Naturals: WORST mistakes you ever made as a natural?

[d-rock]

My biggest mistake was going to a salon after I hit MBL. After a cut of my "damaged" ends, a shampoo/condish, and press, I not only left in tears, but with APL hair. Pissed off, is the nicest way I can describe how I felt.

 

[beautifulisaunderstatment]

Treating my hair like it was still relaxed.

 

[NYCQT16]

I love this thread....so helpful since I'm trying to get back on the grind in regards to my hair

 

[gn1g]

co-washing too often which was more than 2x a week. and using the denman brush.

 

[LongHairDreams]

bumping for newly naturals

 

[LadyPaniolo]

- Getting lazy and failing to give my hair daily moisture

-not enough Deep conditioning

- I did figure out what works for my hair: wet it with aloe gel, massage Kenra MC into the length of each small section, and seal with cocoa butter or coconut oil. But then when these ingredients became hard to find, I just did co-washes and nothing else.

-Failure to pamper my ends... which have broken off so badly that I debate whether I can even call myself APL anymore... or if I've been busted down to SL.

 

[EleganceUnleashed]

Mistakes....where do I start?

1. Not properly taking care of hair...."because it's natural."

2. DRYING Shampoos--hair was not dry but brittle as a disposal brillo pad.

3. TOO MANY products. A stylist recommended that I use a leave-in, a frizz control, a grease, a mouse, a gel.....all at the same time. She would even mix in her palm and DRENCHED my hair with it/

4. Wrong Shampoo...that's been a common theme. I now use an organic brand with out the drying sulfates.

5. Manipulating hair without conditioner...Hubby would clean out the shower drain trap and I thought he had found a squirrel once.

6. Coloring, coloring and coloring...all done improperly.

7. Thinking I HAD to cut every 8-9 weeks due to dry split ends ( I didn't know if I had them or not)

8. NOT MOISTURIZING

You made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my computer chair!!

 

[kurlybella]

my number one is: i'm natural, it will grow. i don't really need to do anything or worry about my hair.


heat damage!

my sedu set on 400 degrees and old stylish messed me up! but i was so ignorant to the things i really needed to do.

i lost hair in the back of my head because of this.

using shampoo -- bad! bad!

over conditioning

not knowing that moisture meant -- water and humectant aids!

 

[joyandfaith]

I used to wet my hair every morning and throw it in a bun without anything on it. This had my ends dry as the Sahara

 

[Mena]

*not detangling my hair under water with conditioner.
*trying to force my hair to use products it doesn't like for the sake of not wasting money
*using too many products on my hair at 1 time after a washing thinking i am preventing the shrinkage. if anything i made my hair drier and more brittle since certain things don't work well together.
*being impatient
*letting this hairdresser press my hair and give me a trim-she CUT off my hair it was SL when she was done when it was close to APL and she pressed my hair too hard.

This is why I finally got redken!

 

[CurleeDST]

Redken is definitely drying on my hair and has too much perfume in it!

 

[Mena]

Redken is definitely drying on my hair and has too much perfume in it!

which one u use?

 

[BostonMaria]

Love this thread!

I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I didn't transition to natural without first getting advice from NC.com, Motown Girl, LHCF (as a lurker), and countless of other websites.

I haven't had any horrible mishaps, but the only mistake I ever made was buying every product under the sun thinking it would all work for me. Truth is about 80% of those products were useless or didn't give me the look I wanted.

 

[msmills2U]

I love this thread.

Worse mistake I have made was trying to stretch my hair with a hot comb.

 

[Duchesse]

Worst mistake was texlaxing my natural hair without putting too much thought into it ....

 

[Poohbear]

Back in 2005 - letting my mom press my newly big chopped 3-4 inches of natural hair with a stove top pressing comb and thick grease.

 

[bluediamond0829]

I'm going to subscribe to this thread and come back and read it all the pages because im newly natural and i need all the education and information i can get.

 

[LongHairDreams]

wonderful thread...bumping...........

