Would You Rather Have Damaged Relaxed Hair or Healthy Natural 4b Hair?

[Connie]

I think that this is an extremely biased question in my honest opinion. Now if you had asked a 3rd question like "Would you rather have healthy, well-maintained relaxed hair", then you would get a lot better responses from relaxed heads like myself.

What I would like to know is why do most, not all, but most naturals get all "bent out of shape" with the ladies who chose to relax, texlax, and texturize their hair? Don't you understand by now that one size doesn't necessarily fit all. One method does not work for all considered. I can guarantee you that I, along with countless others who relax their hair, do not look like chickens. (It almost sounded like an assumption you were making here about ladies who relax their hair by the way the question was posed). Granted there are many who do not know how to care for their hair, whether relaxed or natural.

I chose not to use hot tools as a means to straighten my hair and even if I was natural, this is something I would be doing.....everyday! That my dear, is just too much work for me. I relax my hair for easy manageability. I stretched my relaxer for almost 5 and a half months to see what my natural hair would look like, and to be honest, it looks pretty darn good. But that was not enough for me to keep it that way.

Just as proof to what I am admitting here about my hair, here are a couple of pics - the first one is a pic of what my natural looks like at 5 and a half months relaxer stretch and the others are my previously and recently relaxed hair:

Now if anyone with 4a/b hair can wear their hair natural, for sure it would be me and I'm sure many others as well. We just chose not to. And as you can see, since coming to this board, my hair is obviously healthier looking and thicker and I thank each and everyone of you for all your imput and support. Now we are all here for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining healthy natural or relaxed hair, let us please stop bashing each other for making individual choices.

This bolded is why I opted to continue relaxing when I attempted to transition a few years back. I knew I would wear my hair straight most of the time and for my lifestyle that would mean exposing it to heat more than I wanted to.

To answer the OP's question, if I had to choose between damaged relaxed hair and healthy natural 4b hair, I would choose the healthy 4b hair anyday. But I would FIRST attempt to restore my damaged relaxed hair back to health.

ETA: I've actually arrived at a crossroads with my hair lately...natural is starting to appeal to me more for various reasons. Or maybe I'm just having a bad hair day today :-(

 

[Kutie85]

1. ALL hair is damaged. Unless your hair remains untouched for the rest of your life it recieved wear and tear

2. All relaxed hair is damaged.... Period. A relaxer BREAKS the bonds in the hair shaft AND DOES NOT put the back together. The hair is weaker PERMANENTLY.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN that the hair cant grow long or will break off.

3. All natural hair is damaged... (refer to #1), dont believe me? Go to nappturality.com or even do a search here for naturlas with tangles, knots, split ends, non reverting hair, etc. *gasp* dare I say damage?

With all that established we can now move on. Would you choose to have broken severly damaged relaxed hair that wont grow and breaks off in patches or natural "healthy as it can be under normal circumstances" 4b (the most stigmatized) hair? Id take the healthy hair.

Maybe it would have been better worded that you had 1a natural (non relaxed) fragile 2 inch long broken hair versus natural frizzy non curly hair (just for kicks).

Seeing that the OP is relaxed why are so many people turning into nappy bashers? SHE'S ONE OF YALL!!

Yall were just waiting to bash a nappy head... With our nappy pushing agendas

Yall aint even read her siggy


Undercover nappy haters.... SMH! I dont care, Ill relax and go natural as I please, and when I see melted fried broken hair on someone Ill always remember this thread!

See! this is exactly what i'm talking about it's like this us against them mentality and it's ridiculous. None of the threads mentioned said anything bad about being natural. Why does anyone need to hate on anyone? What I said was that is it not the end all to be all to fix hair problems all options need to be explored before a decesion is made. But while were on the subject I'm about to be real: I am so sick of reading threads where people act like it's all roses to go natural and you can just be all whimisical and decide today to be natural have perfect natural hair tomorrow. In most cases not all people big chop right away they usually wait a while until they have a good amount of natural hair to cut off all the relax ends. At this point you are working with two different textures, and you have also stoped relaxing which can cause major breakage if you don't know what you are doing. You also go through this in between phase of not knowing what hairstyles to do because you have two different textures.

Notice when you read comments about relaxed hair there is always a general negative overtone: chewed up, split ends, breakage even though there is a plethora of women with healthy relaxed hair. When you read about natural it's like you wandered into hair heaven where everyone has perfect hair and they magically discovered how to take care of it right away and it's the only way to go because you will never have any problems ever again. In every situation there is postive side and a negative side and here it seems to be relaxed hair bad and hair perfect. Where is the balance?

