Your hair's breaking but you relax it anyway

[Aggie]

I've never had breakage from stretching but I have heard people swear that applying relaxer stops their breakage. I still don't get why that doesn't make the breakage worse.

Well I believe it's because this particular breakage we're talking about is right at the point of demarcation and not regular breakage from lack of protein. I don't know why it works, but it does and that in itself is very important to me.

I believe that stretching is a progressive action. In other words, when one is attempting to start stretching, one should slowly progress adding a week or two at a time each time they stretch until they can stretch for as long as they want to without fear of breakage. I truly believe this is the way to go rather than shock the hair into doing something it's not accustomed to doing. IDK, I could be wrong but I believe relaxer stretching works best this way.

 

[MsCounsel]

Well I believe it's because this particular breakage we're talking about is right at the point of demarcation and not regular breakage from lack of protein. I don't know why it works, but it does and that in itself is very important to me.

I believe that stretching is a progressive action. In other words, when one is attempting to start stretching, one should slowly progress adding a week or two at a time each time they stretch until they can stretch for as long as they want to without fear of breakage. I truly believe this is the way to go rather than shock the hair into doing something it's not accustomed to doing. IDK, I could be wrong but I believe relaxer stretching works best this way.

I agree totally.

The first time I started stretching I went from 6 weeks to 11 weeks without a gradual progression. Tangles, tangles, tangles.

This time I tried stretching until 8 weeks. At 5.5-6weeks, my hair slapped me and was not about to have it. I still stubbornly tried to wait moisturizing, moisturizing and moisturizing and my hair slapped me again. This time I listened. I don't think I can stretch past 8 weeks like other are able to. It really doesnt matter what I do. Its not worth the battle of losing my hair and suffering through my "dred-locked hair". My hair is much happier and I'm not breaking all over the place and it is retaining the moisture and not tangling as much. I have not flat-ironed yet and its not all matted together at all. Normally I would have to flat-iron immediately after a co-wash.

I'm going to flat iron tonight and will post pics.

 

[mzhotniz86]

Well I believe it's because this particular breakage we're talking about is right at the point of demarcation and not regular breakage from lack of protein. I don't know why it works, but it does and that in itself is very important to me.

I believe that stretching is a progressive action. In other words, when one is attempting to start stretching, one should slowly progress adding a week or two at a time each time they stretch until they can stretch for as long as they want to without fear of breakage. I truly believe this is the way to go rather than shock the hair into doing something it's not accustomed to doing. IDK, I could be wrong but I believe relaxer stretching works best this way.

it works because at the line, you are dealing with two different textures. the newgrowth is coarser and heavier, than the relaxed part. so the relaxed is basically hanging on for dear life after awhile. when you start to style your hair , etc, (and not add enough moisture to the newgrowth) the hair literally starts to snap off. so by relaxing, it blends the textures together. i conditioned as well when that breakage started happening to me when first stretched my relaxer , and it helped some. but then it started again after a few days and i already knew what time it was

 

[Aggie]

it works because at the line, you are dealing with two different textures. the newgrowth is coarser and heavier, than the relaxed part. so the relaxed is basically hanging on for dear life after awhile. when you start to style your hair , etc, (and not add enough moisture to the newgrowth) the hair literally starts to snap off. so by relaxing, it blends the textures together. i conditioned as well when that breakage started happening to me when first stretched my relaxer , and it helped some. but then it started again after a few days and i already knew what time it was

Thanks for sharing.