To Texturize or Not??

[givemecurls]

Hello Ladies....I'm considering getting a texturizer on my natural APL hair. For 1. I'm honestly freaking bored with my hair because I have some issue with needing to make drastic changes every couple of years and I'm getting the itch 2. I love WNGs but at this length they are just disastrous on my hair because of the knotting and tangling.

This makes me think if my texture was slightly loosened then I would get a little different look and I could wear my WNGs

The issue: most "after" pictures I see of ladies with texturizers their hair looks stringy and basically straight...NOT the look I'm going for!

I'm hoping you all can share your experiences, good and bad, and offer some advice. I would like my hair to still be curly but smoother and perhaps less dense. I love my curls and would hate to loose them completely.

My hair is 3c/4a curl size, medium/thin strands and dense.

Thanks in advance!

 

[aa9746]

Hello Ladies....I'm considering getting a texturizer on my natural APL hair. For 1. I'm honestly freaking bored with my hair because I have some issue with needing to make drastic changes every couple of years and I'm getting the itch 2. I love WNGs but at this length they are just disastrous on my hair because of the knotting and tangling.

This makes me think if my texture was slightly loosened then I would get a little different look and I could wear my WNGs

The issue: most "after" pictures I see of ladies with texturizers their hair looks stringy and basically straight...NOT the look I'm going for!

I'm hoping you all can share your experiences, good and bad, and offer some advice. I would like my hair to still be curly but smoother and perhaps less dense. I love my curls and would hate to loose them completely.

My hair is 3c/4a curl size, medium/thin strands and dense.

Thanks in advance!

I have no advice but I'd need a texturizer to get your texture. I've thought about texturizers because I have so much shrinkage but it's not for me right now.

 

[Myjourney2009]

Hello Ladies....I'm considering getting a texturizer on my natural APL hair. For 1. I'm honestly freaking bored with my hair because I have some issue with needing to make drastic changes every couple of years and I'm getting the itch 2. I love WNGs but at this length they are just disastrous on my hair because of the knotting and tangling.

This makes me think if my texture was slightly loosened then I would get a little different look and I could wear my WNGs

The issue: most "after" pictures I see of ladies with texturizers their hair looks stringy and basically straight...NOT the look I'm going for!

I'm hoping you all can share your experiences, good and bad, and offer some advice. I would like my hair to still be curly but smoother and perhaps less dense. I love my curls and would hate to loose them completely.

My hair is 3c/4a curl size, medium/thin strands and dense.

Thanks in advance!

That is because what you see is texlaxed hair (basically it is hair that is more relaxed (very loose) where as texturized hair is just your hair with the curl more enhanced elongated.

You can use eithier a relaxer or a texturizer to get the look you are going for. Just dont smooth too much 2x should be max for you and I would use a mild and keep it on for the max time for a reg head of hair.

A good relaxer that iMHO texturizes is Mizani BB.

 

[ajargon02]

http://members.fotki.com/daydreaminyoli/about/

hmmm, my original post disappeared. Anyway, lovelymissyoli, texturized her hair while in twists, to get her desired look.

I am natural, so I won't be able to advise you, but I figure I could atleast hook you up with the link

ETA: http://public.fotki.com/daydreaminyoli/my-journey---2004---2007/a-new-do-now-textur-1/the-process/

this is the link for how she did her texturizer.

 

[Napp]

I have gotten 2 texturizers. After both instances, a (traditional) texturizer isn't something I would like to repeat.

This is kind of long but I hope you read this....

I got my first texturizer roughly around jan 2007. prior to that i did not know my hair was curly at all. I thought my hair had no curl pattern especially since I had never seen it and I had went into a salon and asked her how to "define my curls" and she told me my kind of hair needs a texturizer to curl. so around that time Just For Me came out with a "texture softener". I got it trying to convince myself and my mom it wasnt actually a relaxer.(i was a natural nazi at the time) so I followed the directions and i got a loose wavy curl.i was so happy because it was something different and very easy tostyle and maintain unlike the torturous detangling sessions and whack styles i had when i was natural. when touchup time came i felt overwhelmed by the things i had to take into account: over processing,underprocessing,protein,breakage overlapping ETC. so after learning some more on the boards i discovered i could make my hair curl on its own so i decided to grow it out. fast forward 10 months i did a bc.

