Help plz! How long should I keep relaxer in to straighten coarse/resistant hair...?

[LilBrownied]

Without overprocessing?!

I've been testing out relaxers on a few strands of hair. I am using Design Essentials and I'm about to do a virgin relaxer. On the package it says don't go over 25 min. When I go to 25 min, some strands get weird and stringy and break off! At 9 min. the hair is still very curly! I am about to try 15 min.

The problem is, I don't know if the hair is breaking off for one of these reasons.

1. I have a lot of split ends in the middle of the shaft and I don't know if they're naturally breaking at those points.

2. I may be putting undue stress on a few test strands, smoothing them out. Are they breaking because I'm not relaxing a realistic volume of hair?

3. I am overprocessing the hair over 10 minutes??


Ladies, especially 4bcz'ss, how long do you keep the relaxer in to get it straight but not damaged straight?? I am so afraid of another disaster!! I feel like my relaxed strands are going to snap off!!

 

[angenoir]

Re: Help plz! How long should I keep relaxer in to straighten coarse/resistant hair..

I think you should do a strand test first and see how your hair responds to the recommended time (for your hair type).

Also if your hair right now (ie before the relaxer) is damaged, you should NOT relax until you figure out what the problem is eg lack of protein or moisture.

HTH

 

[kadej]

Re: Help plz! How long should I keep relaxer in to straighten coarse/resistant hair..

Do you know if the 25 min includes both application and smoothing time? I'm new to the relaxer world (just applied my virgin relaxer yesterday), but if you know your strands can't handle the full 25 min, I definitely wouldn't leave it on for that long. At the end of the day, I would rather have slightly textured/under processed strands than over processed/ damaged/ breaking strands. Depending on what relaxer strength you're going with (super, normal?), maybe you should consider using a milder formula?

Also, I'm not sure if you did this already, but it sounds like it would be helpful for you to do a nice protein treatment on your hair a few days before relaxing to put some strength back into your hair and help prevent breakage. And if your tresses are damaged in general (not sure?), you should probably nurse your hair back to health before relaxing.

Just my little 2 cents. HTH a bit!

 

[LilBrownied]

Re: Help plz! How long should I keep relaxer in to straighten coarse/resistant hair..

I think you should do a strand test first and see how your hair responds to the recommended time (for your hair type).

Also if your hair right now (ie before the relaxer) is damaged, you should NOT relax until you figure out what the problem is eg lack of protein or moisture.

HTH

The problem is Design Essentials doesn't give a recommended time. I've been doing strand tests but I want to know the perfect timing for my hair type. And I've done so much to my hair already I don't know what else I can do. I deep conditioned, used Aphogee's two step protein treatment. I can't help the split ends cuz I had many single strand knots.

Can someone tell me if I'm being paranoid??

 

[Toy]

Re: Help plz! How long should I keep relaxer in to straighten coarse/resistant hair..

I leave my relaxer on 15-20mins at the most.