“This isn’t 4c hair!”
I don’t know if it is just me who has had this struggle… but I often buy 4c Wigs online or bundles/extensions and think “that looks like it matches my hair type” and then the hair arrives and it’s just too smooth and doesn’t blend at all with my leave out.
Well if you have ever been part of the ‘disappointed, just wasted my money gang’ when buying hair online, I have a quick hack that might save the day!
Warning: If you are in two minds about sending the hair you bought back, do not follow these steps, as once you manipulate those extensions in any way your chance of getting your money back goes right out the window. However, if you intend to keep those extensions regardless, follow the next step. This is always a hard choice for me to make, because what if you manipulate the hair and you still don’t like it and now you can’t even send it back…so think on it first.
Now that you have decided that you are going to stick it out with the hair, the first step is to wash and apply conditioner the hair - you should do this anyway, as who knows where the hair has been -If you are happy with the texture then you can just apply some curl defining cream and stop here. If you are looking to try to convert this hair into what I call “real 4c hair” (and I hate to use this term, because hair is just hair, but I use it for the purpose of differentiating between the array of curl patterns in Afro Hair) then you need to split that hair into small sections and twist it using your fingers and leave to dry.
Once the hair has dried naturally, the hard work can begin. You need to grab a brush and start combing that hair out, if it’s good quality hair, you will notice that is starts to blow out and start look a bit more like ‘real 4c hair’, continue this process – you are likely to lose some hair in the process.
Finally you can then install the hair into your desired style.