African-American morning hair-care regimen

[sethg_prime]

Setting: Boston area, present day

Comments

[fealubryne]

Like everybody else has been saying, so much depends on what she does with her hair. When I was really little I pretty much had a short afro, and that generally takes a few minutes to pick/comb through (so it's not flat anywhere) and possibly a rubdown of oil/conditioner/something to keep it from looking/getting dry

[sethg_prime]

Thanks for going over all the options. I think the character will be using twists rather than dreads per se-see my reply to redikolous above.

[fealubryne]

Okay, that's cool! Just for the record - I've actually had my hair done like that before, but it wasn't natural. Most "black" hair is way too curly to do that naturally, they usually straighten it first and then do the twists while wet, with gel to hold it in place. And on top of that it's sort of a pain to keep up on. You definitely need to make sure you wear a scarf/cap every night to keep the gel holding it in place, it's crunchy to sleep on (no lie, your hair is literally crunchy) and you need to spritz it with oil in the morning. If you want to "let it down" it's not going to just fall in neat ringlets, either. They'll get smooshed by morning and you'll have to re-curl them if you want curls, or flat-iron if you want smooth, straight hair.

Maybe there's other ways of doing it, but for a style like the one pictured that's how I've personally seen/had it done. It's not super practical, and it'll start to look ratty pretty fast.

[sethg_prime]

Thanks-this is all extremely helpful.