A follower of this blog wrote me an email this week and her question was, “Why do you use a T-shirt and not a towel?” I thought about it for a while as I do with all the questions you guys ask me so that I don’t go about feeding you poison. This is one question I had not specifically answered for myself. I also had not asked it. I just followed. I saw it on blogs and vlogs and tried it on my hair. It worked and so I continued to use a T-shirt instead of a towel to bloat out excess water from my hair after washing. It was working very well and I was not even bothered to find out why this is so. Thanks Mapule for asking the question. You helped me to go back to researching and finding out more on this practice that so many in the natural, curly, kinky world have adopted.
Let me start from the basics in case you have not heard. It is bad hair practice to rub anything on your wet hair in an attempt to dry it after washing. Rubbing will give you split ends and out the door go your length retention dreams. Instead, gently squeezing the excess water out is the thing to do. This can be achieved by wrapping whatever you are using to bloat the excess water on your hair and waiting for about 15 to 20 minutes while the water slowly seeps out. And, an even better practice is to use a T-shirt. I can hear someone say “Come on, what do you mean? A T-shirt?” Yes the good old T-shirt. But wait let me explain…
The Why
When curly or kinky hair is wet, it is much weaker and softer. Now, when drying hair using a towel, the grooves in a towel are aggressive to the hair cuticle due to the increased friction caused by the rough surface. Have you noticed some of your hair caught up in a towel when drying it? Sometimes these hairs are pulled out of your scalp. Because of the towel’s rough surface, the hair is not able to glide past it but instead it is caught and then pulled out. Towels have very thick super absorbent fibres and are designed to suck out as much moisture as possible and fast. This results in hair that is very frizzy and the curl pattern roughened up and hair prone to splitting and breakage. Moisture is what our thirsty hair thrives on while frizz is what we fight against. So what do we do? This is when using a T-shirt comes in. The 100% cotton fabric used to make T-shirts does not quickly suck all the moisture out but allows the water to slide out through your hair slowly, leaving your hair cuticle somewhat flatter than it would have been if you had forced the water off your hair much quicker. The fabric is also much smoother in textures and flat which means it will cause less friction on your hair and your strands will not be caught on the fabric thereby giving you less breakage. The other reason is that, a T-shirt can only absorb so much and once it is saturated, it will not absorb more. This is good because it will not leave your hair excessively dry.
The How
You will need any size of a T-shirt that is big enough to cover your hair. An old 100% cotton T-shirt is ideal and I have one that is already dedicated to my hair. I use my hubby’s one that he does not use any more. Open the T-shirt up and place it on your dripping wet hair with the bottom part resting on your forehead and then wrap or twist the rest of the T-shirt around the length of your hair at the back of your head and put it up into a bun. Use a pony holder to hold it together. You can also bring the end of the twisted T-shirt back to the front and tuck it under the piece on your forehead to secure. You can take this time to dress up, make your bed and do some order in your house for about 15 to 20 minutes and then remove the wrap. Your hair will be smooth, not dripping wet but also not over dried. Your cuticle will also be happy. What more can you ask for?
Instead of a T-shirt, you can also opt for a micro-fibre towel because other people say they have the same results as using a T-shirt. Personally, I have not seen a microfibre towel big enough to be able to cover my hair. Maybe I am shopping in the wrong places. The ones I have seen in South Africa, Johannesburg, are small square ones in the auto mobile section in Pick n Pay. I even thought of buying them and sewing them together to make a bigger piece for my hair. That was until I leant that I could actually also use a T-shirt. So a T-shirt I have been using ever since I leant this trick some 3 years ago. Who does not have an old T-shirt lying somewhere in the house? Put it good use.
Happy Easter and stay blessed always.
oxo
