Your Mistakes

[queenofmean68]

My biggest mistake was putting these dayum blondish streaks in my hair! My natural colored hair is fine but it seems every highlighted strand is breaking off! I've NEVER had so much damage in my life and I cannot wait for my hair to grow out. I will NEVER do this to my hair again.

 

[moneychaser]

1. Going for weeks without washing my hair.
2. I never clarified in my life until 3 months ago!
3. Greasing my scalp every other day, thinking that would make my hair grow.
4. Hot combing my new grow, so I could hold out on getting a relaxer.
5. Using just oil on my hair, zero moisture.
6. Relying on a stylist. And letting her trim my ends after every relaxer.

 

[Wolftrap]

[ QUOTE ]
simone103 said:
2) Waiting more than 6 weeks to get a relaxer, and my hair breaking off as a result.


[/ QUOTE ]

I have seen more than one post on this but I don't understand. There are so many posts on stretching out the time in between touchups. I thought this was a good thing? Is this bad? If so how?

 

[karezone]

For some people it is not good because it causes a lot of breakage.

 

[simplycee]

There are many but these are the biggest ones:

Not speaking up when stylists didnt do a good job rinsing my nape area after a relaxer touch up. Or letting them turn me away from the mirror so I could not see how much they were "trimming" until it was too late!

Not taking the time to put together a GOOD daily hair routine.

Blow drying instead of wet sets.

Believing that washing more than once a week would dry out my hair.

Believing the no lye relaxer lie.

Thinking that I was not meant to have long hair.

Not appreciating long hair when i finally got it.

Using pink oil like it was water.

 

[DahomeyAhosi]

#1 Applying a relaxer over a jheri curl.
#2 Thinking I could comb through natural or texturized hair without being gentle
#3 Going to a stylist when not absolutely necessary

 

[AngelaP]

- Allowing my stylist to put a weave with glue in my hair last year.

- Not taking care of my hair while I wore weaves. I neglected my hair and although it grew, it could have grown so much more and been a lot more healthy.

-Waiting 3 months to get a touchup but not paying any extra attention to it.

 

[atlantatiffany]

-not moisturizing my hair enough when i got highlights

-letting a stylist cut my hair when they thought my hair wasn't doing well

it's so funny becasue i used pink lotion like it was free. laides i think we made the luster company rich.

 

[diamondlady]

As I read the post, I recognized most of the things others did, I did also. But . . the worst thing I ever did was - After years of coloring my hair, blue black, velvet black, mid-night black, I decided I want to be a red head. Well, you can't color over color, so I had to lift the color. I went to Asian beauty supply and got something I was not suppose to be able to buy. It was for professionals only. I bleached my hair for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes my head was getting warm, so I washed it out. My hair was a bright yellow blonde. I, then, put a permanent color on it to make it red. I left out a few strands so I would have blonde streaks. I got a lot of compliments, and then my hair started breaking. I didn't know about conditioners, or anything at that time, so it continued to break, and all I did was hope it would stop. It didn't. Every bit of bleached hair slowly broke away until I was left with about 3-inches of hair. I expected damage but not as much as I got. I didn't think I was killing all my hair. But I did it myself and I didn't pay someone else to do it. (That's my only consulation)

 

[Avin'sMom2010]

Bump Bump

 

[foxybrownsugar]

i use to relax my hair to the ends duh i could never understand why i couldnt keep length because my hair grows very fast
i would grease my scalp; now i just grease the hair esp the ends. i cant give it up what can i say i loves me some grease
lets see, o yeah in the 90s i had a halle berry cut then a toni braxton cut; by the late 90s i was growing back long but my stylist kept cutting me short so she had to go. I havent been to a stylist since about 97.
what else, oooooo in the 90s i curled hair with curling every morning before class. I think i lost my mind in the 90s cause in high school i roller set my hair once a week. oh well, we learn from our mistakes.

 

[Tanelions]

Protecting hair on occasion
Not clarifying
Lack of additional moisture.

 

[Stormy]

OOOOH! Great post! Now I can vent a little.

I've made many, and I don't wanna make this two pages, so I'll just tell my biggest and most recent.

Believing that I HAD to get my hair relaxed every 5-6 weeks or else it would all break off! That's not true as long as you keep it moisturized and wear protective styles. I can go 8 weeks without protective styles depending on how much new growth I have, and longer with them.

Getting lazy once I reached my goal, and not keeping up on the hair boards for motivation.

I stopped wearing my satin cap at night.

Started back to using too much heat on my hair instead of air drying more, and rollersetting.

When wearing braids, I didn't realize that I was only spraying my roots, and top of the braids, instead of moisturizing the entire hair shaft. I was wondering why my hair wasn't thriving in braids as it used to. I used to use human wet-n-wavy. I've learned that you have to moisturize more with Kanekalon hair. Thanks to AJDiva.

