When Abby was an infant, she did not have much hair but she rocked headbands with the best of them. On our trip home to Virginia for her first Christmas (she was around 8 months old) to visit my parents, we began to notice a change. When we arrived, her little head was slightly damp from sleeping in her car seat (homegirl is a little radiator when she sleeps – still is!), she had a crop of curls beginning to form. By her first birthday, she was loaded with curls and it has been a learning process ever since!

One of the best assets I have discovered to help me in this process have been the blog Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care and the community on their facebook page. Through the posts, vlogs, and discussions I have learned so much about hair care, products, and styles to help keep Abby’s hair healthy and cute!

Over the course of the last three years, we have definitely experienced some trial and error in figuring out which products work the best for Abby’s curly hair. Curly hair tends to fall into three different curl patterns and once we had that figured out, we started exploring.  Determining the curl type can help you pick the best product based on texture and moisture in addition to the curl pattern itself. Abby’s hair type is 3C which has corkscrew curls but is often fine in texture. Her curls are soft but very dry and gets tangled very easily.

After testing out a variety of products, these are my top 5 products for her hair:

Kinky Curly Knot Today

This is a really great daily conditioner/moisturizer/detangler. Abby sleeps like a wild woman so even if we have her hair perfectly detangled at bed time, it is going to be knotted when she wakes up. We have tried several sleep caps, scarves, and satin pillowcases but with no luck (but are gladly open to suggestions). This products making detangling much easier and gives hair moisture without being greasy.

Cantu Shea Butter Leave In Conditioner

We use this product as a leave in conditioner and also keep it in a spray bottle mixed with water to use for detangling in the morning if we do not have Knot Today on hand. We live in the sticks so most of the products we use for Abby’s hair have to be ordered online but I love that I can pick this up at Wal-mart and the price is  awesome!

Miss Jessie’s Baby Buttercreme

This is what we use as a daily moisturizer for Abby’s hair. It provides a great amount of moisture and works especially well for creating protective styles, like twists or braids. This product is on the expensive side but a little goes a long way and if you shop the sales, the price evens out. In December, they had a site-wide BOGO sale so I stocked up!

Miss Jessie’s Stretch Silkening Curl Creme

We also use this product daily to help give Abby’s curls shape while keeping away the frizzies. I have found that a quarter-sized amount of this plus a quarter-sized amount of the butter creme is the perfect amount of product to keep Abby’s curl soft, shiny, and moisturized. Again, this is a little on the pricey side but one container lasts a long time and they run sales and specials often. Currently, Miss Jessie’s is offering 30% off on all 16 oz sizes of products today  January 24th using code BigSize30 at checkout (and if you use the link you can save $5 off your first purchase of $20 or more)!

 One ‘n Only Argan Oil Hair Spray

Abby’s hair is hard as the dickens to get straight and in order to protect it from damage, we don’t do it that often but every one in a while, I will pull it straight for her. This past weekend, she got her hair trimmed and it is much easier for the stylist to see how much to cut when its straight so on Friday night we popped in a movie and I went to town with the flat-iron. I picked up this product upon recommendation of a staff member who uses this product to straighten her and her daughter’s hair. It worked great! It seems to really seal in the moisture and make Abby’s hair shiny. The only thing I hate about taking the time to straighten her hair is that it doesn’t seem to last very long – two days max without retouching – but I think that is more her hair type than the product but at this stage I do not want to use anything heavier on her hair so we will make do!

Here is a before and after shot:

There you have it folks! My favorite five hair products for Abby! Is is sad that my almost 4-year-old uses more hair products than I do?