https://blackgirlnerds.com/5-youtube-channels-to-follow-when-starting-your-natural-hair-journey/

If you’re a Black woman who is thinking of ditching the hair relaxers and straighteners, your biggest question may be how to start your natural hair journey. Luckily, there’s YouTube — a life-changing platform with thousands of videos about natural hair care and natural hairstyles. But with the availability of so many different channels, it can be difficult to know who to follow. Here are five channels you should follow if you’re thinking about or have started your natural hair journey along with some basic channel selection criteria to follow.

What to look for when following channels

It’s easy to become starstruck when you see a beautiful Black woman with thick long and healthy 4b or 4c type hair. Seeing this always restores a little bit of hope in any woman who did their big chop. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that although you may share similar hair textures with a YouTube star, everyone’s hair is different. This is one reason why it’s important to be a little selective when choosing who to follow.

And although there are common practices within the natural hair community, there are no absolute rules for natural hair care, except for avoiding treatments or products with toxic chemicals.

When coming across different YouTube channels, ask the following questions.

How transparent are they with their journey? Can you follow their journey from beginning to present? Do they share different parts of the journey? Do they show a variety of Black natural hairstyles?

Do they back up what they are saying with personal experience and science? Natural hair care is a process, one that includes trial and error, experimentation, and sometimes a bit of luck. A way to know if the information you’re listening to is genuine is to pay attention to how much they are sharing from their own experience in addition to paying attention to the factual information, they’re sharing. They don’t need to be a scientist, but can they at least define and mention some of the anatomy or breakdown of the hair?

What are people saying in the comments? People are honest on the internet. If people are sharing their positive experiences, that’s a good sign that a channel knows what they are talking about.

Do they have a similar hair texture to yours or do they have a hair texture that you admire? It’s fine to admire and follow someone who has a different curl pattern than you; however, you may not be able to apply the same techniques. You must embrace your hair texture and learn to care for it the way it is.

Now, with the criteria out of the way, here are five channels to follow that meet these expectations and more.

College Curls

College Curls is the channel for anyone who is busy and a little lazy when it comes to natural hair care. Francis, the creator of the channel, understands how tiring and difficult the natural hair journey can be. Therefore, she has spent the last 10 years figuring out her hair needs and supporting others along the way. On her channel, she has created fun, creative, and animated videos on everything hair care, from wash day instructions to how to make your hair grow. This channel covers all your natural hair care needs and answers all your questions.

Star Puppy

What is great about this channel is that Danielle or Star Puppy is honest, funny, and entertaining. She takes you on the journey with her, from fixing her bald spot to trying out Bandu knots or split dying her 4c hair. She makes you feel supported knowing that the natural hair journey isn’t always easy but always worth it.

DESZREN

This is your go-to channel for everything locs. On this channel, there are tutorials on how to twist and retwist your locs, along with wash day instructions and videos to help you to solve loc-related problems. The creator also takes you along her journey with videos on month-to-month updates of her loc growing journey.

Naturally Curly

NaturallyCurly.com is a platform developed in 1998 that caters to and empowers all shapes of curls no matter if they grow loose, coily, or wavy. Having natural hair often comes with many questions. You may have wondered why your hair is curly or coily or how come it grows out instead of down. Perhaps you’ve been frustrated with why your hair isn’t growing. Or you may be tired of relying on products to make your hair behave a certain way. The answer to easing your frustration might be to rely on science. On this YouTube channel, they’ve created a video series that focuses on hair science to help you understand the mechanics and the chemical breakdown of your hair.

Woch Beauty

This is a great channel to find easy hairstyles for natural hair. It features tutorials and videos around a variety of styles. This includes braid styles, twist-outs, Afro styles, and more. There is even a playlist for cute hairstyles for short and awkward lengths.

The videos tend to be compilations of different women with varying hair textures. So, there is a video for you no matter where you are in your natural hair journey.

Natural hair care can feel like a job. By putting in the work now, you can reap the benefits later. These benefits include having beautiful and healthy hair but also feeling confident in who you are. And remember, when you feel tired, confused, and frustrated with your hair, there are thousands of women who’ve felt the same way. Thank goodness many of those women decided to go in front of a camera and share their experiences with the world.