so roughly 3 years ago, a few months after my BC i felt that my hair was too tight and high maintenance. i was dismayed that i could not have effortless short hair like many ladies on the board did after their BC. after getting very frustrated i decided to research texturizers again. this time i had much more knowledge and could prevent unwanted results. or so i thought. i did all the tricks.(at least at the time) diluting my mild relaxer, to make sure i had enough processing time,porosity control and some other stuff i forget. i only left it on for 5 mins. with no smoothing. my hair came out slightly loosened, but it was SO DRY. I slapped it in curl activator and was pleased with the results. as the days passed i realized that my hair was actually quite crappy. the dryness was like something i cannot quite fully describe.it felt very unnatural like velcro and it would stick together like velcro too. i think that was one of the worst things ive done to my hair. it took quite a few months for my hair to feel like hair again. and the texture of the hair was so awful i could only bear to transition for 8 months. it looked almost the same as my natural hair but it was insatiably dry. it wasnt worth it to me at all.

i never bothered with chemicals after that except about 2 years after the second bc where i did a bkt. i liked the bkt very much. it was the only thing that increased the diameter of the curl while letting the hair retain its spiral curl pattern. i also liked the the manageability it gave to my curl but it wore off too quickly and i wasnt to keen on the chemicals,and time it took. so that is when i started to just wear my hair straight. after a while i noticed after i straighted my hair it was more easy to manage curly.if i didnt straighten it got progressively harder to do,the more time passed since i washed out the press. so i have been straightening my hair 1x a month faithfully since then.

even so, it is just not enough because although my hair is more manageable my hair is still so tightly curled. i am still on the search for something that could loosen it like a bkt but is not as harmful,expensive and time consuming.i stumbled upon coppola infusion replenisher which i *think* might be it. i will be reviewing it early this summer.i will keep you posted if you are interested.

HTH

 

[VinDieselsWifey]

Napp what relaxer were you using when your hair felt like velcro? i plan on texturizing maybe end of this year and planned on doing small sections at a time, leaving it on for 5-7 minutes with no smoothing.

 

[Napp]

Napp what relaxer were you using when your hair felt like velcro? i plan on texturizing maybe end of this year and planned on doing small sections at a time, leaving it on for 5-7 minutes with no smoothing.

i used a lye relaxer which was supposes to be the best at preventing post relaxer dryness. specifically i used hawaiian silky mild relaxer. i do not think it was the relaxer that caused this though. i had a conversation w/ someone on a forum about it and she had mentioned this happening to her because of the way the hair gets processed. (she was trying to keep me off the edge) i forget the exact explanation, but it gave the same crazy dry results.I thought to myself,"if i do everything right, i shouldnt have those results. she only got results like that because she didnt know what she was doing"....lesson learned

i would never recommend doing a quick no smooth texturizer.i feel if you are gonna texturize it must be to a noticeably looser texture...that way the hair will processed enough to avoid that. maybe if i have time i will go look for the conversation.

 

[VinDieselsWifey]

i used a lye relaxer which was supposes to be the best at preventing post relaxer dryness. specifically i used hawaiian silky mild relaxer. i do not think it was the relaxer that caused this though. i had a conversation w/ someone on a forum about it and she had mentioned this happening to her because of the way the hair gets processed. (she was trying to keep me off the edge) i forget the exact explanation, but it gave the same crazy dry results.I thought to myself,"if i do everything right, i shouldnt have those results. she only got results like that because she didnt know what she was doing"....lesson learned

i would never recommend doing a quick no smooth texturizer.i feel if you are gonna texturize it must be to a noticeably looser texture...that way the hair will processed enough to avoid that. maybe if i have time i will go look for the conversation.

i know i will be using Elucence lye relaxer because i used it before with no problems when i was texlaxed. but i don't know if i want to use the normal strength, put a protein barrier, and let it process the recommended time, or don't use the protein barrier and rinse after 5-7 minutes. or use the gentle strength and let it process the recommended time. i read reviews on the gentle strength and some people said it was just like conditioner in their hair. i just know that i don't want my hair straight, just the curls loosened.

