How to not be a product junkie
How in the world did we ever evolve into “product junkies”? Think about it. Remember, there was a simpler time back-in-the-day where we probably never even paid attention to the companies making our products. Somehow we just knew (or our mama or grandma knew) what to put in our hair to get it looking decent.
But now all of a sudden, with the explosion of natural hair care lines from EVERYWHERE, we’re hopping from one thing to the next, deeming one product line is better than the next—until something else comes out, and it leaves a lot of us who simply just want fabulous results CLUELESS! A lot of the time, we don’t even know if the hype about a new product is really all it’s cracked up to be. So we take a risk every single time we grab our wallets to try something new.
It does NOT have to be like this! There’s a simple way to never end up in that rabbit hole. And I have 4 things you must do to avoid being a product junkie:
Purchase only one product a month
Focus on ONE product and put the others on the back burner for now.
This reason I say this is because I’m tired of people saying you need to test a product for “X” amount of time. For some reason it just doesn’t stick with us. It usually makes us so anxious to see results that we most likely interpret things incorrectly. Healthy hair is all about balance and hoping just one product is going to make a drastically noticeable different is a little ludicrous. It’s not the one product that’s going to make a difference but how that one product fits into and works with your regimen.
The best way I’ve discovered to test that is control yourself on how MANY products you are buying. You could buy a lot of products, test them all, run into a disaster and you won’t know what caused the problem because all of those new products are foreign to your hair. If you know what usually works for your hair, once you add a new product into the mix and things change, you’ll know why. So limiting yourself to testing just one product a month (because you DO need time to see the changes) will save you time from analyzing which product did what for you and even save you money from trying it all at once. The one product a month thing doesn’t have to last forever of course, just until you know what you’re doing, haha.
Learn what ingredients work for you
I think the most common reason naturals become product junkies is because they never slow down to see what actually WORKS! When you move too fast, you miss the whole point of experimenting with products. You can’t rush science and that’s all hair care is. What it takes to learn the right INGREDIENTS for your hair can be carried out by following the same steps from the previous point. Emphasis, on ingredients, not products. So when you find a product that works, write down those ingredients. And what’s going to happen after that point is amazing… you’re going to see what does work for your hair because you’re actually PAYING ATTENTION and not confused by additional products.
When you know what ingredients work for you, you’ll know what to choose and what to ignore. And when you have discovered what ingredients typically agree with your hair, THEN you can experiment with the different products and brands that contain those ingredients. That’ll in turn give you narrow options that aren’t overwhelming and it’ll save you from wasting so much time and money. BAM! Headache relieved!
Do your research first
I personally like mixing up my own concoctions!
The last time you bought a hair product, did you ask yourself why? Seriously. That simple exercise could save you from making regretful decisions and purchases. Because sometimes you may find yourself saying that you’re buying a certain product because you heard it’s the latest miracle in a bottle. Realize that you are setting yourself up when you do that.
This point builds off of the last two. If you don’t research what’s even in the product, you could potentially be buying something that never would’ve worked for your hair anyway. Then you’ll get frustrated because it’s showing horrible results but…you put yourself in that position! Don’t be too lazy to research something that’ll save you time and money in the long run.
So when you are buying a product, even if it’s for the first time, and you ask yourself “why?”, your answer should as specific as: I’m buying this because it contains [desired ingredient] and that ingredient makes my hair really soft and shiny. Clarity is key.
Be committed for the long haul
I’m about to be brutally honest. Product junkies are really just naturals who show signs of lack of love for their natural hair. They don’t have the patience to do the points I’ve explained above. So they hop from one thing to next, hoping it’ll work overnight so they can finally love what they see in the mirror.
That is TORTURE! Promise me you won’t do that, or if you already are, promise me you’ll stop.
Nothing happens overnight. And as your hair grows, she’s going to change. And there’s going to be products she “grows out of” and products that’ll always be her friends. She may like a certain product one week, and hate it the next. But you must change with her. Just like you would while raising a child. Essentially, your hair is your child.
All this point serves to do is help you truly realize that in order to see the beautiful goals you want, you have to plant the seed and nurture them into growth. Nurture includes commitment and commitment includes love. You must have all of these.
When you think about it, the best way to avoid becoming a product junkie is to take all the love and hype away from the products and put it into your natural hair! Once we take the same amount of energy we use to research if a product will work, and put it into getting to know our own hair so we’ll know if it’ll work, hair struggles are going to be a thing of the past!