Started going back to the salon for relaxers when I know better. I'm just one of those people who CAN NOT get salon relaxers without my hair coming out. When I'm doing my hair myself, it grows nice and healthy. As soon as I start going to the salons, all of my hard work goes right down the drain. NO MORE! I may not have been able to get my hair very straight, but it never comes out when I do it myself. I think I had been texturizing all along, which is all my hair needs.

Now, I'm starting all over again.

 

[Desert Skye]

My big mistakes were coloring my hair, then blowdrying and using the curling iron on it. I would never condition my hair or anything. My hair was dry, brittle, and breaking all over the place.

 

[sassyhair]

Mine was coloring my hair with bleach again after I grew out my first coloring experience with bleach.

 

[msmerc]

My mistake was to think my hair which was long and healthy would stay that way no matter what I did to it. I would pull relaxer through to my ends with every relaxer. Then blow dry weekly and use hot electric rolllers every morning. My hair was also permanently colored. I had to cut off half of my hair because it was damaged. I have since found this forum and have much healthier hair habits.

 

[LeNghtyDreAms]

wow, yeah i made a lot of mistakes
1. i put peroxide n my hair to high light it, (biggest mistake of my life, 4inches broke off my hair, and it just started to grow back thanks to this wonderful site.)
2. Pulling relaxer all the way through my hair
3. Pressing my over processed hair.
4. dying my hair like every month

 

[atl_mulattamami]

1) allowing the stylist to overprocess my hair
2) shampooing with harsh shampoos daily
3) not deep conditioning enough...i think the only time i deep conditioned was when i went to the salon for a relaxer...i started deep conditioning when i was transitioning but by then, of course, it was too late
4) not wearing a bonnet or scarf on my hair at night
5) rough handling my hair (ESPECIALLY with the brush)
6) coloring my hair too soon after relaxers
7) blow drying everyday
8) flat ironing everyday
9) wearing super tight ponytails...my hair line never thinned but i do think this put to much stress on my hair and weakened it.
10) brushing my hair wayyy too much...i guess i was trying to distribute the oils

even though i treated it badly my hair was always super long...before i started transitioning last year the shortest my hair ever got was BSL...usually it was waist length but i would cut it to BSL once a year to get rid of bad ends...

 

[kizzylonghair]

I dont know where to start!!!

I thought that greasing my scalp would solve my dry ends.

Never used a MOISTURISER!!! Well I did but I am sure you will agree PINK doesnt count. Who told us that PINK was moisturiser!! Its one of these products that was passed down through the generations and no-one knew any better.

Thought that when my ENDS got dry and brittle it was a sign to relax it. All baby girl needed was a wash and deep con.

Was SCARED of washing my hair myself as I could get it as straight as a hairdresser. Sometimes I went realxer to relaxer without washing :shock:
ALL THE TUGGING AND HEAT, no wonder it was straight.

Trying to wear my hair down and straight EVERYDAY, Ended up using heat everyday, smoooth the sides done with gel. I did everything to cover up my AFRICAN DECENT. Hair I am so sorry.

The biggest mistake was not trying to find the facts earlier. I would be sitting on my hair right now.

 

[BMoreFlyy]

My biggest mistakes : Not knowing my own hair... And pulling my hair the same way for days, not knowing that it wasn't entirely the best thing... Wrapping my hair one way every night

 

[Cxshortie]

-Styling every day with heat.
-Trusting a stylist to tell me what I need to do with my hair.
-Not using a moisturizing conditioner or not using a conditioner at all.
-Not wrapping my hair at night.
-Not using a heat protectant before applying heat.
-Not shampooing enough.

 

[CookieLAD]

BIGGEST MISTAKE: Believing that any stylist knows my hair better than I do!!!

Other mistakes:

1) Not realizing that same length hair for a long time means there's a problem!
2) Believing that heat was the only way to get my hair to look great!
3) Not walking away from incompetent stylists sooner!
4) Not speaking up at the BS...after all, aren't I the customer?
5) Walking out of the BS and needing to go straight home to "fix my hair"
6) Going totally blonde (dayum idiot!)

 

[PhonyBaloney500]

High school:

Wearing lots of alcohol filled GEL to brush my waves back.

Up till recently:
Wearing TIGHT TIGHT ponytail holders in my hai
Never getting a professional trim (only snipping off ends after putting my hair in *one* braid
Washing infrequently
Not moisturizing my ends
Combing my hair dry BEFORE washing it--HUGE clumps lol
Never sleeping in a satin bonnet (unless I had my hair blow dried--even then I would only do it for the first couple of days lol)

 

[Vitality]

I abused my hair in high school and college by doing the following:
-Brushing my hair 50 -100 times every night as a teenager ( hey I saw my mulatto grandmother and aunts do it, so I thought I could too).
-Washing my hair once every two weeks
-Using a curling iron on dirty hair
-Using a hot comb to straightened my permed hair and new growth
-Not washing my hair after swimming in the pool
-Believing that there was such a thing as "growing dandruff" and walking around with white flakes in my hair.
-Using rasberry koolaid to try and dye my hair (that was so stupid)