 

[Napp]

i know i will be using Elucence lye relaxer because i used it before with no problems when i was texlaxed. but i don't know if i want to use the normal strength, put a protein barrier, and let it process the recommended time, or don't use the protein barrier and rinse after 5-7 minutes. or use the gentle strength and let it process the recommended time. i read reviews on the gentle strength and some people said it was just like conditioner in their hair. i just know that i don't want my hair straight, just the curls loosened.

thats the thing you used it when you are texlaxed. on my first texturizer my hair was loosened a lot and would be considered a "texlax" in terms of results.i had no issues with dryness, because of the way it was processed... ugh this sucks because i cant quite explain it well.

some times you cant even go by what others say because they have been using chemicals for some time so they may not feel the difference between the natural and the relaxed. hawaiian silky relaxer had rave reviews like that and how the mild "barley" relaxed, and people couldnt tell the difference but the hair felt silky....

as you can see i highly don't recommend this either go for a texlax,relax or stay natural.

pray tell,what issues are you having with your natural hair that you feel you need to relax?

 

[alive]

Would you consider heat training? from what I've gathered so far, most heat damage is from using blow dryers. If you use just a flat iron, you could potentially loosen your curls gradually over the course of several months. Brittany on YouTube has quite a few interesting videos on how to heat train (just as an fyi, she does use a blowdryer and her hair seems to handle it well)

 

[lovegymnasts]

Weird question:
I'm a literal kind of person.
I have been reading this a lot lately. Ladies saying they are bored with their hair so they...or they want to...
Is that a catch phrase/saying or do you really mean it?
Because whether you are relaxed, natural, texlaxed, texturized, frylaxed, dyed, whatever...your style choices are all the same (updo, buns, curls, straight, cornrows, twists, etc). You are still going to be doing the same things to your hair.

Or is it the thrill of doing something "drastic" or "permanent" to your hair?

 

[VinDieselsWifey]

thats the thing you used it when you are texlaxed. on my first texturizer my hair was loosened a lot and would be considered a "texlax" in terms of results.i had no issues with dryness, because of the way it was processed... ugh this sucks because i cant quite explain it well.

some times you cant even go by what others say because they have been using chemicals for some time so they may not feel the difference between the natural and the relaxed. hawaiian silky relaxer had rave reviews like that and how the mild "barley" relaxed, and people couldnt tell the difference but the hair felt silky....

as you can see i highly don't recommend this either go for a texlax,relax or stay natural.

pray tell,what issues are you having with your natural hair that you feel you need to relax?

i think i get what you are saying. since the hair wasn't allowed to process fully it won't behave right.

i really loved my hair when it was texlaxed, but i love the thickness of my natural hair. and my natural hair is just too much FOR ME to handle. the front half of my hair and the very back from the ears on down are easy to deal with and detangle. i can detangle those areas in like 5 minutes. but my middle section is the driest, coarsest and hardest for me to deal with.

i hate the detangling sessions. i dread to wash my hair (and i love the feel of water on my scalp erplexed) i have been natural most of my life so i know plenty about my natural hair. i just want to find a happy medium and be able to keep most of my thickness and texture. i know i am going to do something though. just praying that i can get the results that i want. but i'm prepared to be accept straight hair if the texturizing doesn't work out. i just know that i will not be cutting my hair off again. i should be sitting on my hair now based on the amount i have cut and grown back over the years.

 

[Napp]

i think i get what you are saying. since the hair wasn't allowed to process fully it won't behave right.

i really loved my hair when it was texlaxed, but i love the thickness of my natural hair. and my natural hair is just too much FOR ME to handle. the front half of my hair and the very back from the ears on down are easy to deal with and detangle. i can detangle those areas in like 5 minutes. but my middle section is the driest, coarsest and hardest for me to deal with.

i hate the detangling sessions. i dread to wash my hair (and i love the feel of water on my scalp erplexed) i have been natural most of my life so i know plenty about my natural hair. i just want to find a happy medium and be able to keep most of my thickness and texture. i know i am going to do something though. just praying that i can get the results that i want. but i'm prepared to be accept straight hair if the texturizing doesn't work out. i just know that i will not be cutting my hair off again. i should be sitting on my hair now based on the amount i have cut and grown back over the years.

i totally understand. i have been natural for most of my life and i know my hair is a piece of WORK. no one will believe me though people see a little curl and think of it "must be easy"with all of the cutting ive done i should be ankle length by now

is you main issue detangling? because i feel that tangling issues are not solely an issue of curl pattern tightness but the actual texture of the hair and porosity make quite a difference too.you can change these factors without getting a relaxer. im totally against relaxers just for manageability. if you want a different "look" thats another story....is styling also an issue?

and dont forget there is always heat trainingit does not even necessarily have to be brittanys way....

