Storytime: Heat Damage

IN THE BEGINNING

In a naturalista’s  hair journey you will probably experience the dreaded…‘HEAT DAMAGE’.  It happened to me on my journey. I was doing so well staying on top of my hair regimen.  My hair was healthy, my curls were poppin and all was good in the universe. My birthday was coming up and I wanted to wear my hair styled in a roller set.  The roller set would consist of different curl rods all over my head. A setting lotion would be used to set my hair and my hair would be rolled while it was still damp.  I went to my hair stylist and told him what I wanted. He stated he could satisfy my request. I told him I just wanted the rollers taken out because I had a massage scheduled in the morning and I wanted my hair to be freshly done the following day.  He obliged my request.

 

HAIR APPOINTMENT

So I went to my appointment for the massage and my masseuse was all up in the back of my head. I’m thinking to myself DANG! I knew my curls were not gonna hold up. I thought she would have asked if was ok to go up the back of my head but she didn’t.  So when my massage was done, my curls in the back were ruined. So I contacted my hair stylist to alert him of my situation. He assured me that he could fix it with the curling irons.  

 

BEAUTY SHOP

When I got to the beauty shop, I told him to use a heat protectant before he puts any heat on my hair.  He agreed. While he was re-curling my curls he said that he might as well re-curl all of my hair so that my whole head would look the same.  So I allowed him to do that. When he was done, I looked at my hair and immediately I noticed that my hair was bone straight. You could see through my fine hair and see my scalp. I didn’t like it.  Anyways, I paid my money and left the shop. I was on my way to my makeup appointment. I started to think to myself that I should just wash this out and let my curls come through.

Once I arrived to my makeup appointment, the makeup artist convinced me to not wash my hair  and to just fluff it so it would remind me of my natural hair. After I tousled my hair around I began to like it. IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!

 

HEAT DAMAGE

After a couple of days of wearing my hair straight I became anxious to have my curls back.  I decided to take a hot bath and allow the heat to draw up my hair. Unfortunately, my hair did not curl  back up. Instead it remained straight and flat. NOOOOOO!!!! THIS COULD NOT BE HAPPENING!! I was so upset!

As reality begin to set in, ( my hair being heat damaged),  I knew I had to get past my shock and hurt and begin the path of repairing my hair.  I initially had my hair stylist cut my damaged hair.  He cut about an inch off. I hated my hair. I went back and requested my stylist to cut more.  He did cut more off, however I felt like he wasn’t cutting enough of it.

So I decided I would also cut my hair. Weekly I would wash and deep condition it and then cut my ends.  I tried the protein treatments recommended from the YouTube Natural Hair community, but to no avail, it wasn’t giving me the results I wanted. My best friend, who has cosmetology experience, encouraged me to let it grow out.  She suggested for me to get Brazilian Blowouts and just wear my hair straight. She explained, my hair would grow and then I could simply cut it every three to six months.

 

AFTERMATH

Subsequently, there was a problem with that suggestion.  I did not want to wear my hair straight! The point of me being natural was not only embracing my hair but to wear it in its natural state. So I just kept cutting whenever I saw damaged hair.  At some point I couldn’t tell if the hair I was cutting was damaged or was it just my hair texture. I had a wedding I had to be in the summer; and I decided I was just gonna stop cutting my hair.  I was just gonna wait till after the wedding and get my hair professionally cut again. This is what I did. I am happy to say that my although there was a lot of hair cut off, my hair has grown a lot and I am happy with my tresses.