Mixed Race Hair Care Guide

I've had a lot of trouble working out how best to take care of my girls' lovely mixed race hair. I've tried so many products and methods over the years and have finally found a routine that works for us. I haven't found many guides on the internet that are UK-based, so I thought I would write my own.

First I'd like to recommend visiting the British Curlies Curl Forum. I learnt so much about hair products, what's in them, and what is best for curly hair by reading through the threads there. However, I find that a lot of the good curl-specific products are really very pricey, so I've been in search of cheaper options. We use:

• Tresemme Naturals 'Nourishing Moisture' shampoo and conditioner. These are good as they don't contain such harsh chemicals as your average products. Sulphates (a key ingredient in most shampoos) can cause curls to become really dry and silicone conditioners can cause trouble as the silicone builds up on the hair. The Naturals range has low sulphates and no silicone at all, and since using it my daughters' hair has been so much more manageable. As a bonus, it's often on special offer in Superdrug. You can also get it in Boots and some supermarkets.
• Coconut Oil. We get the one from Superdrug, which is £1.99 a tub and lasts a decent amount of time. It's also great to use on skin.
• Tangle Teezer Hairbrush. This is the thing to splash out on. It minimises hair breakage and makes hair brushing time much less stressful for everybody as it doesn't pull the hair as it goes through. It is an absolute godsend and I would recommend one for anybody, curly or not. They are available in Boots and some hair salons, as well as online.

We wash hair once a week. Doing it more often can be really drying for curly hair. We wash with the Naturals shampoo, then condition. We leave the conditioner on for about five minutes so it gets a good chance to work, then rinse. We then run a small amount of conditioner through the hair and leave in. After that, we brush the hair using a Tangle Teezer while still wet and put a good amount of coconut oil on to seal in the moisture of the conditioner.

Day-to-day, I wet the hair using a spray bottle (about 80p from Wilkinson) with water and a few drops of tea tree oil. The tea tree is not essential for conditioning the hair, but it help in repelling headlice, which is a big bonus if you have a school-age child. I run a little bit of Naturals conditioner through the hair, brush with the Tangle Teezer, smooth in some coconut oil and then it is ready for styling.

I'm certainly no hair stylist, and we don't like to spend too much time on hair so we stick to simple styles. Sometimes we let the hair fly loose in a 'fro with a stretchy headband to keep it off the face, or have it in one or two pompoms which look very cute. My favourite style is two-strand twists, which is great as it only needs to be done every other day, it stops the hair from becoming tangled, and it's also great for keeping headlice away. Last term there were two bouts of headlice at school, and my daughter came through both nit-free. It's really simple to do. There are many videos on youtube that show how to do it, and I intend to write my own little 'how-to' on it soon.

At bedtime we take any accessories from the hair, and put on a hair net (really cheap from Wilkinson) to protect the hair and prevent tangling.