 

[VinDieselsWifey]

i totally understand. i have been natural for most of my life and i know my hair is a piece of WORK. no one will believe me though people see a little curl and think of it "must be easy"with all of the cutting ive done i should be ankle length by now

is you main issue detangling? because i feel that tangling issues are not solely an issue of curl pattern tightness but the actual texture of the hair and porosity make quite a difference too.you can change these factors without getting a relaxer. im totally against relaxers just for manageability. if you want a different "look" thats another story....is styling also an issue?

and dont forget there is always heat trainingit does not even necessarily have to be brittanys way....

it's not just the detangling. my hair is just so time consuming. i don't like my twists, twist outs, wash n gos, etc. i don't like the way my hair looks/feels when i blow dry or flat iron it. i bought the Hana Elite and i like the flat iron a lot but i guess my skills aren't too good right now cause my hair doesn't get the results i want. i plan on working on my technique though and hopefully getting better.

i just prefer my hair texlaxed. i miss being able to detangle quickly & i miss being able to rollerset. my natural hair laughs at blow dryers so i won't even attempt to try to rollerset it. i saw the threads about heat training but i didn't like the look of some of the wet heat trained hair i saw. i like curls and some the hair i seen looked just like poofy blow dried hair. that doesn't mean my hair would look like that but i don't know. i was really interested in the BKT stuff when it first came out but i have crossed that off the list.

i just think i will go back to being texturized/texlaxed with Elucence and call it a day. for me i don't see the point of having hair you're not happy with. i was happy with texlaxed hair.

 

[DDTexlaxed]

Your hair is inspiring to look at, both natural and texlaxed. I hope you will let us know when you or if you texlax. I'm a big fan of your hair.

 

[metro_qt]

Here is a pic of my texturized hair 2 summers ago.
It was bra strap length at the time. I miss it...
I have damaged my hair since by not caring for it underneath my wigs
(Still. Love wigs)
I've cut my hair back down to shoulder... And will
Probably get a texturizer again in the next couple of months.
I had a professional in a salon do mine.

 

[NikStarrr]

I use to be texturized/texlaxed and my hair was still really curly and close to my natural texture. I have pics in my fotki. I wore my hair like that for years.

I loved being texturized. It was really easy. I pretty much only wore wash n go's and it was perfect for the hot & humid climate I lived in at the time (Miami).

The only downside for me was that I couldn't seem to get my hair to get longer than collarbone length. If I ever get to the point where I'm done growing hair and instead am looking for ease of style, I will probably go back to being texlaxed.


Sent from my iPhone using LHCF

 

[VinDieselsWifey]

I use to be texturized/texlaxed and my hair was still really curly and close to my natural texture. I have pics in my fotki. I wore my hair like that for years.

I loved being texturized. It was really easy. I pretty much only wore wash n go's and it was perfect for the hot & humid climate I lived in at the time (Miami).

The only downside for me was that I couldn't seem to get my hair to get longer than collarbone length. If I ever get to the point where I'm done growing hair and instead am looking for ease of style, I will probably go back to being texlaxed.


Sent from my iPhone using LHCF

i love your hair both natural & texturized. i have stalked your fotki for a while.

what was your texturizing routine? did you smooth, how long did you leave it on, did you do it in sections, etc?

thanks

 

[GodivaChocolate]

Hello Ladies....I'm considering getting a texturizer on my natural APL hair. For 1. I'm honestly freaking bored with my hair because I have some issue with needing to make drastic changes every couple of years and I'm getting the itch 2. I love WNGs but at this length they are just disastrous on my hair because of the knotting and tangling.

This makes me think if my texture was slightly loosened then I would get a little different look and I could wear my WNGs

The issue: most "after" pictures I see of ladies with texturizers their hair looks stringy and basically straight...NOT the look I'm going for!

