How to Care for a Child's Curly Hair

Your curly haired child may look like a cherub but those tangles are anything but angelic. Guess what? You can prevent tangles. Curly hair is beautiful and when properly cared for, very easy to maintain. Here are some tips to keep your child's curls soft, shiny, defined, and tangle-free.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Wide-tooth comb
• Gentle moisturizing shampoo
• Leave-in Conditioner
• Spray bottle
• Distilled water
• Snag-free hair accessories
• Jojoba oil

How to Care for a Child's Curly Hair

1. Never brush curly hair. Curly hair is more delicate than straight hair. Brushing will roughen up the hair's cuticle, separate curls, and cause frizz. It also promotes split ends.

2. Use only wide-tooth combs. The best combs for any hair type are seamless handmade combs. Handmade combs are often made of a plastic that glides through hair without promoting static. Regular plastic combs have seams that can snag hair and cause damage. If you are caring for a toddler or baby's curls and a wide-tooth comb is too big, choose a small seamless handmade comb.

3. Shampoo a child's curly hair only once a week. Wet hair and apply a gentle moisturizing shampoo. Massage the shampoo into the hair and rinse thoroughly. Follow the shampoo with a moisturizing leave-in conditioner. Detangle the child's hair with the wide-tooth comb. Let hair air dry to form curls or use your fingers to shape curls.

4. During baths between shampoo days, rinse the child's hair with pure water. Wet hair and then gently massage the child's scalp to remove any debris. Rinse again with water. Add leave-in conditioner and comb through the curls to detangle. Shape curls with fingers.

5. To revive curls or tame frizz: Fill a spray bottle with distilled water. Wet your child's hair. Add a small amount of leave-in conditioner. Form curls with fingers.

6. To remove tangles: Saturate the tangle with leave-in conditioner. Gently use fingers to untangle the hair. If this doesn't work, take a spray bottle filled with distilled water and wet the tangled area. Next, apply a generous amount of leave-in conditioner to the tangle. Let the conditioner sit untouched for ten minutes. Carefully work out the tangle with your fingers.

7. Only use hair accessories that will not snag in the hair. Look for smooth barrettes without rough edges. Elastics should not have metal parts.

8. Jojoba oil is a good non-greasy moisturizer for all hair types, especially curly hair. Jojoba is actually a natural wax that closely resembles the sebum oils excreted from the scalp. Apply jojoba oil to your child's hair as a deep conditioner before shampooing it.

Tips & Warnings

• Use tear-free products on babies and toddlers.
• Organic products are often more moisturizing and gentle on children's sensitive skin and hair.
• You can recognize a gentle shampoo and moisturising conditioner when they contain many conditioning ingredients such as jojoba oil, olive oil, wheat protein, and keratin amino acids. Fatty alcohols such as cetyl alcohol and stearyl alcohol are excellent conditioning ingredients. Look for gentle cleaning ingredients such as sodium laureth sulfate, sodium myreth solfate or cocamidopropyl betaine.
• Add jojoba oil to any shampoo or conditioner to make it more moisturizing. Baby shampoos are mild but not moisturizing.
• You can buy seamless handmade combs at salons, beauty supply stores, and on the Internet.
• Make your regular plastic comb gentler by smoothing the seams with a nail file.
• Gels and other curl styling products are often not necessary to form curls in a child's hair. These kind of products may even dry out a child's hair. Leave-in conditioner and distilled water are all that is necessary for a child's beautiful curls.
• Apply conditioner to your child's curls before swimming to protect it from chlorine.
• Do not blow dry your child's curly hair. It will cause damage and frizz.
• After swimming, rinse chlorine out of your child's hair immediately with pure water. Shampoo the child's hair to get the chlorine out the same day to prevent damage and frizz.

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Resources

• Curly hair advice and articles