Relaxed Hair Thread

MzSwift said:
I was up all night washing, DCing (protein + moisture) and rebraiding my plaits. Then I twisted my plaits in a flat twist crown around my head. Now I'm wigging it. I pinned it on using the thinner hair pins instead of bobby pins which hurt my head so much. I plan to keep it on for 1-2 weeks then wash, DC, rebraid and wig again.

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OH, I pulled down a patch from my nape and it's WL. :) So happy to do that with texlaxed hair! Now, time to get the other layers down there. Still no length goal. Just trying to nail down a simple regi that I can keep up even when I'm lazy and that will help me retain length.
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Congratulations on reaching WL!!!

I am loving that wig too! And your skin is so glossy and beautiful!!
 
So I'm thinking about how I'm so amazed by where my hair is right now. I'm a slow grower y'all, I've recorded my growth since I started this HHJ and I grow about 4"-5" per year. I'm a TALL 5'5", Lol, meaning that ppl usually think I'm taller than I actually am. And now my nape is about 2"-3" from HL when I pulled it down. Amazing.

This was just March 2019, 5 months ago! (ETA correct date, LOL)

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I'm keeping in mind that this was just an informal length check the other day but even DH was congratulating me. He remembers taking the picture after I cut last year.

I've been DCing more consistently because of the crochet styles and other PSing. That's really the only time I DC in these lazy days is right before I braid up for the PS. But I think something else has been helping...

You ladies remember Njoy when she came on the scene and wet bunned her way from SL to WL/HL in like a year? LOL. Well we were in a lot of challenges together on BHM and she would talk about visualization and visualizing yourself having the hair you want.

And that made so much sense to me! I had used visualization in the past to bring my family home to fruition. No lie, I closed my eyes everyday and saw us living into a large, brick home with a side entry 3-car garage and soon after I started IT HAPPENED!! So I thought, sure why not try it with hair. In 2012, I started visualizing my hair at WL. Mind you, most of my adult life, my hair has only been 3"-4" long at most. Well sure enough, by Christmas 2013, my hair was WL (see my siggy pic). I had even slacked on my regi due a divorce and relocation 4 states away. No ayurveda, no weekly or biweekly DCing, no covering my hair at night :blush2: and still made it.

RECEIPTS:

April 2012
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April 2013
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December 2013
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Doing my regi of weekly cleansing, DCing, daily M&Sing, 99% PSing, ayurveda, vitamins, etc.

Ocotber 2011
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April 2012
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I can definitely see a difference in retention. And I'm not much of a trimmer.

Sorry, this ended up being longer than I anticipated. Lol, :blush2:
 
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MzSwift said:
So I'm thinking about how I'm so amazed by where my hair is right now. I'm a slow grower y'all, I've recorded my growth since I started this HHJ and I grow about 4"-5" per year. I'm a TALL 5'5", Lol, meaning that ppl usually think I'm taller than I actually am. And now my nape is about 2"-3" from HL when I pulled it down. Amazing.

This was just March 2019, 5 months ago! (ETA correct date, LOL)

View media item 130159
I'm keeping in mind that this was just an informal length check the other day but even DH was congratulating me. He remembers taking the picture after I cut last year.

I've been DCing more consistently because of the crochet styles and other PSing. That's really the only time I DC in these lazy days is right before I braid up for the PS. But I think something else has been helping...

You ladies remember Njoy when she came on the scene and wet bunned her way from SL to WL/HL in like a year? LOL. Well we were in a lot of challenges together on BHM and she would talk about visualization and visualizing yourself having the hair you want.

And that made so much sense to me! I had used visualization in the past to bring my family home to fruition. No lie, I closed my eyes everyday and saw us living into a large, brick home with a side entry 3-car garage and soon after I started IT HAPPENED!! So I thought, sure why not try it with hair. In 2012, I started visualizing my hair at WL. Mind you, most of my adult life, my hair has only been 3"-4" long at most. Well sure enough, by Christmas 2013, my hair was WL (see my siggy pic). I had even slacked on my regi due a divorce and relocation 4 states away. No ayurveda, no weekly or biweekly DCing, no covering my hair at night :blush2: and still made it.

RECEIPTS:

April 2012
View media item 113851
April 2013
View media item 124361
December 2013
View media item 124957
View media item 124955
Doing my regi of weekly cleansing, DCing, daily M&Sing, 99% PSing, ayurveda, vitamins, etc.

