CAN A TYPE 4 TEXLAX AND GET WAVES???

I'm type 4a/b and I only started texlaxing a few months ago, so only about 2 inches of my hair is texlaxed. The rest is bonelaxed to death.

I've included a couple of pics of a wash and go that I did recently. No curls, but it waves up loosely... decent enough to leave the house.

sylver2 said:

nah i never had waves without bantu knots or braidout or something and im 4a-b. no 3 anywhere.

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Sylver you are our relaxed 4b she-ro!

Second day hair after lightly dampening with a spray leave-in and running some moisturizer through it.

I'm a 4a and my texlaxed hair waves and curls when airdried.

Here is my natural hair



and here is my texlaxed hair



If your natural hair has curl/wave to it then your texlaxed hair will have curl/wave regardless of type... it can't create waves/curls only loosen them.

BronxJazzy said:

I'm a 4a and my texlaxed hair waves and curls when airdried.

Here is my natural hair

and here is my texlaxed hair

If your natural hair has curl/wave to it then your texlaxed hair will have curl/wave regardless of type... it can't create waves/curls only loosen them.

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your hair is gorgeous both relaxed and natural.

im a 4 something? and im texlaxed :

My curl pattern is very very weird. My hair doesn't really curl in a attractive way even now with less than 4 inches of relaxer left. Texlaxing didn't do a darn thing for my ability to wash n go. That's why I stopped.

BronxJazzy said:

I'm a 4a and my texlaxed hair waves and curls when airdried.

Here is my natural hair

and here is my texlaxed hair

If your natural hair has curl/wave to it then your texlaxed hair will have curl/wave regardless of type... it can't create waves/curls only loosen them.

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Okay you just gained a fotki stalker. I'm in this phase where I think everyone's hair looks like mine . BUT.....I think my texlaxed hair looks very similar to yours. I'm early in my transition but if my natural hair looks anything like your natural hair I will be in heaven .

I believe I'm a 3c/4a and I use Affirm Fiberguard for sensitive scalp. The photo is right after a fresh relax...

Shay72 said:

Okay you just gained a fotki stalker. I'm in this phase where I think everyone's hair looks like mine . BUT.....I think my texlaxed hair looks very similar to yours. I'm early in my transition but if my natural hair looks anything like your natural hair I will be in heaven .

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Her natural hair is like mine!

Shay72 said:

Okay you just gained a fotki stalker. I'm in this phase where I think everyone's hair looks like mine . BUT.....I think my texlaxed hair looks very similar to yours. I'm early in my transition but if my natural hair looks anything like your natural hair I will be in heaven .

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Awww thank you. You seriously made my day

Yes you can like the other ladies has mentioned above, depending on your texture. I rocked the wash n go mostly all summer..loved it! And got lots of compliments..at the same time kept the heat out of my hair

I voted no, but then I remembered that when I was a teen and first started relaxing my hair would be a curly 3b when airdried but when I was relaxed in the last decade or so it was a frizzy, tangly mess when I airdried.

I dont know why. I lived in a warm country and used a lye relaxer when I was a teen and used no lye and lived in a cold country with very hard water as an adult. I don't know if that made a difference or if my texture changed.

lashannasmall said:

If you have 4b hair, it will not look like the chick a couple of pics up. Sorry. I texurized the front of my 4B hair once for a weave and it just looked like limp 4 b hair. you cannot create curls where there are none.

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This needs to be said again ....
A 4b that texlaxes and does a wash and go will not look like for example DLewis' texturized wash and go's. In order to get waves and/or curls, there needs to be some form of wave/curl pattern to begin with so that when it's texlaxed the curl/wave is just loosened.

My answer to this question is, depending on how long you leave the relaxer, yes, you can get waves. But will anyone be able to see them? If you're 4B, maybe not.

The size of waves created by stretching 4B hair are so tiny that if we were to round it off as we do in Math, we would round it off to straight. Happily Me has texlaxed hair, and I'm sure close-up it looks wavy but from far, it just looks straight-ish.

It's the same story when it comes to WNG on 4B hair. Close-up, yes, you see coils and a few might be clumping:
But from far, it looks like an uncombed mess and not anything like say 4A or 3's:
All this is because the size of the coils are so small that they do not stand out. They don't stand out when they contract and shrink and they will not stand out when they are stretched into waves either.

So really, the reason to texlax should not be so that you get a certain look you see on another type, but rather so you can have hair that doesn't shrink up and knot up but is looser and easier to comb. The only way to get looser coils is to perm your hair and use rods to set it in bigger coils like they do when they create a curly perm or jheri curl.

Just wanted to repeat this again: it's not that there are no curls in 4B hair why we don't see waves. It's that the curls are so small they don't stand out and when they are stretched into waves they still don't stand out. Now 4A might see waves...because their curls are visible from afar.

