Textured Hair is Different
The Textured hair in its natural state has curls, twists, bends, and kinks in a variety of very captivating angles along the hair fiber. This may be probably why some of us find it very difficult to manage and maintain.
Hardly is there any perfect uniformity in the distribution of these curls and kinks across the regions of the head.
The Fragile Nature of the Black Hair
While Asian and Caucasian hair tends to be fairly uniform in thickness from the root to the end of the shaft, the black hair is the opposite of this. The shape and diameter of black hair shaft does not remain constant along the length of an individual strand.
Black hair tends to flatten and decrease in diameter around its bends and twists. In its natural state the textured hair can shrink to half of its stretched length.
The outer cuticles when exposed to the atmosphere, usually reach out to get some moisture from the environment, This makes the black hair frizz out quickly, leading to it’s dryness and breakage, if not managed properly.
The Lie in No-Lye Relaxers
Due to these peculiar characteristics of the black hair, and our inability to invest time into the proper care and maintenance of our natural tresses, we resort to hair relaxers.
We erroneously believe that the only way to avoid dealing with our textured hair is to reduce the curls, twists, and kicks by breaking down the hair strand and chemically altering the texture through the application of the hair relaxer cream.
We achieve the slick straight hair without frizz, at the expense of healthy textured hair. Once chemicals are applied onto the natural hair, the internal structure of the hair is changed forever. The relaxed hair cannot return to its original state.
The bends and changes in both the direction of curl and diameter along a single strand make black hair much more fragile than other types of hair. But nobody tells us this. The pictures of happy models wearing long, straightened hair mislead us. We have no knowledge of the deceptive nature of the No-Lye Relaxers.
Research shows that the pulling force required to break a strand of Black Hair is less than the force required to break Caucasian or Asian strands.
The Destructive Power of the Hair Relaxers
You can then imagine the great harm we do to our beautiful tresses by applying these dangerous chemicals unto them.
Chemicals deteriorate the black hair by making it susceptible to breakage. The worst part of this unhealthy hair practice is its addictive nature.
Two or three months after the hair relaxer cream is applied unto the scalp, new hair growth shoot up. These new growths in their natural state are still curly, and kinky. During combing process, the new kinky, coily hair undergrowths usually get tangled up with the upper straightened part of the relaxed hair, producing unbearable pain for the individual.
The hair becomes very difficult to comb. The frizzy hair then leads people to run back to the habit of applying further hair relaxer cream unto their tresses. The reason why they do this, is to reduce the pain they are experiencing as a result of combing the unmanageable hair. The hair relaxer cream then becomes like a drug, which produces an addiction in the users.
Don’t be a Victim
Any hair practice that provides temporary beauty without regard for the damage the processes needed to achieve this smooth straight hair inflict, must be avoided at all cost.
I care about your hair.
With love,
Vivian Akpalaba,