After being natural for two years, I decided to texturize/relax my hair on 10/18/2007.
I guess a couple of factors led to my decision, the main culprits being: knots and breakage. And as much as I loved shrinkage for two-strand twists, flat twists, braidouts and puffs, I think this was also another factor.
In the end, I made the decision to texturize and I have no regrets. I no longer see any broken hairs on my floor, which has been a major setback for me these past 5 months.
I was pretty scared at first because I know I didn’t want bone straight relaxed hair, so I made sure that I mixed a protein conditioner, some jojoba oil, and castor oil into the ORS relaxer that I used. I really didn’t research what relaxer to use, but the ORS (Organic Root Stimulator) seemed the best choice on that aisle in Target. In the end, I’m happy with my results. I texturized using a method I’ve never really heard anyone use before, but which made sense, and that was to apply the relaxer while my hair was still in twists. I guess you can call it laziness because I didn’t want to take these 3 week old twists down, or I was simply curious to see what might happen, but all in all, I think this method is a keeper.
I didn’t end up with too many straight ends…maybe 5-8…and my hair pretty much looks the same, minus my ends constantly breaking and the shrinkage…well sort of. Since I was really scared of the chemicals I did a few strand tests and found that a processing time of 5 minutes worked the best. Anything more (as you’ll see in my album) caused too much straightness.
We'll see how my hair fares in the upcoming months...
More pics are in my album, and the “how-to” folder is by password request only.
-lovelymissyoli
When my natural hair is wet it looks like shrunken naps, or shrunken pen springs. I have tons of coils on the ends or the entire strand, so all the relaxer did was elongate whatever I had. Here's a pic of me putting in color and one of my first shake n' go after chopping. (All pictures are of wet hair)
When I first chopped back in '06.... (wet shake n' go)
Putting in color.... (more wet hair)
Shake n' go (no products, no manipulation...just soaking wet...)
I'm still 4a, not 4a/b like I thought. In the end, the relaxer did change my hair by simply smoothing my strands and elongating them. My natural hair never looked exactly like my texturized hair.
Hmm..I wonder if the color loosened your texture at all? I've heard that it does, but I've never dyed my hair so I don't know. When my natural hair got wet it hung UP not down. I probably had alot of 4b hiding in there. Your dry hair looks more similar to mine. Regardless it's beautiful -- I was playing with the idea of transitioning to texlaxed and I'm in my 21st wk post right now - I want to stretch till April. But I'd given up on the texlax dream for the moment to focus on growing long healthy relaxed hair 1st.
It's like that Usher song " You make my wanna leave the one I'm wit -- start a new relationship with you this is what you do..."
Hmm..I wonder if the color loosened your texture at all? I've heard that it does, but I've never dyed my hair so I don't know. When my natural hair got wet it hung UP not down. I probably had alot of 4b hiding in there. Your dry hair looks more similar to mine. Regardless it's beautiful -- I was playing with the idea of transitioning to texlaxed and I'm in my 21st wk post right now - I want to stretch till April. But I'd given up on the texlax dream for the moment to focus on growing long healthy relaxed hair 1st.
It's like that Usher song " You make my wanna leave the one I'm wit -- start a new relationship with you this is what you do..."
THANX!
Agreeeed! I kind of gasped when I saw the first picture.
It really looks great
OHH.MY.GOOD.NESS.SSSSSSSSS
You have been one of my hair inspirations for the longest and you just SHOT STRAIGHT up to the top of my list! I think I have a crush on your hair strands :lovedrool:.....okay I'm not crazy, it's just that you have one of the--if not THE--prettiest texturized heads I've ever seen.
Subscribing to this thread so I can remember your technique....I'll probably try this one day in the distant future
After being natural for two years, I decided to texturize/relax my hair on 10/18/2007.
I guess a couple of factors led to my decision, the main culprits being: knots and breakage. And as much as I loved shrinkage for two-strand twists, flat twists, braidouts and puffs, I think this was also another factor.
In the end, I made the decision to texturize and I have no regrets. I no longer see any broken hairs on my floor, which has been a major setback for me these past 5 months.
I was pretty scared at first because I know I didn’t want bone straight relaxed hair, so I made sure that I mixed a protein conditioner, some jojoba oil, and castor oil into the ORS relaxer that I used. I really didn’t research what relaxer to use, but the ORS (Organic Root Stimulator) seemed the best choice on that aisle in Target. In the end, I’m happy with my results. I texturized using a method I’ve never really heard anyone use before, but which made sense, and that was to apply the relaxer while my hair was still in twists. I guess you can call it laziness because I didn’t want to take these 3 week old twists down, or I was simply curious to see what might happen, but all in all, I think this method is a keeper.
I didn’t end up with too many straight ends…maybe 5-8…and my hair pretty much looks the same, minus my ends constantly breaking and the shrinkage…well sort of. Since I was really scared of the chemicals I did a few strand tests and found that a processing time of 5 minutes worked the best. Anything more (as you’ll see in my album) caused too much straightness.
We'll see how my hair fares in the upcoming months...
More pics are in my album, and the “how-to” folder is by password request only.
-lovelymissyoli
