Natural Observation

[HoneyRockette]

Forgive me if this has been addressed before but I wouldn't know how to search for it using keywords. It seems to me that women who have never relaxed their hair have a different texture than those who relaxed and went natural later on in life. Even the women I know who have been natural twice as long as they have been relaxed have a different texture than before they started relaxing. I know about scab hair, but does relaxing permanently change the texture of the hair?

 

[bellydancer]

my hair was the same before I relaxed and after. My texture didn't change until my hair grew longer and the curls kinda stretched out and when i found LHCF i started taking better care of my hair and found out what defines the curls in my hair.

 

[blue_flower]

When I was 10 I had gotten a relaxer and I had a lot of new growth. I noticed that the hair on the sides was straighter and smoother. Now that same side is curly. I'm thinking maybe the texture change has to do with aging.

 

[Tai]

Relaxers can permanently alter the texture of your hair. That is especially true for white women. After I relaxed my white friends hair, her hair changed from a 4a to a 2c/3a after about a year of relaxing so she stopped getting them done. Her hair did not go back to being a 4a. It's still in the 2-3 range.

 

[GodMadeMePretty]

OK, exactly what happened to make the texture change. My understanding was that the texture of your hair was determined by the shape of the hair follicle. So your friend's hair follicles somehow got less elliptical? I guess that is possible with relaxers being as caustic as they are. Some people get burns and what not which sometimes leads to permanent baldness. So, I guess in the midst of typing out this post,

I have come to the conclusion that it is possible due to the chemical damaging the scalp.

 

[sillygurl18]

Also hair texture changes during puberty.

 

[lsubabiedee]

i think my hair is pretty much the same...maybe a lil kinkier...but thats about it

 

[ms_kenesha]

I think it's got to do with puberty and not neccesarily the relaxer.

 

[RushGirl]

It can also change from a pregancy from what I have seen and heard..

 

[Tai]

Well, hers changed and she was way past puberty. I didn't relax her hair until she was 16 years old. I did her sister, too and her texture changed, too from a 3c to about a 3a. She also no longer relaxes. Maybe it's because they were white. I don't know.

 

[TigerLily]

I don't know if it was relaxers or puberty, but my hair texture changed from 4a to 4b.

 

[jd_bdfly]

I'm not sure. The part of my hair that is not relaxed seems fairly similar to what I remember it used to be like pre-relaxer when I was 12.

 

[Ayeshia]

My hair is still the same only thicker...when I was about newborn-6 years old it had a silky curly texture with little to no frizz. Now its just thick and frizzy/curly The older I got the thicker it became.

 

[Innocent_Kiss]

Hey, what's scab hair?

 

[Tai]

My understanding is that scab hair is new growth that is not as soft or the same texture as your true natural hair.

 

[Innocent_Kiss]

[ QUOTE ]
Tai said:
My understanding is that scab hair is new growth that is not as soft or the same texture as your true natural hair.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Tai

 

[bettydavis]

My hair seems the same as it was before I relxed, just thicker now from taking better care of it. When I was really young it was a little silkier.

 

[CocoaButterflyy]

My hair is pretty much the same texture.. I had natural hair up until the beginning of my sophomore year in college then I got a relaxer up until the end of my junior year when I started growing it back out... if anything now I have more curl definition but I also didn't have relaxed hair for a long time and maybe had 4 or 5 relaxers in that 2 yr time frame