African American Hair: Are Moisturizers Without Mineral Oil & Petroleum Superior to Those that Contain These Ingredients?

Being African American, I've researched hair care products for years in search of the absolute best products to use on my fragile and extremely dry, brittle hair. One especially frustrating problem I've had that has become even more of a problem recently is my hair has been even drier than usual. My hair has been beyond dry and no matter which moisturizers I use on it lately, it's just as dry an hour or so after applying it as it was prior to using it. It became so bad at one point that I began doing extensive research to find out which products could remedy this problem, yet until I realized that moisturizers containing petroleum, mineral oil and similar products actually prevent the hair from properly absorbing moisture, my hair remained extremely dry.

I learned from my research that African American hair desperately needs moisturizers made up of mostly water and not the various oils that many products on the market contain. Instead of helping the hair to become less dry, petroleum and mineral oil containing moisturizers actually encourage more dryness to occur. This is due to the fact that water and other liquid in moisturizers that the hair is craving actually rolls away from the hair follicles instead of into them, where the water is needed. It's just like raindrops rolling off a raincoat, which when it comes to African American hair, is not good. So, what's the answer? Well, I've found that Ultra Black Hair (UBH) products work like a charm. Cathy Howse, the founder of the company, has many wonderful products, and I really love the Satin Crème and the Silky Spray Moisturizers. They're both fragrance and paraben free and also contain no artificial colors.

Since discovering Cathy's products, my hair is slowly but surely coming back to life. The extremely dry and brittle hair that I had in the past has been replaced by hair that is moisturized, silky and easy-to-manage. I will never again use moisturizers that contain mineral oil or petroleum on my hair again. While growing up in Detroit, all my mom knew to use on my hair was "grease", which worked fine at the time, but as I grew older my the needs of my hair evolved and grease no longer worked for me. For the black women who still use hair grease in their hair (my mom does) and it works, that's great, but my hair needed something more in order to be healthy. I'm just glad I discovered what my needed before I lost it all. So in my honest opinion, I believe that moisturizers without petroleum or mineral oil are superior to the moisturizers that contain them, but everyone is different, and what works for one person may not work for another.

http://www.ultrablackhair.com/hairTips/moisturizersQ.html