Hair tips for alternative black girls

by Sadia Neurotic

Let's face it. White chocolate flavours (white people) can have troubles finding the right look - we all do - but it's easier for girls with white skins to strike lucky with their alternative style. Dark chocolate flavours (black people) who are alternative have to work their subcultural style that bit harder due to their darker skin tones. We're going to look at hair - how to achieve an alternative look and still keep your beautiful hair healthy if you're a black girl.

I come from West Africa (Ghana), but I have lived my entire life on the cold brutal streets of London. I do not favour the term black. My hair roots are black. My nail varnish is black. The laptop I'm using to write this article is black. My skin is NOT black... It's chocolate flavoured. And yes, I do taste fantastic!

Hair tips for alternative black girls

1) Try not to wash your hair too regularly with shampoo.

Once a week is fine. Every three days is not! It will thin your hair out too quickly and make it impossible to style or work with. Instead of washing your hair every three days, you can condition every three days. An example: Wash your hair and condition on monday, just condition on wednesday, then wash and condition on saturday. And on the wednesday you can deep-condition to strengthen your hair for all the damaging you do to it with straighteners, relaxers, and other stuff you need to keep your hair looking great.

2) Condition, condition, and oh yeah... CONDITION

Don't ever forget to condition. If you don't want to spend money on a conditioner... Make your own. I even find making your own condition better, because you know what is in it. You can use almost any edible stuff in your kitchen to condition your hair. I find that mayonnaise and egg make the best conditioner for my hair. They leave it soft and shiny - and they're cheap!

You can use other people's home-made hair conditioner recipes or make your own. There are no rules.

3) Make sure you choose a great relaxer.

Admit it. Without relaxers, our hair would be a huge untameable afro. When choosing a relaxer, make sure you know what's in it and what it's doing to your hair. Try to choose ones that will condition your hair at the same time. Personally I find that relaxers from Softsheen-Carson company are great; just what I'm looking for. I use Dark&Lovely. It leaves my hair soft, silky and never dry - unlike some other relaxers on the market.

4)Don't weigh your hair down with 100 different products.

Using a million products that make a million promises is a bad idea. Trust me. You will look really fake and your hair will get itchy. Just try a simple hair cream gives your hair all the vitamins it needs.

5) Don't be afraid to experiment with different hairstyles.

When you have time on your hands, give your hair a quick rinse just to get it fresh and... EXPERIMENT. Take your hair to the next level. And remember - your hair can't do it all. Your personality is the secret serum needed to wake up any hair. Allow yourself enough confidence to rock your hairstyle.

6)Oh noes! My hair is too short.

So what? My hair is short and I rock it to its fullest. Some of the most fantasic hairstyles in the world are short. But if you truly hate having short hair there is nothing wrong with a little hair extension here... And there... And everywhere else.

7)Don't dye your hair every time you see hair dye

Our hair is weaker than caucasian hair. So dyeing it like there's no tommorow will result in split ends, breakage and plain ugly hair. When you dye your hair, stick to that colour for a while, re-touching your roots every, say, 2 months.

If you just want highlights, I find the best way to go is clip-ons. There should be a fan club for coloured clip-on extentions. They totally rock and they can make you rock too. Highlights without tears!

8) Any hairstyle can be made alternative.

Finally... a vital part of being alternative is being yourself, not a carbon copy of some other person or some other style. It's up to you to dictate what's alternative. You can wear braids and be alternative. In fact, I'm wearing braids as I write. Braids are wonderful, because they'll help undo the damage you have done to your hair from excess product, relaxing and general experimentation, and braids will also help promote growth. For double the fun, you can use different-coloured extentions for your braids. There are many colours: Pink, blue, white, green, purple, red... Just find the colour you like and do it!

Mookychick how-to guides for alternative hair:

• Emo hair tips
• Emo hairstyles - photos
• The history of alternative hair
• Make your own hair falls
• Punk / alternative wigs
• How to dye black hair blonde
• Removing henna from hair
• DIY Beauty for natural hair
• Make bad hair days a thing of the past

More alternative health and gothic beauty tips

• More: Health and beauty tips | Alternative style

Mission statement

Mookychick believes that climbing trees and riding giant turtles is more fun and girly than worrying about make-up. But if you want to worry about make-up instead of turtles? Fine by us. Be you feminist, kitten, punk, emo, indie, goth, witch, vegan, horror junky, intellectual, christian goth, corset queen, geek, unicorn, sea monkey... be you into alternative style, alternative health, spirituality, comics, manga, j-pop, harajuku or jock culture... we will always love you.