Hispanic hair care

Due to the wonders of genetics, your daughter-to-be's hair could turn out in many different ways! Her hair could be more AA, more Hispanic, more Caucasian, or anywhere in between. It will likely change from immediate babyhood on into toddlerhood, as well. Just one of the many things to look forward to! Basically, you will have to watch her hair, try different things based on what her hair seems to be closest to, and go from there.

I think, most likely, your baby will have really nice, thick, hair, with just a little curl, that doesn't need much extra care. My youngest child is Haitian and Filipino. Filipinos have varying amounts of Spanish blood, too, and her birth mom looks very Spanish. Her hair is thick, black and very straight. Joanna's is like her birth mother's hair, with a nice perm in it. It needs conditioning because of all the heat styling she does but it doesn't soak up oil, like my full AA son's. If she just washes it, puts a little conditioner on it, and lets it air-dry, it is just gorgeous and not dry at all. The only real challenge with it is that it is so thick and heavy. Every once in a while, we have it thinned, so it isn't quite so heavy. They can take out a great deal and you can't even tell by looking at her that any of it was taken out.Do you know anything about the birth father's hair? My 23 YO son is black/white. He looks very black for a biracial person, for the most part, but his hair has barely any curl. His daughter, whose mom is white, has straight hair. I would have surprised if she'd had curly hair, because he obviously didn't get the genes for it! When he was a teen, he wanted SO badly to have either an afro or corn rows. We got corn rows, once, but it didn't stay in, because it was just too straight! He just keeps it real short, now, and it looks great that way.I hope everything goes great with the coming birth! Please keep us posted!

My AD is hispanic and has very thick corkscrew curls. I treat her hair with the tips I learned from a book called "Curly Girl". It is similar to AA haircare. My AS has very thick wavy hair. I cut it with a very short "fade" hairstyle which is very popular with hispanic males. He has eczema, so I treat his skin like AA skin. I have many hispanic relatives. It seems like most of their hair is very thick. It looks best for girls if kept long. If the hair is cut into a short style, it brooms up & does not look nice. Could just be my particular family, not sure. Some have curly, some straight, some wavy but all have thick shiny beautiful hair. They have some eczema issues and need to use thick unscented lotion. They seem to have an obsession with using sunscreen to keep from getting dark which is strange to me. I asked about this in a thread recently and am using the sunscreen for cancer prevention now so the bios are happy and I feel better about it now.

I'm going to try to post a pic of my hispanic daughter's hair. This shows her from the back on our adoption day. :cheer: edited for spelling

I have a son who is 1/3 Caucasian, 1/3 Hispanic (Native Central American), and 1/3 African (per a DNA test). His hair is AMAZING! He has loose curls, jet black and shiny. People always comment on how great his hair is. My other son is full Hispanic (Guatemalan, 98% Native, probably Maya) and has super thick, straight, shiny hair that is equally amazing. I don't do anything special for either of their hair-just shampoo and condition with the same paraben and sulfate free stuff I use. As far as skin goes, they both have eczema. We use only fragrance free, dye free laundry products. For baths we use California Baby body wash. Then after their bath I coat them in organic virgin coconut oil. It is greasy at first, but a few minutes later it soaks right in. This works better than lotion for us. But we also use Cetaphil lotion when I don't have time to wait for the coconut oil to melt.

I second the coconut oil. It's inexpensive, good for skin and hair, and does not irritate eczema. I realize I could have broke down the curly girl book for you, its not that difficult. If your DD has curly hair wash with a shampoo like Amber sugessted only once a week, other nights wash with a botanical conditioner. I put coconut oil in after her weekly shampoo. Don't ever comb hair while dry. Use wide tooth comb and wet hair with water with a bit of lavendar oil or I recently started using the lavendar water and then Carol's Daughter leave in spray Black Vanilla conditioner. If your DD has the straight shiny hair, do not do what I suggested. It will look greasy! For skin care when we do the weekly wash I use the coconut oil. The rest of the time we use Aveeno Eczema Creme or Eucerine Calming Creme. I sometimes have to use Aquaphor around the mouth area. I use Aveeno Creamy Baby Bath. This kind of skin care is only necessary if the child gets eczema or very dry skin. It may not be you will have to see.

Luvsbeingamom's daughter's hair looks pretty much like my youngest daughter's. It's a lot of curl, by caucasian standards but, compared to my full AA son's hair, it's about a 3 on a scale of 10. Joseph's hair is too tight for an Afro or corn rows. Joanna is almost 17, so she has been doing her own hair for quite some time. She flat irons it every day, except when she gets an injury and can't hold her arm up long enough. She's an athlete, so that happens from time to time! I could never use anything greasy on it, like with my son's hair. It made it stringy.In my experience with two biracial kids and one black kid, they all need to have quite a bit of moisture on their skin, and are sensitive to moisturizers that contain artificial frangrances. Natural fragrance like vanilla or cocoa butter is fine. It is always a lot of fun watching to see what features multiracial kids get. I have three biracial grandkids, too. The 15 MO boy is half black, half white. When he was born, he was very white, much more than his uncle who was the same combination. His eyes were brown and his nipples were brownish and other than that he looked white. Now, he is getting quite a bit darker and his hair is finally growing in and it is much tighter curl than either of my biracial kids. My other two are my biracial son's kids. Their mother is white, too (not surprising, since the black population is SO small here.) His newborn son actually looks blacker than the 15 MO. You just never know! Also, some kids will be the color and have the hair type they are going to have by four months old, while others will look real white for 18 months and then suddenly start showing black features (or whatever other they have the possibility of). None of my grandkids have any Mongolian spots either, where my two biracial kids had very obvious Mongolian spots. My daughter's were so dark, and lasted so long, that I frequently had to explain to people what they were so they wouldn't think we beat her!Another thing kids can get that many caucasian parents aren't familiar with are keloids. My biracial son started getting huge keloids when he was five. Every little scratch would become a large, raised, scar. He got chicken pox at five and, where all of the chicken pox scars I had seen before were small holes, he got large, raised scars that almost looks like cigarette burns. If your child has either Mongolian spots or keloids, be sure and have you pediatrician document them in the medical records. There have been parents who were charged with child abuse over those things.Well, I've been doing some rambling and reminiscing about when my kids were small!

Thanks everybody! Luvbeingamom's daughter's hair looks totally like our baby-to-be's full sister. Noelani2, your discription in your first paragraph sounds exactly like our baby's full sister. I've described her hair as "straight enough to be manageable, and curly enough to be cute." :)

I'm excited for you! I guess it won't be long, now, but I'm sure it will SEEM that way! I would have never thought that many kids placed for adoption would have full bio siblings, but my Joanna actually has two full siblings, who are two and four years older than she is. Two of my other kids had an older half brother, too.

I have a biracial daughter and a hispanic daughter. both with lots of hair and both very dry! I never wash my biracial daugther's hair...conditioner only on bath days, and a spray bottle of water with some conditioner mixed in on days when she does not bathe. This give her beautiful corkscrew curls that last all day and keeps her hair from being too dry. My hispanic daugther washes only once a week and uses tons of conditioner. She has super thick and very coarse hair, wavy, but not curly. Both girls use a brush called a 'tangle teezer'...it is the best thing I have ever seen for thick/curly hair. Doesn't pull or break their hair!!!