Best Darn Twist Out on 4C Natural Hair

Girl it’s only a year and half later but I’m finally getting around to doing the blog post to accompany my popular video on the best twist out ever for 4C natural hair. Please excuse my tardiness.

I’m often asked about how I do my twists out, or how to get twist outs to look right on kinky hair in general. I think for many of us without super thick heads of hair, getting the twist out with the mushroom effect isn’t really that easy as simply twisting hair at night and taking it out in the morning. For me, it was about finding the right products or more so ingredients that would puff up my hair just enough to give the illusion of thicker hair, while still holding the definition of a twist out.  Enter Shea Moisture. 

Yes, Shea Moisture. The Curl Enhancing Smoothie and the Curling Gel Souffle. Two products that some love and some completely hate, but it really comes down to just knowing how to use them. The Curl Enhancing Smoothie is GLYCERIN heavy girl. Don’t ever put that ish in your hair if you trying to hold a curl. But for a kinky curl like myself with some duper dry 4C natural hair, the smoothie goes a long way in moisturizing my hair and leaving it smooth & soft. You just can’t use more than a little bit. Now the souffle was harder to master, as it’s not really a holding gel and the texture of it is rather gooey. As a former abuser of hair products, who would scoop a baseball size dollop of product and then put it ALL in my hair, I definitely had a hard time with the souffle. Never mind that the directions on the packaging say to just a use a quarter size of product for your whole head. I figured they ain’t know how big, nappy, dry and unmanageable my hair of head was — so I clearly need extra. So not true. Then I happened up Dawnyele‘s video showing how she achieved great twist outs by mixing the smoothie and souffle together. Something in the souffle counteracts the glycerin heaviness of the smoothie and left her hair super soft with a slight hold and great definition. *Lightbulb moment* So I went right to it.

I was able to meet the SheaMoisture folks at an International Hair Meet Up Day (INHMD) in Brooklyn, 2012. They were super nice to me as a fledgling YouTuber, back when I was excited to hit the 1,000 subscriber mark, and set me a box of their product. Girl, I was so hype I put ALL the damn products in my already moisturized hair at the same damn time. No chill at all. But then I got the MOST marvelous twist out ever in life and I just couldn’t figure out how to get it back. So this souffle + smoothie mix definitely made sense.

First, for my dry hair, I prefer to do this on already moisturized hair that’s a few days old. These two products together aren’t enough to moisturize my hair. So if you’re doing this on freshly washed hair, and a light leave in of your choice (like the Alikay Naturals Lemongrass Leave-In) and make sure to NOT do it on wet hair, damp at the most. Mix up the smoothie + souffle (I show you the amounts I use in the video) and get right to twisting using a small amount of each product for each twist. Set overnight and have a bomb fluffy twist out in the morning. No look at Gawd and say Amen!

I’m generally speaking not a fan of twist outs. My ends always hang limp and I just don’t feel like my hair is thick enough to make it look cute. But when I do, this is how I do it. To note: your hair will react differently depending on the weather, but I love this year round.