*After reading the poll the other day on the range of hair types here there is a large amount of natural hair ladies which probaly attributes to the lack of diversity in commenting on the board on hair types. erplexed

 

[LiberianGirl]

I think it's a common piece of understanding that most black women would rather have STRAIGHT hair - no matter what it's state of health, than nappy hair, no matter it's state of health.

I mean - really, isn't that the root of all the good hair/bad hair thought patterns? Better hair is straighter hair, not necessarily healthier hair.

Straight hair wins.

As hard as it may be to hear ladies, this statement is TRUE. Stop thinking in the typical LHCF mode because we are definitely not the norm when it comes to black haircare. Nappy hair...let's just say 4Bhair for the purposes of this thread is not widely viewed by BLACK women as acceptable and beautiful hair. I know it is discouraging sentiment but it's reality.

This is true but I gurantee you that there more messed-up relaxed heads than natural heads. I think relaxers tend to lead to more damaging haircare practices,

I don't know about that..it really depends on how you take care of your hair.

You're acting like natural hair is some kind of brain surgery, and that relaxed hair is the default position. People! This is what grows out of our own doggoned scalps. Natural hair isn't complicated. How come we're the only race on the planet that thinks that the DEFAULT position for our hair is to chemically alter it?

Call me a Nappy Nazi but ITA with this statement. I am very pro-natural now because I feel that all black women have the capability of taking good care of their natural hair with the *correct knowledge*. I joined this site in 2006 and going natural was never ever an option for me. It's just something that never crossed my mind. I always had fairly healthy APL length hair, so I thought why bother? I also thought (like many relaxed heads) that I could not manage my own texture. I changed my mind after stretching my relaxer for months and learning to properly take care of my own texture with the information I gathered from LHCF and other hair sites.

It just seems like as some people go natural or whatever, they become a little self righteous and start to assume that everyone else still relaxing is in denial and has issues just because at one point they did.

I can only speak for myself...but I did not have any "issues" (I'm assuming you mean disliking nappy hair) when I was a relaxed head. I don't think that all relaxed women have "issues" but it makes me wonder when I hear black women saying all the time "natural hair is just not for me". Ummm....were you not born with this hair?erplexed

IMO I don't think that the OP submitted a loaded question. I do think that there are two things in play; 4B type hair and healthy natural hair regardless of the "type".

We've all seen both healthy relaxed 4B hair and healthy natural 4B hair here and in various fotkis.

I think that it is a valid question with or without the 4B part. It is ture that there are black women who will hold on to damaged crazy looking relaxed hair rather than chop it off and start over or seek out proper care and techniques or what have you. And definitely some choose damaged relaxed over their natural texture regardless of the natural texture type because most blacks in Eurocentric influenced countries are conditioned to believe that their natural texture is "bad" or not as desirable or not as acceptable as straight Eurocentric type hair.

ITA

Also this thread is not that serious...why are people getting so hype?

Senstitivity about hair types..goes way back to good hair/bad hair

 

[BeetleBug]

Wow!

I guess I didn't see where the OP posted a loaded question. I guess I also didn't se how the question that she asked was about choosing from the lesser of 2 evils. I thought the OP really just asked whether or not you would rather have damaged relaxed hair over healthy natural hair. I don't think the 4B texture (mine...lol) has anything to do with it.

I also think it's a valid question. I personally would take healthy hair period. However, I am VERY good friends with a girl who would rather have damaged relaxed hair over healthy hair. She doesn't wear a scarf to bed because her husband doesn't want her to. Her hair has INCHES AND INCHES of damage due to over processing and her just taking horrible care of her hair overall. When I asked her about taking better care of her hair or laying off the chemicals, she said NO. She said that I don't know what it takes to take care of "long" hair like hers. I kept my comments to myself about her "long" hair (which is just past shoulder length, but getting shorter by the day).

Because this is a board where we're all trying to obtain healthy hair, I don't think that anyone is going to fess up and say, "Oh yeah. I would take damaged relaxed hair first." However, a lot of us, including myself, didn't know any better before we learned the true damage that we were doing to our hair (relaxed or natural). Back in the day, I know I was willing to take damaged relaxed hair over natural hair because I didn't know any better. I didn't realize that I could have healthy natural or relaxed hair.

Oh well.

Thank you. You get the point of the question. I don't understand all the fuss. Some women will choose bad relaxed hair.

 

[BeetleBug]

1. ALL hair is damaged. Unless your hair remains untouched for the rest of your life it recieved wear and tear

2. All relaxed hair is damaged.... Period. A relaxer BREAKS the bonds in the hair shaft AND DOES NOT put the back together. The hair is weaker PERMANENTLY.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN that the hair cant grow long or will break off.

