100% natural suffering from heat damage...

READER: Hi,I am fully natural. I straigtened my hair 2 weekends ago in order to get it trimmed. I have washed it 4 to 5 times since then. My hair is now 1/2 straight and 1/2 curly. I want it all back curly. I am so sad,frustrated, and angry that this is happening to me. Any suggestions????

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LHDC: It sounds like you may be suffering from heat damage.  What direct heat does to the hair is very similar, structurally, to what chemicals do to hair.  Chemical hair straighteners (or curl enhancers) literally break the disufide bonds of your hair making your hair oermanently take the shape of the preferred chemical leaving your hair either striaght or curly.

Heat straightening (or curling) does pretty much the same thing but not on such a permanent level.  The reason that most people heat straighten their hair is to TEMPORARILY wear their hair straight, but sometimes when we leave the process of flat ironing and pressing our hair in someone else's hands there is not a lot of control on our end - we can't control the amount of heat and tension that is being used.  The use of excessive heat and tension is what will cause your temporary straight become a permanent straight.

What can you do about it?  Really it depends on how much damage was done and that's really hard to determine.  BUT I would start with a series of mild to heavy protein treatments to rebuild the structure in your strands.  I've read that beer rinses are helpful as well.  Try to incorporate these things into your routine weekly.  Hopefully this is a more temporary heat damage situation and less of a permanent one.  As there is not much you can do for the latter...

Simple Beer Rinse: After shampooing, rinse your hair well with warm, flat beer.  Use a beer that does not have a strong odor.  After about 10 minutes, rinse the beer out with WARM (not hot) water.  The beer smell usually does not linger.

Comments

[sw]

Hi. I had/have the same problem. I straightened my hair with one of those fancy ceramic (paid about $140) flat irons and now my hair is permanently straight and damaged as if I got a relaxer. I do not have any advice to give as I am in the same predicament, just wanted you to know you're not alone. I think I will eventually have to cut all the straight off because it looks awful right now. It's about 75% straight and 25% new growth curl in the front and about 50/50 towards the back. I am going to try some of the suggestions in this post. Thank you! I hope you find a solution.

[Darling CANCERIAN]

I dont see straightening your hair to trim it as making sense unless you plan on wearing it straight all of the time and if you're natural, you obviously don't do that anyway so you may a well just trim it natural like me.