Ocotber 2011
View media item 110785
April 2012
View media item 113851
I can definitely see a difference in retention. And I'm not much of a trimmer.

Sorry, this ended up being longer than I anticipated. Lol, :blush2:
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Gorgeous hair!
 
MzSwift said:
I did! I shaved my head and grew out my natural hair to WL. Then I texlaxed it. I don't regret texlaxing at all.
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ItsMeLilLucky said:
I did, and I loved it at first. Then I got it “cut” and now it looks crazy.
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I have been thinking about texlaxing for over a year now. I’ve been natural for over 6 years and I’m tired of my hair and it’s taking so much of my time. Before going natural, I use to self-relax so I am familiar with relaxers. And I had healthy bsl hair before transitioning, back then I actually use to look forward to wash days. These days I’m constantly cutting my hair due to ssk and tangling. My 4c hair doesn’t seem to hold any type of style for more than a day or two (and even that is with a lot of product, which leads to buildup).

I really want to relax my hair again but I am close to bsl and I’ve never relaxed virgin hair before. Plus I’m scared I’ll regret it. But honestly, I’ve not been enjoying my hair when I wear it out. I usually end up with clip-ins or putting in braids.


@MzSwift Your hair is gorgeous. Do you use a particular brand that doesn’t make your hair too straight? Did you do the initial texlaxing yourself or did you go to a hairdresser?

@ItsMeLilLucky What happened with the cut? Is it too short?
 
@SugarRush
Sounds like you're gonna be good if do decide to texlax. I had never had long hair before I grew it long natural so I thought planning activities around hair needs was typical for having long hair. But it's so much easier to do my texlaxed hair at the last minute, I couldn't do that with my cottony 4B hair.

I use mild relaxers, but they're not created equal. I use Motions Lye mild. I tried IDEAL mild once and I found it to be much stronger than Motions. My hair processed really quickly.

I did my own virgin texlax. I was so worried about messing up all of the progress I had made as a natural that I left too much texture in my hair. I loved that I could actually finally WNG but I still dealt with shrinkage and SSKs, which were a big reason why I texlaxed in the first place.

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Then I decided to go much straighter about 6 months later which solved the SSK and shrinkage issues. But when I got pregnant I went back to texlaxing. The difference wasn't noticeable most of the time. After my first postpartum texlax, I straightened and started rocking my hair in pigtail braids out of convenience. The difference between the straight relaxed and texlaxed hair was so noticeable in the braids. It looked bad. o_O So I had to grow out the straighter hair.

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If you have fine hair like mine, you may end up preferring to texlax as well. I used to dilute the relaxer but I found that my results were too inconsistent because the state of my hair was the variable. So now, I apply the condish and oil to my hair and apply my relaxer undiluted. I feel I have more control over the texture that way. I cut off the bonelaxed hair last year and now my ponytails and braids are much more uniformed and thicker.

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Like everything in this journey, it's all trial and error but I hope my mistakes can help you decide. :)
 
Just relaxed my today. I guess I’ll see how bad the damage is once I rinse the dc out. One thing I’ve realized is that I can’t do any long term stretching unless I’m in braids 24/7. My new growth is just too danggone aggressive lol. I think 3 months is probably the sweet spot, but after the second month I need to be in some braids or something.
 
ItsMeLilLucky said:
Just relaxed my today. I guess I’ll see how bad the damage is once I rinse the dc out. One thing I’ve realized is that I can’t do any long term stretching unless I’m in braids 24/7. My new growth is just too danggone aggressive lol. I think 3 months is probably the sweet spot, but after the second month I need to be in some braids or something.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's the trick! Once the new growth starts getting sassy, put it away so that you don't have to deal with it often. That should help limit a lot of frustration. I hope your relaxer turned out ok. I know you were NOT happy about the layers that were cut into it. But they'll grow out quickly! :)
 
SugarRush said:
Did any of you ladies go from natural to relaxed/texlaxed?
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I did too. This was how I had my hair most of highschool and middle school.
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I went through a period of time where I would always pick my hair out to the point of it just being an extremely fluffy Afro. But I really liked wearing it like that. And I’d always roller set my bangs and brush them out. That was my signature style for some time too. This was before all the Curl defining styles really blew up on YouTube and are now the preferred ways to wear natural hair. So I always rocked an Afro.

I also wore wash and gos quite a bit and made to MBL/Brushing WL before I decided to chop all of it off, dye it, and then Relax it.

