Quick Survey: When did your childhood hair start breaking off?

[bellecheveux]

Just curious. Please explain in full detail.

I noticed that all my hair started breaking off once I graduated to "Grown-up" relaxers. There could be a multitude of other reasons, but this was the primary reason.

 

[Solitude]

I had to beg my mom for a relaxer. Even though my first one went badly, my mom paid for me to go to good salons & I wore a lot of protective styles (like braids, phony ponies, & etc because they were in style...think Alicia Keys, Brandy), so my hair stayed pretty healthy. Adult relaxers were fine on my hair- kiddie perms did not straighten it.

When I started trying to do my own hair and be "trendy" & emulate styles on my hair that were created using weave, I experience a lot of breakage.

 

[Lynnerie]

When I got a relaxer it broke off. I didn't have a chance to be cute with the relaxer! My hair thinned out and broke off so I started wearing braids. Then I started doing my own hair and that was tragic as well.

ETA: middle school was when my hair suffered the most. high school i lived in braids.

 

[LilBrownied]

My hair was breaking off before I even got a relaxer. When I first relaxed, my hair was only shoulder length. I realize now my mom didn't know a lot about hair care. I remember her combing excessively rough, and I know now this was excessive because there are ways to help the combing process. For example, not combing my hair DRY!

So yeah, now she and I are both natural, and I'm actually teaching her lessons through what I've learned here. Now my hair will grow longer than it's ever been in my life (God willing).

 

[ajacks]

At age 8/9 when I got my first relaxer. My mother's cousin was a hair stylist and she took it upon herself to relax my hair without permission. My hair has not been the same ever since!

 

[SimpleKomplexity]

My hair was never that long. I mean it was prolly a little longer than shoulder length but nothing amazing. It never broke off. It jsut stayed the same length. Then...I started getting my ends cut every 6 weeks to "grow out" my hair....so it kept getting shorter and shorter and shorter

 

[Stella B.]

When I graduated from the pressing comb to relaxers while in college, I began to lose hair. I switched over because it seemed so much easier to maintain relaxed hair. Boy, was I wrong!! My below shoulder length hair ended up being barely shoulder length, fragile and thin in about 2 yrs. I did not know how to wash, condition, or comb my new permed hair. By the time I graduated, I had half the hair I use to have, and decided to cut it off to keep people from noticing how short and thin it had gotten! This was a sad time for me, but this was the beginning of my short hair era that lasted for the next 30 years. Ignorance is bliss, it took me until now to realize that if I knew how to take care of my hair, then maybe I could regain my hair from my youth. I'm trying y'all, just hope its not too late. Now that I'm older, I don't set crazy length goals that I know I can't reach; any length I can achieve with healthier hair makes me happy!!!

 

[BostonMaria]

My hair broke off when I got a relaxer at the young age of 10. I had long thick hair before the relaxer...by age 11 my hair was short, brittle, dry and just nasty.

 

[glamazon386]

I was relaxed as a child but had healthy hair up until I was a teenager. Maybe 13 or 14. Once I hit puberty it started going haywire. I believe the hormones made my texture change.

 

[Violets-are-blue]

Mmm around 8th grade? I think I was doing my own hair,and during the first half of the year I was getting pressed by stylists who used marcel irons and probably grease I'd wear that for weeks and I remember having so much hair on my shoulders. I remember also wondering why my hair was still and wouldn't move. Then I just stopped getting presses, and only got one for prom by a much better stylist who actually knew what the heck she was doing.
But yea, that's when I probably lost the most hair in the shortest span of time. Just downhill from there...till I found LHCF

 

[prospurr4]

My childhood hair was always "shot." When I look through family photos and my school pictures, I just shake my head... At age 20, I got my first relaxer, and my hair looked a lot better and even grew some, but I was just so ignorant about proper haircare, that it never grew past neck length.

 

[Evazhair]

When I got my first relaxer at about 10 because I took swimming lessons. I remember my grandma was LIVID and never forgave my mom. I had to grow it out and I would be fine until the next time I would try a relaxer then I would have to grow it out again. A vicious cycle.

 

[Momstar]

I had long gorgeous hair when I was a little girl, you know the kind that people wanted to play with. My mom's stylist gave me a relaxer because she said it was so thick that I should get one. Ok, we got the relaxer. At the time I really wanted to look like Janet Jackson and I begged my mom for her hairstyle. So about a week or 2 later we go to the SAME stylist who then put a jherri curl on my already relaxed hair! It was cute for about 2 days and I was swinging it everywhere but then my hair started to come out in clumps! And my hair was never the same again.
Just imagine they had to cut all my hair off and I went from having all this gorgeous hair to walking into school with a troll cut.
I think that experience kind of messed up my self-image a little and I think my life would have been a little different had that not happened.

 

[BioGeekChic]

My hair started breaking off after my mother started doing my relaxers when I was in seventh grade. My former stylist had moved away so she was forced to do them. Big mistake after this it all went down hill. The combination of bad hair practices and bad perms left me with short hair. Its only been in the last two year that Ive been able to turn my hair around for the better.

