I’ve worn my natural hair straight for years before deciding to wear it curly. Throughout this time, I have learned how to maintain my straight hair in between hair appointments. Follow the hair tips below to reframe from flat ironing your hair everyday.
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Deep Condition Your Hair Biweekly
Deep conditioning your hair is vital. Deep conditioning strengthens your hair, which allows it to be able to bear exposure to constant heat. It also helps with maintaining the elasticity of your curls. Constant heat can break down the proteins in your hair. This is why some people, like myself, experience heat damage.
When I was restoring my hair from heat damage, I conditioned my hair weekly and alternated the type of deep conditioning treatment I did biweekly. One week I would do a protein treatment and the next week I would do a moisture treatment to avoid over strengthening and/or over moisturizing my hair.This routine helped tremendously to restore my curls. This technique can also be used to prevent excessive heat damage.
Reduce Your Daily Heat Exposure
You should not add heat to your hair daily. Having pressed natural hair, you will be tempted to add heat to your edges or different strands of your hair after a hot shower. But, do not do it. If you add heat to your hair everyday, even if it is just your edges you will be making your hair more vulnerable to heat damage.
To maintain your hair in between salon visits, you can add heatless curls to your hair. Pin curls, flexi rod sets, and/or braid outs are great heatless curl methods that one can use to maintain their hair’s body and hide signs of their hair reverting (curling up) back to its natural curl pattern.
Avoid Water-based Products
Do not use any products that list water as the first ingredient. It is imperative that you look at the ingredients in the following products: edge control, gel, hair spray, and spritz. Otherwise, you run the risk of your hair slowly curling up leaving you with a mixture of straight and curly strands.
Moisturize Your Hair
Most people with pressed hair reframe from moisturizing their hair to maintain the hairstyle. They do not want to weigh their hair down causing it to look limp and/or greasy. This is a real concern.
Personally, when I wore my hair straight I would use grease, pink lotion, spritz, coconut oil, and hairspray. It is safe to assume that I cared more about shine and moisture than body. But for those of you that want body, shine, and moisture, I would recommend applying a dime size amount of grapeseed oil directly to your scalp and the ends of your hair using your fingers. Grapeseed oil is a lightweight oil and a great moisturizer.
Night Routine: Protect & Maintain Your Hair
Protecting your hair at night preserves the ends of your hair, which guarantees you retain length. You can wrap your hair to leave it straight with body. Or you can put your hair in a heatless curl set such as pin curls, two wrapped around buns, flexi rod set, roller set, and/or braids.
Personally, I would pin curl my hair at night. Then, I would apply a hair scarf and bonnet for extra protection.
Check out: Natural Hair YouTuber Tells Her ‘Straight Natural Hair’ Story
