Aireen
Well-Known Member

I hope I don't offend anyone but I see this sometimes and it REALLY leaves me guessing. When doing errands, I see women and men with hair that looks like it will snap off at the slightest touch — dry, crackly, has a severe V or W shape, brittle, stiff to the point where even when it's smoothed down it still sticks out, and over all just crispy looking. It's actually so bad that I can never figure out if the person I'm staring at has relaxed or natural hair. (Although if I had to guess, I would lean towards relaxed.) The ends and edges are usually frayed and tattered with huge dandruff or "dry scalp"
flakes. I can't tell if they used any product either because if they did, it looks almost as if the hair acted like a straw and just sucked up whatever was put on and is still dehydrated. Even in the subway, as the rush of the metro comes near, their hair is frozen in position. So what do these people do or not do? Do they wash and condition their hair and how often? If they're relaxed, why continuously touch-up when the end result is severely below mediocre and the hair doesn't have the desired look? Do they not get trims? I hope I'm explaining myself well, I would really like to know what causes someone's hair to get to that awful state, wouldn't there be SOMETHING to signal a halt towards the path of utter hair destruction? Correct me if I'm wrong but it doesn't even look like the people I'm referring to try to take care of their hair in the least. I'm thinking that the hair would at least be responsive to the slightest bit of care at that point that it's enough to look like there isn't a severe drought happening. When I was seven, I used to think that people used a super strong but cheap $2 relaxer in their hair and left it in too long so it had a reverse effect. Anyway, can someone please enlighten me?

I know in my experience, I kept looking like that for two reasons...one because I was so frustrated that my hair behaved that way and I didn't know how to make it stop so I just stopped caring and figured this is what I am destined to look like. And 2 because when I did care enough to ask people, I was told that it was just my new growth and I needed to relax again. Other people's hair looked way better than mine so I assumed that they knew what they were talking about and I kept processing and processing. Mis-information is a KILLER!!!!

After that controversial thread that backfired for the OP, I wanted to do a 

I used to do the oil sheen thing when my grandma sent me some in a care package but that only lasted 3 washes before I realized it wasn't for me.