 

[pri]

After using relaxers and not caring for it the correct way is what lead my hair downhill. Also getting it pressed on a regular basis as well. :-((

 

[Neith]

After using relaxers, period. My mom used PCJ on me at first. Before that I was natural and at least close to APL.

 

[BeautifulNameX]

After using a motions in third grade. . . It too my sides off. . .It grew back after while but then I Had problems when I used no- lye

 

[KizzieNapps]

I voted after I started getting adult relaxers. But, it really started breaking off after I used my first Just For Me relaxer. My mom always used a super on my hair because it was so thick. Well, she thinned it out alright!

 

[wonderstar]

After caring for it on my own.

 

[Tami2shoes]

i got my first relaxer in the 6th grade. it went horribly and i lost almost all of my hair. prior to the relaxer my hair was always in good shape and SL.

 

[caribeandiva]

i don't know cause my hair was always short as a child even though i was natural until 13.

 

[carib_n_curly]

when i was 14 and i started slapping pinks' brown gel and pulling my hair back like no tomorrow,not moisturising but i never did and barely ever washing my hair and i use to wash daily when i was younger.the breakage it went from past BSL to barely SL when i stopped putting gel in my gl it when to full SL BUT NOW my hair is getting close to BSL again NOW I'm 18.

 

[silkii_locks]

The summer before 7th grade I was 11. I had spent the summer with my gradmother and took swimming lessons the whole summer. I was in the pool everyday, never washed my hair. I just put it in a ponytail and left it like that b/c I knew I was going back to the pool the next day anyway And nobody told me any different I was MBL too. By the time the fall pictures came around I was choppy, shoulder length!

 

[Christina Dior]

once i started messing with it 5th grade on up breaking off, edges breaking off, all of it im gettin back on track thank god still suffering from thin edges on the right side tho

 

[msdeevee]

I checked off after I started using "adult" relaxers because that was the only choice for relaxers.

I don't believe that there is a difference btwn adult and relaxers packeged to appeal to children or adults that think that the lye is not as damaging because it is for kids.

Sorry, I know that's controversial... but my hair started breaking after I begged my MOm for my first relaxer at the age of 13 it was called Epic and it promptly ate out all of my nape hair. My hair grew back in but I was stuck in the relaxer cycle for years after that.

 

[mahogany_horizons]

I had almost waist length hair growing up. First time I ever experienced breakage was when I was maybe 6 / 7 years old and my mom put an olgalvie (I don't know how it's spelled) perm in my hair. My hair broke off, and I had to wear nape length shirly temple curls. My hair soon grew out from it, as my hair grows a little fast, but I was devestated. I cried and cried. My mother tried hot oil treatments but she couldn't stop the breakage. She tried what she could.

She never broke my hair off again, and has been perming me since I was 6. I've had hair anywhere from sl to bsl length under her care, but I think that relaxer was too strong for my 6 year old hair.

I remember the convo vividly even though I was 6...

"Wouldn't you like to wear your hair straight all the time without mommy having to press it"

so the answer was yes of course.

Bottom line I think she was tired of fooling with my hair.

I remember my father rolling my hair some nights because she got sick of me squirming LOL.

Anyway, back to the story, I trust her with my hair like no other for relaxers, but had we had this board then, I wonder if she would have relax me (she doesn't visit this board, but I wonder if she did, would she have), and then, if she had, and I was older, I woul dhave known what to do to save my nearly w/l length hair. If I can find a picture to scan, I will.

I never had a bad breakage episode since then, just moving between bsl and apl or worse, sl, because dead ends hand to be cut off (hopefully this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN )

 

[HeChangedMyName]

My hair started breaking off upon my first relaxer. I got a Dark And Lovely. My hair was dry, brittle, splitting, ragedy. It went from a little below shoulder length and thick and pretty when pressed(only for occasions) to having to get it all chopped off and having an ear length curly perm. I kept my curl for two years and it grew back out and I have never had a D&L relaxer since.

 

[ycj]

Boy do I miss those days pre-relaxer when my mother would not allow us to have them in our hair. My twin and I had very long healthy hair. When I was in the 10th grade was when I started with the relaxer phase. I hated getting my hair pressed because I hated people in my hair. Everytime my mother would take us to the salon for a wash and press I dreaded it.

I remember me working up the nerve to even getting in the chair to get my hair combed out then dried, then pressed. I cried every single time. Even though the beautician knew how tenderheaded I was. She acted like she did'nt care! Once when they saw me crying everyone made a big joke out of it. I was more than humiliated.

Ever since I had a relaxer I thought I was the shsh! I was'nt though! As a matter of fact I am really considering transitioning either to textlaxed or natural. Still contemplating though! I am thinking do I really want to go through the pain of combing my hair out again when it was natural?

But I must admit my hair is the most healthiest when it is natural. I don't know yet!!! Still considering the possibilities.........

 

[danigurl18]

I've had relaxers since age 4 so I know it was once she let me get my hands in it...