00:00Hello, you're watching Beauty How To on Essence.com. I'm Nicole Melton, your beauty editor, and I'm here with Erica Dotson, co-founder of Indeed Hair in New York City. And today we're going to talk about how to cleanse your scalp while wearing extensions.
00:30So everyone always asks us, how do I cleanse my scalp when I'm wearing extensions? It's actually very simple, ladies, and it's all about making sure you pay close attention to the natural hair.
00:43So when you go in, you want to be very gentle. You get a nice amount of shampoo. Use warm water, not too hot, not too cold, just right in the middle.
00:54And then you're going to make sure that when you shampoo, you really focus on the edges.
01:00And it's all about getting all of the products out of the edges. Some of us are using like edge gels and those types of things to smooth it down.
01:08So you really want to make sure that you cleanse that. And then you're going to also go around the back if you have hair that's left out in the back.
01:15Go all the way around the perimeter. And then you start working in underneath the braids. Again, make sure that you're very gentle with that because you may irritate the scalp.
01:25You've already had your weave in for quite some time. And then, you know, also you have the braids on top of that. So you want to go in.
01:33Please don't use your nails. A lot of us have these like amazing nails, but you don't want to use those to cleanse your scalp. You don't want to irritate it.
01:41So you use the balls of your fingertips. You just go in very gently, really work your way. You can start at the crown, work your way on down, and just make sure you're massaging it.
01:51Circulation is key. You allow that shampoo to sit. Most of us will go in, we shampoo it, we're impatient, and we just rinse it out right away.
02:00You really kind of want it to sit for maybe about four minutes or so, and then you rinse.
02:07And then the key is that you shampoo it one more time because the initial shampoo is really just starting to kind of get all of those dirt molecules out of the cuticle.
02:18And then the second one is really rinsing it out completely. So after you do the second shampoo, you rinse it all out.
02:26And then it's always best to get like a deep treatment conditioner that really, really goes into the scalp, it goes into the follicle.
02:35And then that, you should let that sit for about ten minutes, get a plastic cap, and that really gets underneath those braids.
02:43Rinse it out thoroughly though. You don't want to have any buildup underneath the braids.
02:49And after your hair is completely rinsed out, you want to take a blow dryer with a diffuser attachment.
02:56And it's key that you start, don't blow dry the extension hair first. You need to blow dry your natural hair underneath.
03:04And the diffuser is great because it has all of these points on the inside and it really, really penetrates right into the braid.
03:12The reason why you want to make sure those braids are completely dry is because you don't want to have mildew forming underneath.
03:20Mildew, I don't think anyone likes that. It doesn't smell great and it's just not the best thing to have sitting on top of your scalp.
03:28It can cause a lot of issues. It can cause hair loss. It's all sorts of things.
03:33So you want to make sure that you dry your braids thoroughly.
03:37Once that's done, you can start working on the extension hair.
03:41You can diffuse it if you'd like. Continue diffusing it.
03:43Or you can just use a brush, a vent brush, and take the diffuser off and blow dry it as you normally would.
03:50So that's key. And then as you move along just over time, to avoid an itchy scalp.
03:56A lot of us get that itchy scalp where we want to do the weave pack.
04:00Well, to avoid having to do that, you take a Q-tip and you can use a tea tree oil solution or spray.
04:08And you actually go in and you apply it underneath the braids.
04:13And you just go all over. It's very soothing and it feels really, really good.
04:18But in addition to that, it's really going to treat your scalp and you'll have amazing, healthy hair underneath.
04:25Awesome. Thank you so much.
04:27Thank you, Nicole.
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