Tuesday, April 24, 2018

5 Hair Products This Multiracial Family Can't Live Without, and How We Choose What We Buy

Hair.  It's a BIG topic in the transracial adoption community.  And for good reason.

Trying to find the perfect hair products is overwhelming and expensive.  Not to mention, confusing! And for a family likes ours where we have four kids (and four different hair types, lengths, and style preferences), it can get pretty complicated!   

However, we have a good routine in place for each child, including the products we use.  And if you follow me on Insta, I post new hairstyles often!  



First, here are our rules for choosing hair products:

1: Affordable.  I'm not spending $20+ per bottle of hair product.  No way.  Not with four heads of hair.  Not happening.    

2:  Healthy.   No dirty beauty ingredients allowed.  We try to live a life as toxic-free as possible, and this includes hair products!

3:  Scent-worthy.  I'm super scent-sensitive, so I'm picky about products.  If it doesn't smell amazing (and not overwhelming), I'm not buying it, no matter how good of a product it is.  

4:  Accessibility.  I'd better be able to order it from Amazon, or I'm not buying it.  Because when you need product, you NEED product.  (Now, I do try to stay ahead-of-the-game by buying product from my local Black beauty store.  But with four kids, I sometimes forget to get product before a hair styling session.)  

5:  Black-created.  I prefer the products come from a Black-owned, Black-created company.  (Though I have purchased products we've enjoyed from other companies as you'll see below.)  



So here are our top five favorite products:

1:  Camille Rose Naturals.

This is the brand I use on my oldest two girls.  Every single product smells amazing, is affordable, and works!  There are instructions on every bottle stating how to use the product (free hair tips?  yes, please!)  Here are just a few of the products we use: the cleansing rinse, kids' brown butter hair balm, and the kids' sweet pudding buttercream. I haven't met a Camille Rose product I don't like!  

2:  Curls.

This is the brand I use for my son.  The creme brulee leave-in smells like dessert (duh) and is my absolute favorite!   The blueberry bliss is also delish, but I prefer to use it in my son's hair in the summer, as it just smells summery.  There's also a blueberry bliss gel option.   We "finish" his hair using a coiling sponge:  it gives the curls definition and looks simply adorable!  

3:  Honey Baby Naturals.

So I was having a hard time finding products for my baby girl (1.5 years old) that would keep her finger coils moisturized.  I much prefer finger coils to afro puffs!   They are a protective style for shorter hair, easy to re-do, and so cute.   After I tried one Honey Baby product, I just KEPT ordering more products from them!  We currently use the shampoo, conditioner, detangler, and leave-in moisturizer.  AND, to top it all off, they make a body lotion in a matching scent!   I love when ALL products have the same scent, otherwise the mixture of scents is just overpowering, even nauseating.   

4:  Satin pillowcases and crib sheets.

Yes, this is a hair product.  We use satin pillowcases over the backs of car and booster seats to protect hair, as well as on our kids' bed pillows.  There are many colors to choose from to match their preferences and room decor.  We own over ten of these!   

The satin crib sheet is a hair-saver for my toddler.  Now, satin crib sheets can be really expensive, which is why we only own one.  But this one is the most affordable I've seen.  Fair warning:  it snags easily on things like velcro (think bibs) and zippers, so if you wash it, wash it by itself or with other soft bedding or clothing.  There's a pink and blue option, too. I'm asked about the crib sheet ALL the time.   

5:  Trader Joe's Tea Tree.

Cradle cap and dry scalp struggles are real, especially with infants!  I swear by Trader Joe's Tee Tree shampoo and conditioner for dry scalp situations.  (I DO NOT recommend it for day-to-day or week-to-week use otherwise.)   To remove cradle cap, slather the child's scalp with coconut oil and leave on for twenty minutes.  Then brush with a baby brush.  Then wash the hair with the tea tree shampoo, followed by the tea tree conditioner.  Then apply your favorite leave-in moisturizer.  Three treatments, and my baby's cradle cap was gone!   We then transferred the shampoo and conditioner (which is really affordable, by the way; and the bottles are large) to our guest bathroom shower for any guests to use who forgot to bring their own product.  


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