Heat damage support thread

[manter26]

I suffered heat damage by my own hands as well. I knew better, but I wanted to cut corners and suffered the consequences. I flat ironed my hair with a new leave in and used 2 heat protectants. When I was done with my entire head, my hair (mainly the ends) was very heavy, sticky, crunchy and hard. Instead of washing and starting from scratch, I waited until the night I had somewhere to go to fix the sticky hair.

I filled a plastic cup with water, dipped my ends in the cup to rinse off all the product. I dried and recoated some of the hair with heat protectant. I was running out of time so I started dipping, swirling and sizzling PLUS the steam button my maxiglide. It was stupid, really stupid and I paid the price. I'm gonna lose months worth of growth due to a rushed decision. I could have worn a cute updo that night and saved myself a lot of trouble.

I'm in braids until the end of the year and I hope to put off flat ironing until the new year. I learned a valuable lesson. In some ways, I'm happy it happened early on and by my own hands. It's easy to blame a bad stylists, but when you do it to yourself it stings so much more. I think heat damage is an inevitable milestone of being natural, hopefully one I will not be revisiting.

Remember that not only stylists cause damage. And if you don't have time to straighten properly, don't do it at all.

 

[prettybyrd]

Manter26, this is exactly why I don't touch my hair anymore unless I'm in the house for the night! No more rushing!

In '05, I won tickets to a jazz concert from the radio station. I rushed home and attempted to press my hair quickly - that was such an awful decision. In my rush I didn't check the heat of the hot comb and passed it through the front of my hair. The hair burned and one section just fell off. There was hair just lying on my floor.

You would think that would be enough to teach me...but no. After that I had several more bad encounters with heat before I just gave up all together. The last straw was a fiasco at a salon and from that I am still recovering. I suppose I should consider myself lucky, my hair is very resilient.

I don't intend to straigten my hair with heat from a flat iron or blow dryer any more. I did use a blow dryer a few weeks ago on cool and I took my time and my hair was lovely! Actually on cool, the blow dry left my hair so soft, and I could still smell my DC, I didn't smell like hot, burned hair.

I do have one matter that requires some assistance: After I had my hair straightened last year and it was severely heat damaged, I experienced hair loss on only one side. The hair is growing because it's just as long as the other side, but it's not as thick. Any tips or pointers about how I can thicken my hair?

TIA