Typical wash and go I did. Once I figured out how to really define a wash and go I started wearing them more. My wash and gos weren’t really tightly defined. I guess I just wasn’t heavy handed with the products. Sorry for the blurry quality. Only picture I could manage to dig up.
392duu.jpg
This was A bit before graduation. I wasn’t completely sure what my hair type was, and I’m still not 100% sure now, but I didn’t particularly care then, as I don’t now either. But for info sake, I was completely sure that I was in the 4b or 4c curl type for the longest, but I eventually noticed that with my hair being so fine and such a soft silk-like texture that most if not all of my hair is actually a circular/barrel-like 3b-ish hair type. It was very easy for a wash and go to weigh my curls down and almost make them turn into waves depending on what product I used and how much. The next picture of my TWA shows my curl pattern a lot better.

I really enjoyed being natural. I was for most of my life, with that one exception being the first time I asked my mom for a relaxer around 12-14 years old. Somewhere in middle school? Something like that. Didn’t like it at the time, so I stayed natural after that.

This one was when I chopped all my hair off and proceeded to go through a dyeing phase lol.
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I was still natural and rocking a TWA. I didn’t really try to style my TWA because when I did it completely loosened my curls so I would just water down some conditioner, spray it all over my hair, and let it shrink up at much as it wanted to, but you can see how my curls are more like some type of circular, small, barrel type of curl. They’ve always been like that. So I just accept them and love them for how they are.

Then I decided to relax, but still kept my vibrant colors:
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After that I really dug my heels in deep and decided to see how long my hair could get being relaxed with the newfound understanding I had of it. So I grew out the color and stuck with a regimen For some years. Currently, my avatar is how long I’ve managed to get it without any trims or cutting of any kind.

I also have my album available for viewing if you wanted to see the progression of growth over the years from around 2014-2015 up until now.

So it’s very much up to you how you wish to have your hair and care for it. So long as you’re feeling good about it and you’re happy that’s the main goals as well. I too had some rough patches in my natural haired years, and I do still encounter set backs being relaxed now, so I completely support you in your endeavors. Whichever way you wish to go.
 
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@MzSwift gorgeous hair!

@PlanetCybertron cute pics and love the colors!

@ItsMeLilLucky glad your relaxer went well and great job blowing! Your hair looks thick!

As for me, I'm about to go rinse out this Nexxus Keraphix conditioner that I use for protein treatments.

I HAVE FOUND A NEW PRODUCT STAPLE!!!!!!!

Redken Extreme Anti-snap leave-in is BAE!!! OMG!!! Why did I wait so long to try it??? I air dry with this stuff and my hair is bouncy and soft. My ends are smooth, no puffiness at all! Woohoo! Love it! Love it! Love it!

Jury is still out on the Redken Extreme Length Sealer. The brush attachment is awkward. I just squeeze it out and use my hands. I'll report back after another few months to see if there's a difference.
 
Man, I'm watching all of these top knot bun videos and now I know why my buns look so puny no matter how long or short my hair is. I didn't know ladies did all of that fluffing! I'm so late. I told y'all I've never had hair so I didn't know all of that went into making a cute high bun. :eek::redface:

I literally just twist my hair into one bantu knot on top of my head and call it a day. My little monster will not wait for me to do all of that primping. Lol
 
sunnieb said:
@MzSwift gorgeous hair!

@PlanetCybertron cute pics and love the colors!

@ItsMeLilLucky glad your relaxer went well and great job blowing! Your hair looks thick!

As for me, I'm about to go rinse out this Nexxus Keraphix conditioner that I use for protein treatments.

I HAVE FOUND A NEW PRODUCT STAPLE!!!!!!!

Redken Extreme Anti-snap leave-in is BAE!!! OMG!!! Why did I wait so long to try it??? I air dry with this stuff and my hair is bouncy and soft. My ends are smooth, no puffiness at all! Woohoo! Love it! Love it! Love it!

Jury is still out on the Redken Extreme Length Sealer. The brush attachment is awkward. I just squeeze it out and use my hands. I'll report back after another few months to see if there's a difference.
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Thanks @sunnieb i went to ult.a today and bought the anti-snap, passed over the sealer and the cat and the megamask since it was buy 2 get 1 plus 20% off :drunk: Going to relax the weekend at 7wks post but can’t wait to try this stuff out! The cat especially it says it’s a rinse out reconstructor. The only recons I’ve used is the aphogee one.
 
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