Relaxers vs. Hair Type

crysdon & julia,

the main reason why i use a relaxer is because in my opinion i can do more with my hair being slightly wavy or straight. when i had my corkscrew curls i always wore my hair in a high ponytail. whenever i got up in the morning i hated life. i think my natural hair is a lot more work too. i have to moisturize my curls all the time, i have to wet my hair every morning. then i am not a girl who wears her hair down a lot but more in protective styles, which means smoothing the hair down. and with curls that's a lot of work. then when i do decide to wear my hair down maybe the first day i like it but the next day i want the curls to be gone!!! i think when you have relaxed hair you can achieve every style from bone straight to (natural looking) corkscrews or kinky hair. but if you have tight curls it is way harder to achieve a bone straight look and keep it looking like that all day. that's just my experience and my opinion.
also julia, i did not know that we had the same hair type. i always liked african pride in regular. it's easy to use and i think i will go back to it. i was always very happy with it. but you know how it is...i came to the hairboards and every body said that the motions oil relaxer was the bomb and also that lye relaxers were better for the hair. i always liked the results i achieved but i thought if it can be better why not try???
but i have the same opinion as the person who posted she uses beautiful beginnings (jrw??). i know what works for my hair and what has been working for it so maybe i was just stupid for trying /images/graemlins/scratchchin.gif????
 
Julia

Hmmm the amount of olive oil I use is about 2-3 tablespoons. It doesn't hinder the productivity of the relaxer for me at all. It adds to the conditioning of the hair during the relaxer process on my hair.

I have always done relaxers myself since I was 16. I've never ever gone to a salon to get them done. Bear in mind when i was 16 I did them all wrong. I've been relaxing my hair for about 18 months since a 3-4 year break of not doing them. And it's going pretty well.
 
I agree Nay, you should use what you know works for you. I am just getting into hair care boards and therefore am still not 100% sure of what my hair type is. The descriptions just do not make sense to me. I do not meet the definition of type 3 because when my hair gets wet it does not get straight, it gets wavy and curly. It behaves more like what the description says about type 2. But I know I am not a 2 and I know that I am not a full type 4 either. Maybe I have a combination of more than 2 types. I saw your pics and my hair looks somewhat like yours but is much shorter.
 
Thanks again for another wonderful tip.

I am going to ask my hairdresser to do this for my next touch up. I do find the relaxers drying on my hair. I will be bringing my bottle of EVO to the salon.
 
When you first mix it up, it looks like the two are not going to mix, but it needs to be mixed up real well until it does, it will look a lot smoother. You'll probably get armache. lol
 
Nay007,

When you had your hair unrelaxed, did you have any spots that had corkscrew curls but were a tad frizzy? When I first cut my relaxer out, I thought that I was a definate 4a/4b, but since my hair has gotten longer the curls are more defined. I am a majority 3b/3c according to Andre if you look at both Cleo Lane and Cree Summer but then I think I have a 4a patch on the top of my hair. I have well formed curls at the middle and bottom parts of my hair, but my hair at the hairline and crown have no curl, and is somewhat kinky wavy and kind of curls at the end.

I'm just wondering because when I had a relaxer on mild and regular I would have wavy type 2 hair if wet, bone straight if blowdried. I've noticed not only do I have frizzy spots, but if I wear my curls to sleep, when I wake up in the morning my hair is smooshed wherever I slept. Did you have that problem? Could you comb through your curls easily? When my hair is dry I can't do it, I must wet then comb (or brush through if putting my hair in a short ponytail).

Also when I brush my hair my hair at the top is almost straight. Not straight like a relaxer, but straight enough. I'm a little confused about Andre's system, but I think my hair might be a little bit similar to yours.

Check out my relaxed pictures to see my hair when it was straight. And I'll send you my password for natural hair by pm.
 
Thanks Jrw, I'm thinking about going back to it, because my scalp was happy as well. /images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
bump--Great thread :) I took my sis to get her first Affirm relaxer a few months ago, and I noticed that her newgrowth came out very black, sleek, and shiny compared to the rest of her damaged light brown relaxed hair.

Are there any other ladies using Affirm? If so, what type?
 
Cleo said:
I use to use Beautiful Beginings for 8 years as well, I'm 4a. It worked beautifully. /images/graemlins/clap.gif I never had any problems with it, but the no-lye discussions scared me into going with lye (I thought that dryness would catch up with me). /images/graemlins/confused.gif I haven't found a keeper yet because the last lye touch-up burned /images/graemlins/mad.gif. I was NOT happy. How long have you been using it? I'm tempted to go back
Click to expand...

Wow, Cleo, you are a type 4? How were you able to grow your hair so long and how often do you relax? Your hair is gorgeous. Thanks in advance for the tips.

P.S. I use Affirm. I am not sure if it is mild, super, regular, but I think that I will ask for the Fiberguard Affirm the next time I go to the salon. I find that my scalp burning has more to do with whether or not I excercised or showered just before getting a relaxer and on the skill of the person who does the relaxing.
 
I think I have 3c/4a hair...and I just used Motions Mild for the first time. Dark and Lovely regular was my staple, but for the first time since I've started getting relaxers, I wasn't burned and my hair did not turn out completely bone straight. I will use Motions from now on...:)
 
The whole hair type thing is really confusing to me. I used to think I was 3c/4a and then I thought 4a but my hair grows out in medium s shaped and is slightly resistant. I had one hairdresser who told me that my hair, when straightened, is like Indian hair. So here's my latest:

Type: 3c/4a(?), fine to normal, slightly resistant

Bantu regular: My current hairdresser told me this would be okay, as opposed to the mild, but it has to come off as fast as possible. She puts it in, quickly works it through once and then washes it out. She's a keeper.
My hairdresser before her left it on longer and we got into an argument about it. It ended with him almost screaming at me that I had coarse hair. Needless to say he will never touch my hair again.

Elucence: Took out my hairline and caused a lot of breakage

Affirm: After three months my hairline was gone, bone-straight, no-body and breaking off at the scalp by the handfuls.

But then again, just about every hairdresser I go to treats my hair like it's coarse. So armed with the knowledge I now have maybe elucence and affirm would have been okay in a milder form.

HTH...
 
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