My Hair Care Routine For Healthy Long Hair

How I care for my waist-length hair: A simple, old-fashioned, natural hair care routine for healthy long hair.

My Hair Care Routine For Healthy Long Hair

I often get asked about my natural hair care routine and how I grew my hair to waist length. My hair care routine is super simple. You don’t need special, expensive hair products for my natural long hair regimen: all you need is (homemade) shampoo and vegetable oil. You don’t even need a blow dryer!

 

My Hair Care Routine For Healthy Long Hair

Hair Type: coarse, thick, straight hair

Hair Length: between waist length and hip length

Health & Hair

I’m a migraine suffer and I have more than one autoimmune diseases, and both negatively affect the growth of my hair. But I use this simple, old-fashioned, natural hair regimen to promote growth!

How Often Do You Wash Your Hair?

Like my mother and grandmother before me, I wash my hair only once a week. Because too frequent washing strips away the hair’s natural oils that are necessary for healthy hair.

However, if your hair starts to look greasy after 3 or 4 days, you can either braid your hair, use a dry shampoo or wash your hair twice a week.

Ayurvedic Oil Treatment For Healthy, Long Hair

Before I wash my hair, I massage my scalp with vegetable oil. Applying oil to the scalp, promotes hair growth, prevents premature graying and makes the hair soft and glossy.

You can use special ayurvedic hair oils or just vegetable oils such as sesame oil, almond oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, mustard oil or jojoba oil. I don’t recommend to use coconut oil because it clogs your drain. Ask me how I know! In the past, I used sesame oil but recently I switched to sunflower oil.

Related: 200+ DIY Natural Beauty Products

It’s usually recommended to apply hair oil before you go to bed and wash your hair the next morning. But this didn’t work for me. So instead I massage my scalp with oil at least one hour before I wash my hair.

For the ayurvedic oil treatment, part your hair at the top of the head and apply a drop of oil with your fingertips or a squeeze bottle. Make another part about half an inch or so parallel to the first and apply another drop of oil. Continue to part your hair all over the scalp to apply the oil. Then massage your scalp with small, circular motions for a minute or so.

Then I usually put my hair into a bun for one or two hours. And immediately before washing, I detangle my hair with a wide tooth comb.

How Do You Wash Your Hair?

I usually use commercial shampoo to wash my hair. Sometimes, I wash my hair with eggs or other homemade shampoos.

Related: 30+ Homemade Shampoo Recipes

I wash my hair over the tub and use a shower head to rinse my hair. I shampoo only the roots and wash my hair with cold water. I massage the scalp with shampoo, rinse out the shampoo with a shower head, massage the scalp again with shampoo, and rinse out the shampoo with cold water again.

I use cold water to rinse my hair because as a migraine sufferer I can’t stand heat on my head. Besides, rinsing the hair with cold water, makes it glossy and soft. However, if you can’t stand cold water, you can use lukewarm water instead.

After rinsing, I squeeze out excess water with my hands. Then I towel dry my hair: I simply squeeze the hair with a towel to absorb as much water as possible. But I never rub my hair with a towel to prevent damage.

My Hair Care Routine For Healthy Long Hair
My hair curled using the No-Heat Zig Zag Curl Method

Blow Drying Vs. Air Drying Long Hair

I have waist-length, thick hair. But I haven’t used a blow dryer in years! I prefer to air dry my hair. The main reason is that I’m a migraine sufferer and can’t stand the heat on my head! Besides, I’ve always hated blow drying my hair: Because I have long and thick hair, it took ages. And afterwards my hair looked really frizzy.

When I air dry my hair, it’s soft and glossy. And because my hair dries on its own, I can use the time for something else: No time wasted for blow drying the hair! Another bonus point is that I don’t have to waste energy and can save money!

How Long Does It Take To Air Dry Your Hair?

As I said before, I have waist-length, thick hair. And yes, it takes some time to let thick and long hair air dry naturally! But you don’t have to wait for your hair to air dry. Use the time for cooking, blogging, relaxing or whatever!

I either leave my hair down or put it up into a bun. If I air dry my hair on a hot summer day, it takes about three hours to dry. But in winter it usually takes longer.

Detangling The Hair

I never comb my hair while it’s still wet to avoid hair breakage. And I never use a brush to detangle my hair. After air drying my hair, I use a clean, wide tooth comb. I use a plastic comb to detangle my hair because wooden combs made my hair frizzy. And to keep my hair clean for longer, I wash the comb when I wash my hair. I simply use castile soap and water to wash the comb.

 

Step By Step Hair Care Routine For Healthy Long Hair

  • wash your hair once a week

  • massage your scalp with oil one hour before washing your hair

  • shampoo only your roots

  • rinse your hair with cold water

  • let your hair air dry naturally

  • detangle your hair with a wide tooth comb

 

8 thoughts on “My Hair Care Routine For Healthy Long Hair

  1. Would you mind sharing what you use for commercial shampoo? I’m a fellow migraine sufferer and I’m having a hard time finding one that bother me in terms of fragrance.

    1. I feel the same! 😀 I’ve tried many commercial shampoos and hair soaps so far but I can’t even stand the smell of “fragrance-free” shampoos! 😉 So far I haven’t found a commercial shampoo that I like. I’d like to use castile soap to wash my hair because it’s one of the few smell that I can stand even during a migraine attack. But the water is too hard where I live so the soap doesn’t clean my hair properly . At the moment I use eggs to wash my hair because they have a neutral smell and clean my hair better than some commercial shampoos. 🙂

  2. Thank you for the advice! Ive been trying to grow my hair out for a while and covid made it thinner than it already was. I want to keep it long do you have tips on making it look thicker without damaging it? Thank you very much.

  3. Do you ever use conditioner? I feel like when I try to use shampoo only my hair ends up really dry.

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