 

[blazingthru]

coloring my hair, it really put a hurting on my scalp. I knew I had a problem with chemicals but for some odd reason I didn't realize that a dye was the same thing, it took six weeks to get over and the color was really harsh on my hair it took two years to finally get over it. I had to really spend a lot of time conditioning my hair and giving it some TLC

 

[cocomama]

too much brushing

 

[Evolving78]

baggying overnight. i left some conditioner in my hair wearing a plastic cap and scarf of it and woke up with big tangled knots in my hair. it took forever to get those knots out. i will never do that again.

oh and letting this chick blow dry my hair after it was dried and not damp. she was brushing and combing so rough (it felt worse that a whoopin!) she was really hard on my hair with the heat. i ended up with heat damage and after a few week i could still smell burnt hair.

 

[Naturelle]

Flat ironing and blow drying my hair regularly without a heat protectant and then using flat iron throughout the week passing over numerous times

Allowing people who do not know how to care for natural hair, use a stove curling iron and flat iron on my hair

Yeah I'm in my post-stupid phase now

 

[cocopuff06]

This is really good! Keep it coming!

 

[NGraceO]

Thinking the thickness of my curly hair= thick straight hair. BOO. str8tening it, I realize I have some catching up to do, getting my hair back thick again.

 

[truequeen06]

Thinking I knew what I was doing when straightening it. Meanwhile I used the highest setting, I did the electric hotcomb AND flatiron, and never used a heat protectant. My ends are still straight

 

[pmichael52172]

I'm reviving this thread because, as a transitioner, this is probably the BEST thread for right now.

 

[darlingdiva]

I did not fully detangle a twistout from tiny twists I wore. I then hopped in the shower to wash my hair and still had tangles and some twists in there. I was struggling trying to comb through it when I should have sat my hips down in front of the mirror and detangled properly after having those small twists.

Moral: Always fully detangle using your fingers after twists or a twistout before attempting to comb detangle in the shower.

This is so true. I learned this early on in my hair journey.

 

[darlingdiva]

The worst mistake I ever made as a natural was not paying attention to a product's ingredients and not knowing the function of those ingredients. Before LHCF, all I did was read the product description.

In fact, my newfound knowledge of ingredients is the single most important thing that I've learned from LHCF. Knowing the functions of these ingredients has allowed to figure out what works (water, glycerin, certain natural ingredients, etc.) and doesn't work (many cones, mineral oil, petroleum, olive oil, sulfates, etc.) for my hair.

It's also very cost-effective. I can easily eliminate many products because I know which ingredients do and don't work for me.

 

[msa]

The worst mistake I ever made as a natural was not paying attention to a product's ingredients and not knowing the function of those ingredients. Before LHCF, all I did was read the product description.

In fact, my newfound knowledge of ingredients is the single most important thing that I've learned from LHCF. Knowing the functions of these ingredients has allowed to figure out what works (water, glycerin, certain natural ingredients, etc.) and doesn't work (many cones, mineral oil, petroleum, olive oil, sulfates, etc.) for my hair.

It's also very cost-effective. I can easily eliminate many products because I know which ingredients do and don't work for me.

I agree with your whole post, especially the bolded. Knowing what ingredients do, how they affect my hair, and how they affect my health is amazing. A year ago I had no idea about all of this stuff.

I love my natural products and they love me back! Best thing I've ever done for my hair and my health.

 

[Lucky's Mom]

The worst mistake I ever made as a natural was not paying attention to a product's ingredients and not knowing the function of those ingredients. Before LHCF, all I did was read the product description.

In fact, my newfound knowledge of ingredients is the single most important thing that I've learned from LHCF. Knowing the functions of these ingredients has allowed to figure out what works (water, glycerin, certain natural ingredients, etc.) and doesn't work (many cones, mineral oil, petroleum, olive oil, sulfates, etc.) for my hair.

It's also very cost-effective. I can easily eliminate many products because I know which ingredients do and don't work for me.

Right Right and Right!!!!