Karen, known as Glamfun on YouTube, is a vlogger who documents her 4c hair journey, product reviews, and style. Recently there was social media backlash from her followers surrounding her decision to relax her hair. Now, she is transitioning back to natural. We wanted to ask her more questions addressing the trials and triumphs of her hair journey so far.
If overmanipulation caused the trauma or breakage to your hair, are you going to continue making hair care and styling tutorials? What will change?
I will be doing videos that show how I care for my hair. For example, I will be showing my wash regimen, deep conditioning regimen, my protective styling habits, and how to keep a good mindset throughout it all by focusing on other things like fashion, makeup, and exercising. I will be doing more hair discussion videos that talk about my experience and the different phases of a hair journey through a 4c hair prospective. What I really want to shed light on is a real 4c hair journey. People, especially in the natural hair community, need to understand that 4c hair is a very different hair type; much more different than 4b and 4a hair. The upcoming hair discussions that I am going to have on my channel are going to highlight how easy and normal it is for some with 4c hair to have major ups and downs due to underrepresentation in the natural hair community with such a unique hair type.
You stated that natural hair products also caused breakage. “Natural hair products” translate differently to everyone. Natural hair products could refer to vegan products, products with no silicones, products that are specifically marketed to natural hair, etc. Can you define what you meant by natural hair products? You could also share which specific ones.
In light of the breakage I was receiving, I eased up on the styling and began using organic products to nurse my hair back to health. Two products that I heard of that were very effective and healing for most natural hair types are ACV rinses and aloe vera juice. Little did I know these products would dry my 4c hair out even worse. I would create a mixture of 3-parts water 1-part ACV. A lot of people in the natural hair community said it would help to cleanse their hair, close the cuticle, and make their hair shiny. It made my 4c hair feel very brittle and dry. Same thing happened with aloe vera juice. A lot of people in the natural hair community say that it heals their scalp, closes the cuticles, and that it’s a good leave-in with water. Again, I tried it and it made my 4c hair feel very brittle. I thought I was doing something wrong so I tried different variations of these products all to no avail. With more research, I came to the conclusion that these two items probably did not work on me because I have low porosity 4c hair. By the time I started using more glycerin, castor oil, and heavy butters my hair was so upset that it didn’t like anything. Type 4c hair is the most fragile hair, so a lot of natural hair community information affects 4c hair ten times worse than it would affect someone with 4a or 4b hair because their hair isn’t as fragile. I knew I was going to have to start over. After that I was very hesitant about using natural hair products and spending hours conditioning and braiding my hair. I got sick of the process of experimenting with my 4c hair and decided to relax my hair again.
