Natural Hair Terms and Acronyms-Part 1

If you’re new to the Natural Hair World below are some terms that will help you navigate the forums.

• Co-Wash This term is used for women washing their hair only using Conditioner. A lot of Naturals try to only use natural products in their as well steering away from key ingredients, one of those key ingredients is Sodium Laurel Sulfate (SLS) which is found in most Shampoos. Hence the desire to Co-Wash.
• TWA Teeny Weeny Afro, this is the type of hairstyle one uses shortly after having their Big Chop or BC. Most recently actress Viola Davis sported her TWA on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. She received some flack for her style, but I think it was absolutely beautiful.
• Protective Styling is a method of styling your hair in a way that involves minimal manual manipulation. This type of styling often has the ends of the hair tucked away, since the ends are the oldest parts of the strand and require gentle handling. Protective styling is also credited to minimizing breakage and resulting in longer hair.
• Breakage is when hair is breaking at any point in the hair shaft and is not natural. Hair breakage often occurs if your hair has over processed or over manipulated. The over processing can occur with chemical treatment including relaxers and hair dyes. Over manipulation is caused by actually doing too much to the hair, constantly combing, brushing, braiding twisting etc. There is nothing wrong with these styles in moderation, moderation is key.
• Shedding is a natural cycle of the hair. After hair reaches the end of it’s life cycle it falls out from the root. The average amount of hair shedding is 50-100 hairs daily. A good indicator of whether or not a hair is shed is the white bulb on the end.

A lot of Naturals desire to have long hair, long being relative to the individual. One might consider long the length they had before decided to go back natural, others usually want to surpass their previous length. In the Black community ‘long’ is considered shoulder length, but in the bigger picture it’s usually Mid-Back length. Whatever your length goal is below are some acronyms that will help you evaluate where you are and perhaps where you want to be in the next year or so.

Length Acronyms

• EL Ear length
• NL Neck Length
• SL Shoulder Length
• BSL Bra-Strap Length BSB Below Shoulder Blade (these 2 are similar length)
• MBL Mid Back Length
• WL Waist Length
• HL Hip Length

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