Friday, May 10, 2013

Using Heat on Natural Hair

Occasionally I use heat on my natural hair.  Before using heat my hair has to be prepped.  The first step is always shampooing and conditioning. Sometimes I will do a deep conditioning if its that time of the month. Next I apply leave-in conditioner and twist my hair into chunky twists.  When the hair is almost dry I will use the tension method to blow dry (warm setting) the hair dry.

About a month ago I was in Walmart and ran across grapeseed oil.  I have been trying to get my hands on some grapeseed oil but it was so expensive at the health food stores.  Walmart had it for $4.98 and its cold pressed which is very important to me.  I mentioned all of that because I used grapeseed oil as my heat protectant before flat ironing.

The heat of your flat iron is very important. NEVER turn it up to the highest setting.  I used 410 degrees but u may need it to be lower than that.  My ends don't get straight with the first go round so I will use a small tooth comb on the ends before I do the second round.  The ends will become straighter but if they don't I will not run the flat iron over it again.




 


I was very pleased with the results that were achieved but, I had a dilemma about what to do to keep my hair from reverting when I exercise.  My solution was bantu knots!  It was actually a win win situation because I could wear my hair straight for longer without having to flat iron again (which was a no no anyway).

After about 4 days I decided that my hair needed some moisture so I used a little moisturizer, a little water and sealed with coconut oil followed by 4 loose braids.  The next morning my hair looked like this:



This was a super cute, super straight braid-out and I loved it!  I have been following this process for the last few nights.

I have no doubt that my curls will return once I decide to shampoo my hair.  Currently I'm using Loreal's no sulfate line and I'm loving it.

If you have any questions and comments please leave them below.

Thanks for looking.