The act of moisturizing inherently means to add moisture. But, there is an ongoing belief that still exists to this day, that oiling your hair moisturizes it.
How?! Moisture or hydration at its core comes from water. If we think about it on a scientific level, oil and water do not mix. In fact, most of us learned in high school that if you were to take a glass right now and put equal parts of oil and water into it, they will not mix. So coating your hair with oils blocks said water from being able to enter the cuticle and moisturize the hair.
"Well, I don’t use oil to moisturizes my hair, I put it over my products to seal in the moisture, isn’t that what it’s for?"
While that logic does make sense, there are nuances to the use of raw oils for 'sealing in moisture'...
Some oils, in particular - coconut oil, are able to penetrate into the hair and in so doing, take up space where water or other beneficial ingredients should be which decreases the total amount of water that your hair strand is able to contain. Other oils, that coat the hair, like castor oil, that are very thick and heavy in consistency, can work well at 'sealing' in moisture.
But ask yourself this, how often are you cleansing and conditioning your hair to firstly get the moisture in? Additionally, are you actually using the right type of cleanser to regularly remove these heavy oils? Because, improper cleansing leads to oily build-up on the hair that will prevent subsequent water from being able to enter the hair strands, leading to the hair being perpetually dry and dehydrated.
To wrap up what was said, here are the two main takeaways:
Oils do not moisturize!
Improper use of oils often leads to dehydrated hair!
So you’d be better off leaving them out of your routine, especially if you want to primarily wear your hair curly!
