It kind of irks me...

[topnotch1010]

then why is she irked?!

Not speaking for her, but I'm irked at some of these posters who have been incorrectly applying relaxers all these years, never figued out how to correctly apply one, gave it up, and now since their hair has a chance to rest and recuperate from all the hell they put it through they proclaim relaxers are the debbil because the relaxer did what it was supposed to do but they just applied it wrong. Figure out what the problem REALLY is before you go shouting from the roof tops something that you have no real info to support.

She wasn't talking about people who give it up because of a skin irritation or some other truly legit reason. She is talking about people who relax their hair within an inch of it's life, every 4 weeks, with the strongest relaxer known to man, root to tip, on top of bleach, and expect to still have hair on their head. It's ridiculous!! It's not the relaxer, IT'S YOU AND I WISH YOU'D STOP BLAMING EVERY THING BUT THE RIGHT THING....

 

[Junebug D]

She wasn't talking about people who give it up because of a skin irritation, or something of like that. She is talking about people who relax their hair within an inch of it's life, every 4 weeks, with the strongest relaxer known to man, root to tip, on top of bleach, and expect to still have hair on their head. It's ridiculous!! It's not the relaxer, IT'S YOU AND I WISH YOU'D STOP BLAMING EVERY THING BUT THE RIGHT THING....

I thought that's what she was talking about too. Hopefully if you lost your hairline or you got huge sores on your scalp, you would have stopped waaaay before someone on the internet pointed it out. But alas, some people never put two & two together.

It's the ones who did all these bad things and their hair fell off, and then discovered the hair boards and went natural and then want to go around saying how relaxers did this to them. (Yeah, hon, try ripping that same fine-tooth comb through your hair now and see doesn't the same thing happen ) They don't want to put two & two together either.

 

[missbritt1986]

When ladies blame chemical relaxers for their previous or current hair setbacks. A relaxer is obviously a strong chemical treatment that should be tested on a few strands first to see what your processing time should be. These chemicals are no joke. I've noticed that a lot of people who experience trouble with relaxers have either over processed, :burning: didn't use a base on scalp, relaxed their whole head every time (not just new growth), scratched, combed, washed their hair right before a relaxer, or the ultimate no no, slapped a relaxer in after getting braids taken out. Let's also not forget the ladies who have no business trying to self relax, but do so anyway & hope for the best (usually with the wrong strength. Not everyone can use SUPER), or simply DON'T need to relax their hair in the first place. Almost forgot bleaching or coloring hair & then relaxing, or letting that "salon professional" put her hands in your hair when you know better than to let just any old body mess with your head. Bye bye hair.
Now, I'm totally guilty of most (if not all) of these mistakes myself.
But I'd be pretty naive to think that it's all the relaxers fault. I think it makes us feel better to blame the Dark & Lovely rather than admit our own mistakes. Now that I'm more informed, my hair hair is healthy, strong, and relaxed. Same chemicals, but now I'm taking care of my hair like I should have been the whole time. Relaxing isn't for everybody, but I think a lot more ladies would have success with relaxers if they took the time to do it properly.

Thanks to all the ladies that posted on my lil old thread :wink2:, even the ladies that disagreed with me . Let me clarify by saying that I do believe that relaxers CAN damage hair, but MOST of the time, damage (I think) is done by ourselves. Sometimes you just have to look in the mirror & realize "Hey, maybe I'm pulling my ponytail too tight?" Or "Maybe I shouldn't braid my hair right after a relaxer?" Or even "I can barely take care of my natural hair, why in the h-e- double hockey sticks would I even think to relax?" Again, relaxing is not for everyone. Nor do I think that all women of color should relax their hair. That's just how I (and I'd guess the majority of us in the USA) roll. I just want to see more women realize that relaxed doesn't always have to equal overprocessed, broken, bald, etc.

 

[msMicaela]

Thanks for clarifying.

I do agree with you OP

 

[longhairlover]

your right op, I don't have any issues with my relaxed hair, but I am lucky enough to have been raised by a licensed stylist my mom. so all I use to do was watch and observe the relaxer application. it's even a shame to have read that some stylists have been applying relaxers to peoples whole heads that do not have virgin hair just a shame when you can't trust so called professionals.

relaxed hair can be very healthy BUT you have to know what to do to take care of it, it requires weekly deep conditioning, monthly protein treatments, good quality shampoos and conditioners and leave ins. not too much flatironing (even though I use to heart my flat iron they are really damaging worse than the blowdryer).

heat protectants are also a must even if your rollersetting.

i've had trial and errors but its not because of the relaxers its' mostly been from bad cheap products experiments that went wrong.

and honestly some hair does not need to be relaxed because it is too fragile, my grandmother didn't need to relax she had fine hair so when she would mess with relaxers her hair would fall out, my aunts hair is very coarse and when she attempted to mess with relaxers they would break her hair off too,

there are alot of things to consider when relaxing because some hair is better off being natural, while other strands have a higher tolerance for relaxers.

i've never done a strand test, but the relaxer strengths explain clearly what hair type the strength is for and the correct application time, I can use mild or regular for bone straight, super
(1x bought in error) broke my hair off.



this is something I can go on about for days, don't want to hijack your thread op lmao!

 

[butterfly_wings]

About that... lol

Well I cut my hair by choice in July of 08. My hair was too long for me to deal with (this was pre-LHCF) and on top of that I wanted a more edgy look. So chop chop! My hair grew back to APL but AGAIN I started messing in my hair and I dyed it twice in a row (an example of not having experience with chemicals). Needless to say my hair broke off literally to one inch on the top of my head. Then my bangs felt the heat. So finally I had to chop it all off again in April of 09. My hair was short I couldn't even put it in a ponytail. But now I'm NL and growing I guess lol

Ahhh sorry about that, you will see growth in no time with LHCF