When You Want Shrinkage

Huey Freeman of the Adult Swim cartoon The Boondocks

I seem to constantly read articles about how naturals are trying to fight their shrinkage, but how do you do the opposite. That is, how do you make your hair shrink when you want it to. Every week, when I take down my two strand twists, my hair is left in a stretched out state that I just hate. The ends looks sparse, and I don't see any true curl (my natural curl pattern) in sight. So what do I do? I use the correct tools and methods to make shrinkage happen for me.

If it is going to be a humid/rainy day, usually a mist of a humectant spray and a walk out the door will lead to my hair slowly but surely shrinking throughout the day. When I am not sure of the weather, or if I want the shrinkage ASAP, I will do the following:

1. Spray my hair with a homemade moisturizing spray (approximately equal parts of aloe vera juice and bottle water - you can use less aloe - and several drops of tea tree essential oil). Really saturate the hair.
2. Hop in the shower with hair uncovered and let the steam shrink hair. By the time I get out the shower, my hair is much poofier and looks so moisturized and feels so so soft. The aloe vera juice-water mixture works better at attracting the shower's moisture even better than my OH Juices and Berries.
3. Seal in the moisture with an oil and cream based moisturizer.

Random Pic Above: Today someone told me they like my Boondocks afro. It made me think of how Huey Freeman from the Boondocks is actually a natural hair inspiration of mine. How funny.