A member of the NHR family has had a very negative experience with the flat iron. Can you answer her questions? Comment below with your feedback on www.naturalhairrules.com. Chime In.
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Tonya writes: I mad a stupid mistake and got my hair flat iron thinking I had to for my ends to be trim. Sad to say I do believe it is burnt. My hair smells so bad. I washed,Deep Treated,& Deep Conditioned for 2hr. [Burnt] Smells was to there..that was a week ago today. Oh I have notice more broken and split ends & some parts of my hair didn”t curl back up. 2 1/2 years natural and this happens.
Question…Do I have to cut my hair? If not how can I save my hair? And will that nasty smell ever go away?
Im in the same boat. I got my hair straightened for the 1st time 2 1/2 weeks ago to get a trim. I washed it out about a little over a week ago and I wanted to cry. Half of my hair curled back {1/2 of it w a looser curl patter and the other half normal}, and the rest of it is bone straight. I freaked out after many washed n DPs, and youtube searches. Form YT it seemed like a lot of ppl use protein treatments and beer rinses to revert it but I didnt have time to try either. I just did an intense deep conditioner {that resulted in another portion of my hair to curl back}, then gave up and just braided it up. Its been in braids since and hoping to take them out in a month or so then decide if I want to chop it all off {after 19 months}. Would love to hear if anyone else has actual solutions for this besides another BC
*hugs* Hun I am so sorry this happened to you! I feel your pain; I had the same experience. Unfortunately I didnt find any remedy for heat damage. I ended up cutting most of the damaged hair, but I just camouflage the damaged piece at the very front until it grows out long enough to cut. Hope you have better luck than I did!
You may not have to cut it, depending on how severely burnt it is. Usually severe burnt hair would burn and disengrate (like a burnt piece of paper).
As far as the smell, baking soda will remove the smell. Also, you can use fresh lemon juice or vinegar (these use small amounts due to their high acid levels).
The good news is hair grows all day everyday, maybe not the speed that you would like, but with time it will Grow.
Unfortunately, this happened to me 5 yrs ago….I had a professional flat iron my hair. I had several straight pieces that never went back to natural curl pattern. After several weeks and washing hoping it would change, I finally had to cut my hair and start all over. I think that if u flat iron ur hair on the correct setting, u can prevent this. But I have not straightened my hair in 5 years!!!
I flat ironed my hair a few months ago and had heat damage and ended up cutting about 3 inches of hair off, if you check out my tumblr you will see my post along with pictures about the situation. Unfortunately your heat damage looks pretty severe and your best bet IS to cut it because you WILL notice that braid outs and such will NOT look the same, so dont hold onto fried hair, as much as you dont want to cut it (cause trust me I didnt want to do mine as well) but youre gong to have to do so UNLESS you can tolerate how your hair will be.
Thank you all for the comments..I just want to cry.I wash and did two strand twist and just pin and tucked my ends away. It’t time for a wash tomorrow will do another DC…if it doesn’t work I will get it cut:( Question I am scared to death about any heat in my hair. How would I go about getting it cut? Don’t even want a blow dryer near me.
This happened to me as well. My cousin, who is a professional stylist, explained that the heat damaged the cuticle of my hair shaft, leaving some ends straight. Unfortunately, this damage is irreversable and the straight ends had to be cut. The best thing about growing your hair natural is the learning process. I went natural in ’98 and went through several trials. Back then, there weren’t half the products on the market targeted for natural hair as there are now! I believe this experience will allow you to grow and promote a better crop of hair as a result, as the afro hair never really reverts back from flat or ceramic heat styling. The good thing is the pat method of pating down the longer parts of your natural to blend in w/the shorter parts. Godspeed!
Regarding styling options, you can have a tapered back (kitchen) and longer top. You may want to add a touch of color to your longer strands to make your style pop. Blow dry heat is fine as long as you start by drying your ends working up towards your roots.
After one dominical blow-out, I am currently waiting for the back of my hair to grow out enough to cut my stringy ends. I will cut what hasnt fallen out anyways O(
i feel you pain I have heat damage in my hair in the front. but im unsure how much and will it revert back. I just did my bc and dont want to cut it. i would say do more dc and see what happens but alsodo some styles that will not make it noticable, or use curling rods at the ends to help out with the curl pattern.