I'm so over my natural hair. I don't ever wear it out because it ages me. I'm ready to relax again. How did you handle going from natural to relaxed? Did you self relax or go to the salon? What product would you recommend for a fine strand cottony sista?
I was absolutely excited about going from natural to texlaxed again. So excited that after I texlaxed, I barely PSd and wore my hair out almost everyday. I wore braidouts almost everyday. I also like doing cowashed ponytails. I did enough to maintain but had lost some length bc I was tired of hiding it all of the time. So I went from WL to hovering around MBL for the first few years after I texlaxed. But even that was longer hair than I'd had my whole life! So I enjoyed it.
Immediately, wetting and styling my hair in the shower became infinitely easier. I could cowash and put my hair into a braided ponytail while in the shower. When I was natural, the water would get cold before I could do that. For braidouts, my wash day turned into wash DAYS and then my style may or may not last after all of that work.
I self relaxed bc I was too afraid of someone else messing me up and I had read so much on here. I went to old threads from around 2007-2010 when we had an abundance of long haired relaxed ladies on here and learned as much as I could. I looked for tips that overlapped, where lots of ladies said that particular tip was a part of their regi. As a natural, I'm sure you've applied conditioner to your hair in sections. If you can do that, you can totally self relax. Some of us pre-part our hair before relaxing so that way we can relax a lot faster. That may not apply to you for the first relaxer but it'll make your touch ups so much easier.
I'm a fine stranded, cottony sista too!
My best advice is to find a style you like that's low manipulation and do a weekly light protein tx. I also added a leave in protein (Infusium 23) into my nighttime M&S every other day or so. I have no verdict on whether or not weekly blow dry/flat iron is bad. I've seen ladies grow long hair with weekly wash, DC and blow out/flat iron.
I chose lye over no-lye bc as I understood it, LYE is harder on the scalp but easier on the hair. And NO-LYE is easier on the scalp but harder on the hair. I figured I could just base my scalp properly and take the risk for one day every 3-4 months instead of spending months adjusting my regi bc of mineral deposits. HOWEVER, you'll see there are many ladies on here whose hair loves no-lye. There's no way to know until you start relaxing. And lots of ladies have switched between the two for touchups.
GL to you whatever you decide!! We're here for support!
