Flat Ironing Natural Hair!

[glowithin]

Hi Everyone,

I have been natural for about two years now and I am starting to get frustrated with my hair. My hair is getting longer and I just don't know what to do with it. I need a style that won't damage my hair that I can wear during the week. I don't want to have to detangle my hair everyday.

I went to the salon and got my hair flat ironed twice unfortunately it seems that the ends of my hair are staying straight now. My natural hair is soft and the curl pattern isn't very tight. I wanted to get it flat ironed again but it seems that it is pulling all the curls out of my hair. I have washed it several times and the ends of my hair are still straight. I am afraid if I straighten my hair again the ends will become permanently straight does anyone have any experience with this?
Also does anyone have any advice on keeping the ends of my hair moisturized?

Another problem I have when I get my hair straightened is when I take a shower I wrap my head up and wear a shower cap but the edges of my hair still wave up so this causes me to have to flat flaming hot tool of hair torture out the waves almost everyday and I think this damages my hair also .

I would appreciate any advice. :)


Thank You

[star13]

Welcome :D

Before this becomes a ten page arguement thread, I'm going to go ahead and let you know that we do not talk about flat i.roning on this site, nor do we post pictures, or condone it.


Please check out the site rules. I see you're a newbie your probably didn't know. :P

[ccpalm]

OP, take a look at the hair board rules again. Be prepared to have this post closed, archived in the damaging heat section, and no response to your question of maintaining hair that has been altered by heat. If you do receive any additional responses be prepared to get the following advice:
1. Accept your hair as it is growing out of your hair.
2. Information about the harms that accompany heat damage.
3. That conditioning, maintenance and finding products that are good for your hair will help you find what you are looking for. Good luck.

[Hadasah]

If you don't want to comb your hair everday, you don't have to, even if you're wearing a puff. You can also wear twists, braids, cornrows/flat-twists so that you don't have to do your hair everyday.
As far as moisturizing your ends, there's a technique called "baggying". You soak your ends in conditioner, and then you... I don't know how people do it; I think you can use a shower cap or a zip loc bag or something, but you can always do a search. If you do everything you can to your ends and they are stll straight, you'll probably have to cut them off.

[glowithin]

Hi,

Where can I find this information. I looked for the site rules but couldnt find them. I didnt mean to break any rules. I thought this forum was for women with natural hair to get support and advice. I am confused.

Thank You

[star13]

Hi,

Where can I find this information. I looked for the site rules but couldnt find them. I didnt mean to break any rules. I thought this forum was for women with natural hair to get support and advice. I am confused.

Thank You
[/b]


Yes it is, and because of that we don't discuss heat s.traightening or any type of s.traightening for that matter, because it is believed that is damages the hair the same way r.elaxing does. You can find plently of info and support for you natural hair here as long as it's not about s.traightening it. Of course if you want to s.traighten your hair that's your choice, you just can't discuss it here. HTH :D



Hi Everyone,

I have been natural for about two years now and I am starting to get frustrated with my hair. My hair is getting longer and I just don't know what to do with it. I need a style that won't damage my hair that I can wear during the week. I don't want to have to detangle my hair everyday.

I went to the salon and got my hair flat ironed twice unfortunately it seems that the ends of my hair are staying straight now. My natural hair is soft and the curl pattern isn't very tight. I wanted to get it flat ironed again but it seems that it is pulling all the curls out of my hair. I have washed it several times and the ends of my hair are still straight. I am afraid if I straighten my hair again the ends will become permanently straight does anyone have any experience with this?
Also does anyone have any advice on keeping the ends of my hair moisturized?

Another problem I have when I get my hair straightened is when I take a shower I wrap my head up and wear a shower cap but the edges of my hair still wave up so this causes me to have to flat flaming hot tool of hair torture out the waves almost everyday and I think this damages my hair also .

I would appreciate any advice. :)
Thank You
[/b]

Yes, the heat is damaging your hair. The only way to avoid heat damage is not to use it, other than that liberally applying heat protectant can help. However, the ends of you hair won't return to normal because you permanently damaged them straight. You most likely need to grow your ends out and cut off the damaged parts.

[~GAN~]

<span style="font-family:arial">The rules are here (http://www.nappturality.com/uploads/articles/rules.html). Good luck to you! :)

ETA: It doesn&#39;t say specifically you can&#39;t talk about fl.at ironing, but I believe it will be on the first page of nappturality.com


Why is the site limited to tightly coiled, highly textured Black hair?

The reason it is limited to this hairtype is because we have found that it is the hairtype most feared and vilified in our community. It&#39;s the only hairtype we can&#39;t stay natural with for long with if we "fear the &#39;fro" (thanks to Taritac & LBellatrix for that term). Napptural hair is the type labeled "bad", nappy hair that needs to be "fixed."

