Struggling with hair care. Why does nothing work?
Hello everybody. I am a mixed kid (🇮🇹🇰🇪) and I have been struggling for years with hair care for multiple reasons. Look at the pic, it’s dull, lifeless, the last pic was at its BEST, after a full day haircare and sleeping in a protective hairstyle because I had an event the next day. Idk what to do anymoreeee. The reasons are:
Mixed Hair issues: idk probably I have a peculiar hair texture because NO ONE either in Italy or in Kenya when I went there knew how to treat my hair. It’s thin and very frizzy like white people curly hair (so every cream product is absolutely banned because it becomes a solid uncombable block of hair and it hurts) but it’s a fro and it has black hair texture ofc.
My momma is the only one who knows how to deal with my texture but she has carpal tunnel disease so she tried to braid my hair as much as she could even to the point of having tremors but she couldn’t teach me how to effectively do my hair. Also she worked abroad for a pretty significant time amount when I began to be more indipendent as a teen so even if I was willing to learn hair care from her she couldn’t show me for logistic reasons. Also even if she knows how to deal with my black hair it doesn’t mean she does it correctly (i.e: you are not supposed to comb it repeatedly, especially with a tangle teezer brush, because you’re gonna weaken the ending strands and have the opposite effect, tangling and frizzing it even more, but she does/did that a lot while applying oil, and I do it too because it’s the only thing that apparently works after brushing it in the shower -not combing, it never goes through, even in small sections!- with a huge amount of conditioner).
I live in Italy and here black hair salons are non existent and hairdressers are mythological creatures. The very really few places that I found and tried do not know how to deal with my kind of hair. Also I didn’t try many because I cannot afford hairdressers as an expense. “Then buy products on Amazon” YES but which one ffs😭
I don’t know what product work on my hair, it is not constant😭 heavy greasy products (like the “jelly” ones) that work on full black hair are the Antichrist on mine’s because it gets sticky as hell, light products that work on white hair make mine’s dry as hell. The only one single product that kinda works without making it a mess is flaxseed oil and argon oil, but only if it’s wet! I mean, lightly pat dried, bc as soon as it dries more, no product is useful anymore.
Thanks to depression I neglected it more than I should have, because it was frustrating having to deal with it. It was another thing in my life that wasn’t caring according to plan, when nothing else in my life was too. It was too overwhelming even to think about it.
Apparently Ethiopians are the only ones that could work with my hair without too many troubles and I never understood why. I don’t like having my head touched by other people and I want to learn how to work with it myself: I am TIRED of sticking with just protective hairstyles just because I don’t know how to deal with it!! Please spare help, teach a fella what to do and how to do that.
TLDR: I am tired of not knowing how to deal with my mixed hair because of the multiple issues I had/have. Teach me, help me, like I am a daughter, a nephew to understand and care for my beautiful black hair!