3. All natural hair is damaged... (refer to #1), dont believe me? Go to nappturality.com or even do a search here for naturlas with tangles, knots, split ends, non reverting hair, etc. *gasp* dare I say damage?

With all that established we can now move on. Would you choose to have broken severly damaged relaxed hair that wont grow and breaks off in patches or natural "healthy as it can be under normal circumstances" 4b (the most stigmatized) hair? Id take the healthy hair.

Maybe it would have been better worded that you had 1a natural (non relaxed) fragile 2 inch long broken hair versus natural frizzy non curly hair (just for kicks).

Seeing that the OP is relaxed why are so many people turning into nappy bashers? SHE'S ONE OF YALL!!

Yall were just waiting to bash a nappy head... With our nappy pushing agendas

Yall aint even read her siggy


Undercover nappy haters.... SMH! I dont care, Ill relax and go natural as I please, and when I see melted fried broken hair on someone Ill always remember this thread!

Maybe so. Yeah, I'm a relaxed head. I'm not a militant natural bashing relaxed heads.

 

[Inches411]

i think we all are getting a bit worked up for nothing. bottom line is the question is a bit obvious as a said before because no one in their right mind on this forum( i hope) would actually post that they prefer relaxed damaged hair over healthy natural hair.. that would justt be stupid... now if this question was asked to women who are not part of this website then maybe... and even then most people wouldnt admit it if they actually did prefer damanged relaxed hair cause they know that responses they would get and they would be embarassed. but im trying not to read into stuff when people post so once again i will just answer the question without digigng all deep (yall know some of us love to do it).. I would prefer healthy natural hair over damaged relaxed hair since those are the only two choices...

 

[LiberianGirl]

But while were on the subject I'm about to be real: I am so sick of reading threads where people act like it's all roses to go natural and you can just be all whimsical and decide today to be natural have perfect natural hair tomorrow.

In most cases not all people big chop right away they usually wait a while until they have a good amount of natural hair to cut off all the relax ends. At this point you are working with two different textures, and you have also stopped relaxing which can cause major breakage if you don't know what you are doing. You also go through this in between phase of not knowing what hairstyles to do because you have two different textures.

I don't think that is the sentiment that most naturals (on this board) have. I think it's the opposite.. it seems as if most naturals have been relaxed the majority of their lives so dealing with their natural hair for the first time is a challenge. It definitely is NOT a piece of cake but it isn't rocket science either. Like most things in life...practice makes perfect.

I agree that transitioning is not easy but the journey is totally worth it for ME. I'm not going to front and say there are not days that I feel like slapping a relaxer in my head or BC cause I'm so tired of dealing with the two textures but I know this will not take me to my destination---a beautiful head of long natural hair.

 

[LayneJ]

I think it's a common piece of understanding that most black women would rather have STRAIGHT hair - no matter what it's state of health, than nappy hair, no matter it's state of health.

I mean - really, isn't that the root of all the good hair/bad hair thought patterns? Better hair is straighter hair, not necessarily healthier hair.

*shrug*

I don't think LHCF is the right place to ask this question - anonymity of the internet aside, not many people will be willing to own up to that much adherence to the good hair/bad hair beliefs.

IRL however, I suspect the deck would be stacked on the side of straight hair. Heck, when it comes down to it, it's not even a suspicion - having seen the heads I've seen, and the chemical damage on those heads.... yeah.

Straight hair wins.

I agree with this entire post.

Seeing that the OP is relaxed why are so many people turning into nappy bashers? SHE'S ONE OF YALL!!

Yall were just waiting to bash a nappy head... With our nappy pushing agendas

Yall aint even read her siggy

Yep...

 

[RegaLady]

This is all people like to do, divide and conquer. Or...is this a trick question? I would rather have my beautiful, God given, 4b hair! Damaged relaxed hair is for those that want it, also. I mean there is enough of both to go around!

 

[Aggie]

This is all people like to do, divide and conquer. Or...is this a trick question? I would rather have my beautiful, God given, 4b hair! Damaged relaxed hair is for those that want it, also. I mean there is enough of both to go around!

It's a good thing my natural God-given hair keep growing from my scalp so I will always have that as long as it continues to grow, but as long as there is relaxer on this earth, I will relax my hair because I choose to and yes, there is lots of both to go around.

 

[Str8~Curly]

I didn’t read all the posts but I don’t really see a problem with the question. OP correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the point basically to determine if a person has so much disgust with their “nappy” hair that they would prefer relaxed damaged hair? Of course someone would pick healthy relaxed hair as opposed to damaged relaxed hair if that were an option, but that would not reveal the essence of what the question was trying to ask. Basically, do you hate 4B hair? Is another way to put it seems to me. Now, if you do, that is a whole other issue you might want to work out for yourself.