This perception needs to change. We need to stop being afraid of our hair. We need to learn about our natural hair. We need to see natural hair worn on women who have embraced it. And the only way we can do that is to showcase our natural hair on its own merit without seeing it compared with other hairtypes.

Nappturality is all about acceptance of our hairtype and not carrying false expectations of what it can or can&#39;t be or do.
It&#39;s not about taking the easy road and conforming.
It&#39;s not about destroying your hair through continual straightening.
It&#39;s about accepting yourself and your hair as it was intended to be. [/b]</span>

[Napia Mia]

Hi Everyone,

I went to the salon and got my hair flat ironed twice unfortunately it seems that the ends of my hair are staying straight now. My natural hair is soft and the curl pattern isn&#39;t very tight. I wanted to get it flat ironed again but it seems that it is pulling all the curls out of my hair. I have washed it several times and the ends of my hair are still straight. I am afraid if I straighten my hair again the ends will become permanently straight does anyone have any experience with this? [/b]

Should probably add that you most likely have permanent heat damage already, indicative of the fact that you&#39;ve already washed your hair several times and it hasn&#39;t reverted. Sounds to me like you&#39;re going to have to cut those limp ends off, live, learn and move on.

Learning to detangle your hair and dealing with it goes along with the territory of being natural. Nearly every single nappy head on this board has had to figure out a way of doing so that works best for them. Do a search on detangling and you&#39;ll find tons of threads detailing various ways that we all handle detangling.

Good luck!

Ah... came back to add a link to an article that I wrote and posted on my blog. This may help you better understand why we&#39;re soooooo against using heat on our hair.

http://nappyme.wordpress.com/hair-facts/he...rs-worse-enemy/ (http://nappyme.wordpress.com/hair-facts/heat-nappy-hairs-worse-enemy/)

[Hadasah]

Iunno, I thought the advice I gave was pretty good. :dunno: You might even be able to wash your hair in twists or braids without problem.
On the top of the forum, in the second box, you&#39;ll see "Nappturality.com BOARD RULES". You can click on there to see what the rules are.

[glowithin]

Thanks Everyone...

[chachadiva]

Hi,

Where can I find this information. I looked for the site rules but couldnt find them. I didnt mean to break any rules. I thought this forum was for women with natural hair to get support and advice. I am confused.

Thank You
[/b]

Part of being natural is accepting your natural texture. If you do that, there is no need to straighten out the curls and waves. Learn to love your hair and its texture.

[mymy]

In addition to the advice you have been given, check out the Natural Newbie Manual (http://www.nappturality.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=119312). It is full of good information on detangling and protective styling. Your best bet is to avoid heat at all costs. There is no fool-proof way to use heat including with a heat protectant. You will have to cut off your ends because they are permanently damaged. If you start doing protective styles, you won&#39;t have to detangle your hair on a daily basis and you can easily go a week or 2 without having to do anything to it. I wish you luck with your hair.

[QueenScorpio]

Also the heat archives here (http://www.nappturality.com/forum/index.php?showforum=53) :)

[AguaCarbonica]

Also the heat archives here (http://www.nappturality.com/forum/index.php?showforum=53) :)
[/b]

Not trying to pick on the OP, but before we close this thread can we have a discussion on why women choose to grow their hair out naturally but then flat flaming hot tool of hair torture it every day?

I think I had a similar issue as the OP. I didn&#39;t know what to do, so I resorted to flatironing. I was in a difficult spot though. I had so little idea how to take care of my hair that it was coming out in CHUNKS in the shower whenever I would try to detangle it and wear it naturally. My moisturizer was not working, my hair was drying out, it was matting heavily on the second day, and the ends were breaking off like they had somewhere else to be. My stylists were useless. For a while, flat ironing my hair solved these problems in that it kept my hair tangle free and made it superficially easier to moisturize.

But it started to get hard and broken all over again, even when it was straight. The last time I straightened my hair, I couldn&#39;t get the ends straight (which is very odd for me, my hair is easy to straighten) because they were VISIBLY destroyed. They looked like an old carpet all over. OP beware of straightening!

That&#39;s when I began spending hours online researching. Lucky for me, I had not managed to destroy my natural curl pattern before I made the decision to stop burning my hair. But I get the struggle. Does anyone else have a reason? I just wanted to post my story so that people on the boards understand - sometimes it&#39;s not just that we don&#39;t accept our natural pattern (I loved mine :( ). Sometimes we just feel helpless.

OP, what hair texture are you? I can tell you about some stuff I learned if we are similar textures.

Edit: Just to be clear: NOT advocating flatironing.