Updated: November 4, 2022
If you’ve stumbled on this article, you’re probably looking for more all-natural ways to grow your 4C natural hair. And you’re in luck because we’re going to be talking about how to grow natural hair chemical-free.
As we like to say here at Hibiscus Roots, there isn’t one valid way to grow natural hair. Unless you have a medical condition, or you are nutrient deficient, your hair will grow whether or not you do anything to it.
The goal we have here is to keep all that natural hair you grow healthy and attached to your head.
We also like to encourage using a minimal natural hair routine that puts you in control of what goes into your natural hair care.
What do We Mean by “Chemical-Free” 4C Natural Hair Growth?
In this article, when we say “chemical-free product” what we really mean is a product with ingredients that are freely found in nature. Or products with ingredients that come from products that are freely found in nature.
It is impossible for anything to be chemical-free if we think about the fact that H20 or Water, is technically a chemical 😉
11 Easy Ways to Grow 4c Natural Hair without Chemicals
1. Use products with all-natural ingredients
The most obvious way to grow 4C natural hair chemical-free is to use all-natural products. At least the first 5 ingredients of your natural hair products should be ingredients that are freely found in nature. However, you can transition from this to using purely natural ingredients!
2. Make your own natural hair products
A great way to ensure your natural hair regimen is chemical-free is to make your own products yourself. If you need a cleanser, try a clay wash, aritha shampoo, or African black soap with ethically-sourced ingredients you can trust.
If you need a deep conditioner, use a herbal gloss like henna, fenugreek, or amla. And for a moisturizer, you can try pure aloe vera juice and seal with avocado oil and shea butter. If you need a gel you can use flaxseed gel or sea moss gel. It can really be that simple.
3. Adopt a minimal natural hair regimen
The best way to grow your 4c natural hair regimen chemical-free is to keep it simple. We keep hammering on the fact that all you really need is a cleanser, deep conditioner, moisturizer, and oil.
Don’t let marketing and labels make you need think you need more than that.
If you currently use more than 5 different products every time you wash your natural hair, you’re using too many.
4. Choose single ingredients where possible
If it seems overwhelming trying to minimize your natural hair products then try to replace as many products as you can with single ingredients.
Can that styling cream or styling gel be replaced by flaxseed gel? Can you replace your hair moisturizer with straight aloe vera juice?
You can make these replacements one at a time until your entire natural hair product collection is reduced to 4 or 5 products.
Along these same lines, if you’re thinking of taking hair vitamin gummies, opt for pure MSM and Vitamin C instead. You can even increase your overall vitamin intake by adding more spinach to your diet. Or even simply increasing your water intake!
5. Rethink what you know about natural hair care
If there’s anything blocking your natural hair minimalism, it may be the fact that you’re holding on to a weird notion of natural hair care.
You may be thinking your natural hair is unmanageable, naturally dry, or “bad.”
This kind of thinking puts you in opposition to your natural hair. You feel the constant need to tame it, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Natural hair care should be about keeping it clean, keeping it hydrated, keeping it strengthened, and protected. That’s it!
6. Always keep your scalp healthy
Contrary to what you may have heard, stimulating hair growth isn’t about figuring out what to add to your scalp.
That’s right.
To achieve the same goal, you can apply a small amount of oil to your fingers and apply it to your scalp, then manually stimulate blood flow to your scalp by massaging it. And once you experience dryness or product build-up, cleanse your scalp!
I say this as someone who used to deal with excessive scalp itchiness and dryness.
Everyone on the internet told me that I needed to just keep adding oils to my scalp. One day I realized that the opposite was actually true. When I reduced the amount of oil I put in my scalp, and how often I did it — my scalp felt so much better!
If this sounds like you, try experimenting with even skipping oils altogether. Try just massaging your scalp to stimulate blood flow as well as move sebum around to better protect your hair from damage.
7. Learn your natural hair porosity and how it reacts to certain products
If you’re having problems with some natural hair products and now have a cabinet full of them because of failed experimentation — listen up!
The products may not be working because you do not know your hair porosity, and you do not know how to pick the right products! The answer isn’t more products. You might actually benefit from picking more all-natural products that work well with YOUR hair porosity.
For example, I go on and on about how much I love using pure aloe vera juice on my hair as a moisturizer. You may have tried this, had a bad result and gone back to your store-bought products.
This makes sense because my hair is high porosity and LOVES very low pH products, while your hair might be low porosity.
If you use low pH products on low porosity hair, they may not give the results you need. In your case, you would need to dilute the aloe vera juice with water before adding it to your hair.
If you only tried it once without giving your hair time to adapt or find a compromise, you will never know how well all-natural products work for you!
Read Also: The Complete Guide: High Porosity 4C Hair
8. Embrace your natural hair
Similar to the point above, we recommend that you embrace your natural hair and don’t feel the need to turn it into something it’s not! Your natural hair has one job and that is to frame your face.
No matter its length, no matter its texture. Your afro is your halo, and the less you feel you need to tame it, the fewer ingredients you will need!
9. Learn good techniques for your natural hair
A lot of what we try to get from natural hair products, we can do with the right techniques.
Goals like minimizing frizz, taming flyaways, and getting your curls to fall just right can all be achieved with the right technique.
Using techniques like rope twisting for longer-lasting twists or shingling for better curl definition can enhance your natural hair results without additional products.
10. Filter all the water you use in your natural hair!
Water is basically the lifeline for your natural hair! You need to spray your hair with natural hair before you moisturize it, use water to make your DIY hair masks, fenugreek or rose water recipes, and even just washing your natural hair.
Isn’t it crazy to imagine that if your water is “hard” or full of heavy minerals, all of that effort you’re putting in could actually be damaging your hair?
One way to tell if you have hard water is if your hair and skin often feel dry after a shower, or if your tea kettle frequently needs to be descaled!
If this is the case, you need to invest in a high-quality water filter that you can easily install in your shower. So you can always use filtered water in your natural hair routine! You can get this stylish water filter from Hello Klean!
11. Be Consistent
With anything related to natural hair, you have to be consistent. If you use all-natural products to moisturize your hair for a while and then go back to store-bought products, it would be difficult to see the full benefits of your all-natural routine.
Even if you only transition using one product at a time, use it for at least 3 weeks to see how your hair likes it and adapts to it before you decide it’s not working for you.
As usual, please feel free to comment below or email us if you have any questions about the article.
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featured image: source