our focus is to make available the best products on the market to people who have special needs. We know you have unique needs and we are here to meet them for you

We chose the name for Treasured Locks for many reasons. First, like treasure, quality hair care products for black people can be hard to find. As more of us move away from areas where there are local stores to cater to our needs, we find ourselves running all over town just to find the basics. Secondly, your Secondly, your hair or your locks is a treasure to you. Our hair has unique requirements, and we must take care of it properly to unlock the beauty contained within. Treasured Locks was created out of my personal frustration with finding quality black hair care products and information on how to care for my family’s hair and skin.

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What is a blog?

Well, a blog is kind of a running newsletter. We will post news, sales, etc. about Treasured Locks and you can visit a website page to read them. A blog will usually allow you to leave comments for the blogger. You can reach our blog by visiting us at http://blog.treasuredlocks.com Our blog will not take the place of our regular newsletter. But, it will be updated much, much more often and the newsletter will have links back to the blog.

A really cool thing about a blog is you can subscribe to it through a pretty new technology. This is even better than subscribing to our email newsletter because the blog is updated more often. And, you can leave comments on the blog for us and for others. But, the best thing about subscribing to our blog is you can be updated without filling up your email mailbox. You do not receive email notifications when a blog is updated. You use something called a NewsReader that gives you a notice when there is a new post made to a website that you are interested in. You then visit the site and read the news.

How to subscribe to a blog
Subscribing to a blog, if you’re not familiar with newsreaders is a little tricky. Hopefully, it is going to get easier as the technology matures and the capability is built into browsers. It’s already there for the Macintosh in Safari. But, for Windows, there are only a few options now:

If you use Yahoo as your homepage, you can click on the My Yahoo icon at the left side of our blog page and that will add the “feed” to your Yahoo homepage. You’ll see it just like your news headlines. This is a very, very easy way to do this (assuming you are using Yahoo as your homepage). If you are not using Yahoo as your homepage and want to, visit Yahoo , click on the My Yahoo icon at the top of the page. Arrange the page the way you want and make it your homepage. Then, visit our blog, click on the My Yahoo button and go from there.

If you already have a newsreader (you’re probably not reading this), just make your way to our XML feed and add us. Our XML feed is at: http://blog.treasuredlocks.com/feed/
It is important to subscribe to the XML feed link and not the regular blog link. If you don’t already have a newsreader, this is going to be a little more tricky. There are several newsreaders available and they all work a little differently.

• Pluck is an integrated newsreader that installs itself in your browser. That’s nice and convenient. There are versions for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. We found it pretty easy to use. But, it’s supported by ads, which you might find annoying. And, in the short time we played with it, we could not figure out how to get from the article back to the main blog.
• Awasu is a stand-alone application (that also doubles as a browser). It’s kind of complicated. But, for Windows, we like it best. It allows you to click on an article in the reader to actually visit the website. Downside, is you have to download a separate application and run it and it was a little difficult figuring out how to get a feed into the reader. But, once we got our feed in, we liked the way it worked.
• NetNewsReader Lite is great. But, it’s for MacIntosh only. Very easy to use. It was bought by NewsGator. Hopefully, they’ll come out with a Windows version.
• Safari (also for MacIntosh) has a built-in reader.
• There are web-based readers, too, where you visit their site to find your news. NewsGator is one of those. We didn’t really like having to visit a site to find our news. But, it seems to work pretty well.

If all of this is way too confusing to you, don’t despair. You can always just periodically visit our blog at http://blog.treasuredlocks.com and read it at your leisure. Make sure you bookmark it.