I'm hoping you all can share your experiences, good and bad, and offer some advice. I would like my hair to still be curly but smoother and perhaps less dense. I love my curls and would hate to loose them completely.

My hair is 3c/4a curl size, medium/thin strands and dense.

Thanks in advance!

I swear you are reading my mind. I was just thinking about this. I have been contemplating this for about a week. We have the similar hair type and texture and I like to wear my hair straight and come out of the weave but I dont want to fight the knots and density so I' thinking a texturizer may give me some options and help me in my journey full APL.


^^Nikstar..why do you think your hair remained at that length when you were texturizing?

 

[Curlykale]

I texturized for 14 years and I have a 3c/4a texture as well.
I wish I knew the secret formula of the woman who did it, believe it or not she never wanted to discolse her "secret". I didn't live in the US so the main brands you know didn't exist and she "invented" it. After insisting with a colleague of hers, I realized that she used curly perm (which is liquid), which she thickened with flour. Apparently this is what they did in the 30's and before relaxers. (Now that I'm on LHCF I would have added an egg, some oil and some silk powder too LOL)
She used to use a fine comb to "freeze" my hair in a straight position (starting from my neck) and she aplied indirect heat for a while, then she used to rinse and neutralize.

By the way, curly perm is the same substance as a THIO based perm (incompatible with relaxers and textlaxing, I learned it the hard way).

The result was hair that looked like my natural hair (curly, spiraly) but without shrinkage, no volume and thickness, no elasticity (I was surprised when I went natural because of the elasticity of my curls) and no detangling sessions. I could achieve volume using a diffuser and drying my hair upside down. The curls were still there, but my hair was not as thick and shiny as it is now that I'm natural, it looked good because I always "sealed" with silicone serums. Despite deep conditioning every 4 days and using indirect heat, and somethimes stretching for 6 months, I never managed to get past APL in 14 years. When my hair reached APL, I always got breakage. In order to avoid the loss of my natural color and shine I had to do a demi perm color every 3 months, but it worked wonders in making my hair look healthy. The demi-perm color controlled my porosity. I used to wear my hair down in a wash and go 100% of the time.

The crown area never got past shoulder length, so it was difficult to have a "full shape".
There was a burnt smell that lasted for a couple of weeks whenever I washed my hair after a texturizing session.

I loved the way it looked and everyone else did, but I got tired of not being able to predict my hair's reaction to products (after a while things stopped working, especially as the demi-perm color "coating" faded away) and I wanted to grow my hair longer, so I tried to go natural. I don't have too much patience and I want an easy life: the reason why I'm still natural now is oil rinsing, ceramide oils, natural products, thick conditioners with cetyl alcohol in them as it weighs down the curls and promotes clumping and it's THE ingredient that keeps my hair moisturized, flaxseed gel and braidouts. My hair looks and feels better now and it's growing much faster, I enjoyed wearing my hair down for 14 years without doing much: it depends on what you prefer right now.

I must also say that it took me about a year and a half to fully understand how my natural hair behaved (=what it loved). It was a bit difficult but now I can honestly say I'm much happier than when I was texturized, and everyone keeps saying my hair has never looked this good (most people have no idea why as I told no one). It really depends on what you are looking for and if this is the right moment for you to experiment or not.

LESS DENSITY= yes, this is what the texturizer gave me
SMOOTHNESS= this is what the demi perm color did

together they worked wonders and shoulder to APL hair was ok for me during those years.

Hope it helps!

 

[NikStarrr]

i love your hair both natural & texturized. i have stalked your fotki for a while.

what was your texturizing routine? did you smooth, how long did you leave it on, did you do it in sections, etc?

thanks

I used Elasta QP relaxer in regular strength, applied it, smoothed and left it in for 5 minutes. I did start doing it in sections ( front back), but don't feel it is necessary because my hair is slightly kinkier in the back and as long as I start applying in the back first it works out perfectly with the timing.


Sent from my iPhone using LHCF

 

[givemecurls]

Thanks Ladies...all the back and forth on the thread has been fun to read! I ended up deciding not to texturize and got color instead! **see pic attached**

I'm happy with it so far because it has really changed my look up..which is what I was going for I may think about it again later just for the hell of it but not now...too scared of the inconsistent stories I've heard erplexed