Caring for your hair is not as simple as it may seem, especially for those with thick hair. Many people with thick hair make mistakes when caring for and styling their hair.
But you can take control of your hair by learning to avoid these thick hair mistakes and embracing your hair’s natural beauty.
Common Thick Hair Mistakes
Here are 10 of the common mistakes that people with thicker hair make and ways to avoid them so you can make the best of your hair:
- Too Much Washing
- Forgetting to Condition
- Overexposure to Heat Treatment
- Hair Ties
- Ridiculous Bed Head
- Helmet Hair
- Wrong Brush
- Incorrect Brushing Methods
- Bleaching and Dyeing
- Neglecting Trims
1. Too Much Washing
Many people, regardless of hair type tend to wash their hair too often. To keep your scalp and hair healthy, shampoo your hair no more than two or three times a week.
You can use dry shampoo to control oil, and you can wet your hair without using shampoo. Your hair will get used to this routine, leading your scalp to produce less oil. Your thick hair will thank you for it.
2. Forgetting to Condition
Don’t let your thick locks go without moisture—this mistake can and will cause frizz and breakage, especially when you brush your hair or attempt to style it.
Each time you shampoo your hair, choose a conditioner to massage through your hair and leave it in while you wash the rest of your body or shave your legs or whatever.
Select a conditioner without synthetic chemicals and additives—they could cause skin irritation and are not environmentally sustainable. Conditioners with natural ingredients like coconut oil and shea butter help immensely with moisturizing your thick hair.
3. Overexposure to Heat Treatment
Overexposure is not only a thick hair mistake, it’s true for every hair type. Occasional heat exposure will not cause lasting damage to your hair, but thirsty thick hair combined with repeated heat treatments will undoubtedly cause frizz and breakage.
This is a tip for everyone, especially those with thick hair: do not overuse hairdryers and straighteners.
4. Hair Ties
You might find that ordinary hair ties do not hold your lusciously thick locks back without breaking. Luckily, scrunchies are coming back into style. Scrunchies are more durable than typical elastic hair bands and won’t cause much breakage to your hair.
You can also try the silk hair ties that resemble smooth ribbons tied at the end. These will be able to hold your thick hair in place.
5. Ridiculous Bed Head
Many of us with thick hair wake up with a mountain of unruly hair, hair that’s puffed up on one side and flat on the other, or hair tangled beyond belief. This is because of not detangling hair before sleeping.
There are a few solutions for this thick-hair mistake to avoid the monstrous bed head. One is to sleep with a durag on your hair. This method is not uncomfortable and will hold your hair in place.
You can also sleep in braids to minimize bursts of thick mountainous masses in the morning. Wetting down your hair in the morning can also help you readjust your hair.
6. Helmet Hair
If you have thick hair, chances are you’re familiar with bad haircuts where you have no layers, and your hair sits on your head in one thick slab. If you struggle with helmet hair, you need to seek a hairdresser that can use thinning shears properly.
7. Wrong Brush
We discussed the method of brushing and combing, but you can also make a mistake using the wrong brush type if you have thick hair.
Round brushes and those with dense bristles are wrong for thick hair, especially for daily use. You should purchase a bar-shaped brush with loosely arranged bristles for your thick mane.
8. Incorrect Brushing Methods
If you have thick (straight) hair, brush it from the ends and work your way up to where it meets your scalp. Do not start at your scalp with the first brushstroke.
This goes for combing as well. Also, to avoid split ends, never brush your hair when it’s wet. Always use a wide-toothed comb to comb through wet hair.
9. Bleaching and Dyeing
Changing your hair color is fun, or perhaps you’re going gray but not ready to embrace that silver fox energy just yet. But the process of dyeing your hair introduces chemicals, albeit not ones as strong as those used for perms, but they’re still affecting your hair.
If you choose to dye your hair a lighter color than the one you currently have, you need to bleach it first, and this stripping of color from your hair causes the hair to become brittle and prone to damage.
10. Neglecting Trims
Neglecting hair trimming is another mistake that people with thick hair usually make. Thick-haired people need to have regular trims because if you let your hair run wild and free, it will run wild. A trim helps promote new growth and ensures your layers stay intact so you don’t have a problem with helmet hair.
Regular trims (and perhaps the regular implementation of thinning shears in skilled hands) are necessary to maintain your hairstyle.
Tips to Maintain Thick Hair
If you want to learn more about maintaining your thick hair, there are a few tips you can try:
Hair Masks
Regular hair masks every month will help you control frizz and provide your thick hair with the moisture it needs. Hair is exposed to all kinds of dirt, pollution, and harmful substances as you go about daily. It needs TLC, which is one delightful way to restore your hair health.
Avoid Chemical Treatments
If you receive chemical perms to curl or chemically straighten your hair, you are changing your hair at a molecular level with powerful chemicals. Repeated exposure to these chemicals can cause breakage, frizz, and ultimately hair loss.
Dry Shampoo Is Your Friend
As we mentioned earlier, washing your thick hair sparingly will help you keep it from breaking and from losing too much moisture. Dry shampoo like Batiste can help you in this endeavor and you can get away with way fewer shampooing sessions by using it.
As Natural as Possible
The less you chemically or heat treat your hair, the healthier it will be, and the less frizz will affect your life. Occasional straightening, dyeing, or curling won’t have a long-term effect, but habitual treatments will damage your hair.
FAQs
Below are the most frequently asked questions about thick hair mistakes.
Hair is considered thick when the width of an actual strand of hair is wider than the average hair strand.
Many people with thick hair also have dense hair, contributing to the challenge of caring for thick hair. Hair density is measured by how many follicles grow together in an area.
Not if you know the tips and tricks to make your thick hair manageable and a pleasure to care for. You need to have the proper habits and tools at your disposal.
Thick hair is due to genetics. You may notice that the women in your hair tend to have thick (and perhaps dense) manes, and that’s simply a pattern of genetics.
However, hair can change textures, thickness, and density due to hormonal patterns, diet changes, and what products we use.
Thick hair tends to lose moisture faster than thin hair. Frizz is caused by a lack of moisture within your hair strands, and humid weather certainly doesn’t help—it exacerbates the frizz because your dry hair poofs out to try to capture the humidity in the air.
Everything works toward equilibrium, so the more moisturized you keep your hair, the less frizz will plague your life.
Don’t worry if you have thick hair—you can work with your hair rather than against it by avoiding the common thick hair mistakes to achieve the look and hair health you want.
You deserve the proper hair care methods and haircuts to improve your confidence, so embrace your thick hair as you adapt to maintaining it, not hiding it.
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