Want to relax bleached natural hair! Help!

[Adgirl]

I have been natural for a year and have highlights on my hair. I am having a very hard time handeling my natural hair and would like to relax. I know most likely my bleached hair will fell off. Have any of you done this before ? Or can you please suggest as to how I can prepare my hair for relaxing ? Thanks!

 

[Country gal]

Why do you want to relax? I found relaxing and coloring to be very drying to my hair. Can you hold off until the colored tresses have grown out? There use to be a member here years ago that was relaxed and had colored tresses. Her name was tracey. She was able to have healthy hair.

 

[mxdchiq86]

i did this last year and i was BSL. needless to say, i ended up having to cut all of the damage off and '' start over ''. maybe it was my hair or i had a bad stylist but, everywhere there was bleach basically broke all the way up to SL. if you're going to do this i would be very careful.

 

[honeisos]

protein protein protein .... If you have to do it then prep your hair ..

it will fall out if you don't and it may fall out anyway ...

you may want to think about roller sets .. since fall is here and there is less humdity .. Good Luck !

 

[TexturedTresses]

Every story I've ever heard about relaxing bleach has turned out very badly. I have a friend who is wearing braids until her hair grows back from this. If you must, do a lot of moisturizing dcs and protein dcs to get your hair ready from the trauma. And follow the relaxing tips from sistaslick. then mad protein and moisture afterwards. hth.

 

[LunadeMiel]

i did this last year and i was BSL. needless to say, i ended up having to cut all of the damage off and '' start over ''. maybe it was my hair or i had a bad stylist but, everywhere there was bleach basically broke all the way up to SL. if you're going to do this i would be very careful.

Mxd,
are you natural?

 

[Iluvsmuhgrass]

My relaxed hair was bleached by a stylist and let me tell you. I LOST ALL OF IT. All of the color treated hair was GONE within a matter of months. That was with protein treatments, DCing, and the works.

My advice, don't do it. Get a maxiglide or a sedu, some good products (heat protectant, moisturizer, anti-frizz), and call it a day.

 

[mxdchiq86]

Mxd,
are you natural?

now i am. at the time i was natural, too but wanted to start relaxing. after that one relaxer and having relaxed hair for a few months before i chopped to a bob i decided that i wanted to go back to natural.

 

[Adgirl]

Thank you so much ladies!!! This is no joke! I don't want to loose my hair! I will have to just wait until the bleach grows out which could be years from now. I will invest in one of those hot combs from the tyra show. The big problem is my roots. I do have a sedu and does a good job but the flatiron only lasts a day or so. Again, thank you. I will hold off the relaxing and find some other way to manage my hair!

 

[V0nDiva]

DON'T DO IT.

I have only seen 1 person whose hair "worked" w/ the bleach and relaxing and that's only because her hair was extremely short.

I have tried and my hair fell out.

It's not a good combination.

 

[Iluvsmuhgrass]

Post your regimen with products and hopefully some of the natural ladies can suggest some management tips.

 

[fivetimestwo]

I actually did relax over bleach (although it was not bleached blond, but the color I used did involve developer). I only had highlights and I concentrated heavily on the protein in that area. That was 3 months ago and I still have all my hair and just got another touch up. I don't know the extent of your bleaching, but I'd say maybe do a strand test and then wait a few weeks to see how your hair reacts in that area.

 

[Finewine]

I say don't do it if you're attempting to grow your hair. I stopped coloring my hair in 12/06 and I've been growing it since 4/07. I initially colored my hair ~ 2002/03. My first color was all over, but over the years, I wanted less color so I just had heavy highlights in the front. My hair was always "healthy" b/c it's really thick and I could keep the ends trimmed. when i started growing out my hair, I noticed that the color hair is prone to break off easier.

When I reach my final goal, I'll probably highlight again (b/c I love me some color!) but not until it's grown.

Here are some pics of my hair. from left to right--full color, highlights, hair months ago (you can see some of the color is still in the top.

ETA: my hair was a blonde color ( i used developer/bleach) and I put a reddish rinse over it. the rinse is more prevalent in the 2nd and less in the 1st.

I plan on deleting these pics soon, i just wanted to give you a visual.

 

[angaliquew]

I say don't do it if you're attempting to grow your hair. I stopped coloring my hair in 12/06 and I've been growing it since 4/07. I initially colored my hair ~ 2002/03. My first color was all over, but over the years, I wanted less color so I just had heavy highlights in the front. My hair was always "healthy" b/c it's really thick and I could keep the ends trimmed. when i started growing out my hair, I noticed that the color hair is prone to break off easier.

When I reach my final goal, I'll probably highlight again (b/c I love me some color!) but not until it's grown.

Here are some pics of my hair. from left to right--full color, highlights, hair months ago (you can see some of the color is still in the top.

ETA: my hair was a blonde color ( i used developer/bleach) and I put a reddish rinse over it. the rinse is more prevalent in the 2nd and less in the 1st.

I plan on deleting these pics soon, i just wanted to give you a visual.

Off Topic: your hair is pretty

 

[glam-]

I too would say don't do it. Lifting color on relaxed hair was what made me go natural. It was bad, bad news for me and I wouldn't advise anyone to do it. In fact, IRL most of the people I know with really jacked hair insist on lightening their hair and relaxing. It's a recipe for disaster in my book.

Now, that it;s fall I would say try to hang with rollersets. I even think flatironing would be less damaging to bleached hair than relaxing.

 

[poookie]

I too would say don't do it. Lifting color on relaxed hair was what made me go natural. It was bad, bad news for me and I wouldn't advise anyone to do it. In fact, IRL most of the people I know with really jacked hair insist on lightening their hair and relaxing. It's a recipe for disaster in my book.

Now, that it;s fall I would say try to hang with rollersets. I even think flatironing would be less damaging to bleached hair than relaxing.

i lighten my hair and relax! and i don't think my hair's all that jacked up without color rinse in my hair, some sections are near-blond.

and i'd say go ahead and relax, if you hadn't mentioned that your natural hair was hard to manage. is your moisture / protein balance in check? have you been experiencing any sort of breakage or shedding? if you answered yes to any of those, then please reconsider relaxing. many folk think that relaxed hair is automatically easier to manage, but the opposite is true. chemically altering hair opens up a whole 'nother pandora's box of potential problems, like dryness and breakage (if you don't take good care of it).

why not "treat" yourself to a trip to the salon, and get it pressed? have a few days of swang, and really determine for yourself if you want to take that giant step and relax.

 

[Finewine]

Off Topic: your hair is pretty

Thanks, angalique!

 

[Butterfly08]

I am relaxed and bleached (highlights). I have had 3 different people do them - 1 did ok (she refused to lift me too much), another caused my hair to break (she lifted me to crayola yellow) and my current Aveda stylist has helped me to recover from the breakage and keep my colored hair healthy!

If you can afford it, I'd recommend Aveda highlights, they are a little more gentle.

BUT...I had to make sacrifices:

• I do NOT use direct heat. I only get my hair straightened when I touch up.
• I stretch my relaxers (4x a year. Would love to get down to 3).
• I only touch up color (3 - 4x a year).

I found that when I was touching up relaxer every 8 weeks and color every 8 weeks I was getting breakage. Now I hardly get any. I stretched my last relaxer for 3 months and my stylist said I had NO SPLIT ENDS!!!! That has never happened, even when I only had a relaxer.

So yes, it's possible to have healthy double processed hair, but it requires care, discipline, sacrificing and lots of conditioning. Are you willing to put in the effort?

ETA: I also cowash about 4x a week to flood my hair with moisture. Then I wetbun. This has made a tremendous difference in the health of my hair.