For those who need a visual, here's 4B hair stretched and seen close up and magnified:

There are waves when you stretch 4B coils/curls. But look at the center of that mass of hair and you see what it is that one would see from afar. It'd just look more like blown out 4B hair:

So again, the statement "You cannot have curls where there are none" would only apply to heat damaged type 4 or 3 hair, to type 2 hair and to type 1 hair all of which are not curly. 4's and 3's are naturally curly and grow out of your head curly. It's what you do to it after it's out that takes curls out. Like in the pic below, we're looking at the same hair you've been seeing with coils in the pics above, but when I wash it stretched in a braid and let it airdry in the braid, this is how it looks (no coils) when I undo the braid:

The wave pattern created by braiding is so much bigger than that created by stretching my hair with my hands and that's because the bends in the braids create curves bigger than the curves created by the pattern in my hair. And just like the wave pattern from braiding is bigger and more noticeable, so would coils created by perming with rods that are of a bigger circumference than 1/8 of an inch or so.

So the only way to get 4B hair to look like 3 or 3C/4A or even 4A would be to perm it and use rods of the circumference you want your coils to have.

^^^Thanks for that NOnie!

IDK if this helps or not OP, but I remember seeing somewhere, a girl who did a... I think it was a relaxer, but she did it on her hair while it was in two strand twists. I think she may be a member here, but unfortunately, I don't know her name.

If you are wanting to have curls or waves and you have 4b hair, this might be a way you can achieve that.

Sorry I don't have more info, such as what relaxer she used, how she would do a touch up or whether it was actually a relaxer vs a texlax. The results were very pretty though!

Maybe someone else here saw her and will be able to give more info.

I'm 4a and I get waves texlaxed. I think I may have some 3ish sides and nape, but not sure. It may sound weird, but since having a baby, I think my hair is a hodge-podge of textures, but mostly 4 a with deep waves when I texlax.

I don't really have any natural pics, but may try to dig up some younger pics of me with my ponytails. (texlaxed pics are in LHCF album) I've always had a wave pattern. To texlax, I normally use Vitale High Comfort mild relaxer, and basically apply and rinse it right back out. (I coat my hair completely with vaseline and coconut oil). I tried SE mild, but it breaks my fine hair down too fast and seemed to cause excessive shedding. I normally texlax 2X a year, but am wanting to transtion.

Sianna said:

IDK if this helps or not OP, but I remember seeing somewhere, a girl who did a... I think it was a relaxer, but she did it on her hair while it was in two strand twists. I think she may be a member here, but unfortunately, I don't know her name.

If you are wanting to have curls or waves and you have 4b hair, this might be a way you can achieve that.

Sorry I don't have more info, such as what relaxer she used, how she would do a touch up or whether it was actually a relaxer vs a texlax. The results were very pretty though!

Maybe someone else here saw her and will be able to give more info.

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Her sn was lovelymissyoli

not raining on the texlax parade because I'm not personally familiar with it but can't you almost guarantee wave/ curls with Wave Nouvaeu? I found a this video awhile back and I thought her hair was gorgeous. Just a thought OP.

http://youtu.be/S4_Svs3nfPk

ETA oh and this video too... http://youtu.be/bGzy41ld6Lc

DayDreamist, Wave Nouveau is not very different from a curly perm aka jheri curl. In both cases you have to use rods to recreate the size of coils. So a type 4 person would have to get the hair chemically straightened then wrapped around rods of a larger size to create curls or waves the size of say type 3. So yes, if OP had 4B hair and wanted to chemically process in a way that stands out, then getting a curly perm (jheri curl, wave nouveau, etc) would be the way to do it. But I think OP was wondering if it were possible to get waves w/o fully processing one's hair.

Nonie said:

@DayDreamist, Wave Nouveau is not very different from a curly perm aka jheri curl. In both cases you have to use rods to recreate the size of coils. So a type 4 person would have to get the hair chemically straightened then wrapped around rods of a larger size to create curls or waves the size of say type 3. So yes, if OP had 4B hair and wanted to chemically process in a way that stands out, then getting a curly perm (jheri curl, wave nouveau, etc) would be the way to do it. But I think OP was wondering if it were possible to get waves w/o fully processing one's hair.

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I get that but if it was me I wouldn't want to chance it not knowing for sure how my hair would turn out and then hate it. I've been paying alot of attention to texlax threads lately not because I'm interested in doing it but because I was unaware of it until I joined LHCF. I just wanna learn more about it as far as details other than the basics and why its a better choice than the curl. I say that because I understand wave nouveau's first step is to straighten the hair chemically but what if someone does it like a texlax then continues with the rest of the steps as usual? It was a thought and I'm curious.

DayDreamist, I think the results might be slightly different if you don't fully straighten hair before curling it around rods and the curls would not be smooth.

You know how texlaxed hair isn't as smooth or sleek as fully relaxed hair? Now imagine that you leave a bit of a wave in your hair and then you wrap that wavy hair around a rod. I think it'd look like a rollerset on natural hair rather than smooth curls that could be mistaken for natural type 3 hair. I think it'd look something like this:


I don't think it's that complicated really what your hair will look like when you texlax. Texlaxing just loosens your coil. Loosening our coils doesn't change their size, it just stretches them out. So if you hold a few strands of your hair and pull them out a bit, then you can see what texlaxing will achieve for you. If you pull too hard, you get what it will look like if you leave the relaxer on too long. If you pull just a bit, you see what it will look like if you leave it on for a short while. If you have 4B hair, you will not get 4A hair from texlaxing. You'll get hair that looks like it's blown out. Not sure why folks find it so hard to picture what their hair will look like. Texlaxing is loosening coils aka stretching hair out...it's not creating fancy coils you didn't have.