Does Barber Know Best?

"It's so nice to see a sista with natural hair.  So beautiful!"  My Ghanaian barber was a fan.  I had gone in to my local barber shop for a short trim.  Now that I no longer need to go to the salon for $125 touch ups, I love going to the barber shop for $15 trims every other month.  We chatted while he chopped.  At the end of our exchange and my trim he said, "your hair needs grease."

"Grease!?!?" I replied, my face scrunched with frustration and confusion.  My blogs, my beloved blogs, have been warning me to stay away from grease and petroleum and mineral oil.  I didn't believe that the small tub of old school grease in a shade of florescent snot was the answer.  I nodded politely as I pretended to carefully examine the product before paying my bill and leaving in crispy haired shame.

I must confess that my hair was quite dry on the February afternoon.  Despite an effort to increase the frequency of my deep conditions and spending an evening lining my winter hats, my kinks were visibly thirsty.

A few days later I headed to CVS to investigate some new products.  I bent down to the products on the bottom shelf - the old school products that take you back to the 80s, gathering dust in the heyday of organic, natural and green products (ecological green not snot green).  One whiff of generic perfumed fragrance and you can hear the theme music to Solid Gold.  I bought a pink - not the pink brand - but pink in color cream moisturizer and a Fro So Soft moisturizing sheen spritz.  Both of these products did exactly what I had been warned about - they seemed to dry my hair even more.

Back to square one, I recalled a time after a previous big chop when I felt that shea butter worked really well in my hair.  I had stopped using it in favor of the curl defining hold of the Kinky Curly Curling Custard.  This winter, I was desperate.  I made a mix of 3 parts shea butter, 2 parts coconut oil and 1 part Shea Moisture Curl Smoothie (mostly for the fragrance and to use it up).  This combo has worked very well on my hair.  I gently massage it in on damp hair and call it a day.  I'm currently having mixed results putting the KCCC on top of this.

So I didn't need grease, but I needed a heavy moisturizer.  My barber may not known best, but he advised the best he could - I certainly don't remember seeing shea butter on the shelves next to Gheri Curl Activator, back in the day.

--lix
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