Hair Curl Shrinkage up to 75 percent

As I have been experimenting with natural textured styling, I keep hearing some of the same comments. Such as 1) "You cut your hair!" and 2) Ummmm, "I have never seen your hair before."

I have type 4c hair; so 75% shrinkage as seen in my pictures is not uncommon. Isn't it amazing how tight hair can shrink to? One picture is with my hair being wet, detangled and combed out. The other picture is dried with a diffuser some. The roots are still a little damp, but you can get see the difference in shrinkage. I also have longer areas of my hair tucked behind my ears so that when I decide to straighten it, then I will keep my length on the sides.

As far as those who were surprised to see my hair, they have seen my hairline before, but they just did not know it was my "own real hair" blended into the hairpieces. I remember one lady asked me if I had a "lace front" on? I replied "no, this hair grows naturally from out of my scalp." Smile.

About four years ago, I actually had relaxed my hair, and I was wearing it in a roller set style without any extensions. It was all my hair that was out, and I had this lady touch my hair and tell me that she wants some extension hair that looks "real" like what I am wearing. I told her "this hair is growing out of my scalp." I had to laugh because people are so addicted to commercial hair (i.e. weave) that they can not tell the difference anymore. Even when I had my invisible braids in, I had a lady lift up my braids to see how they were attached. Ummm - "they are attached to the hair growing out of my scalp."

I just have been so tickled that "hair growing from my scalp" seems to be a new concept. Maybe my "protective styling" really confused people as to what is real and what is commercially integrated. Also, I have coarse hair; so it is resistant and strong. I think that a lot of people that wear protective styling have fine, soft hair. However, that is not me; I have hard to manage hair, and I love it because God gave it to me. I do fight to control it which makes this natural hair styling anything but dull. Eventually, I will fully relax it again. I am waiting on the weather to cool off! No one wants to sweat out their roller set!

Day 5: Wash n' Go maintenance on Type 4c hair

My last relaxer throughout my hair was May 22, 2011. It was a Super Paul Mitchell relaxer. The end result was texlaxed versus relaxed. So I have been experimenting with my texturized, natural look. I had been fighting with product film with some combinations and too much shrinkage with other product combinations. I was also trying to avoid a sticky touch to the hair. I had found that water based sprays broke the seal of some of the products that controlled shrinkage. Now, I think that I have found the best combination for my texturized type 4c hair.

Pictured is Day five hair! I love it! My new regimen is to refresh with Ouidad Botanical boost spray. Then run KeraCare Defining Custard through it to prevent shrinkage; then add Jane Carter Solutions Natural hold locking spray! The results are shiny, fresh hair without buildup nor crystallization. Also, no starting over!

As my hair gets longer, shrinkage is okay in some areas for styling purposes. Also, I am still taking one Viviscal tablet a day.

Corrective Relaxing using Fiberguard Affirm

Hair by Benita Blocker. Traditional Stove and Marcel iron used to achieve the shine and beauty of this hairstyle. No ceramic/ionic irons.

Corrective Relaxing is necessary when a customer gets irregular relaxer touchups. The heat from your scalp helps to process the relaxer. A client with excessive new growth will NOT process evenly. Therefore customer will have some underprocessed areas of the hair strand. Please see separate article on underprocessed hair.

Sometimes the underprocessed areas can frizz quicker than the rest of the hair and mess up the hairstyle. The underprocessed areas are more "sensitive" to the weather. So if the client is having problems with frizzing because of uneven relaxation, then the midshaft needs to be relaxed again in order to even out the underprocessed areas. Yes, there will be some overlap, but as long as a relaxer that helps preserve the tensile strength of the hair is used, corrective relaxing is safe.

I just completed a corrective relaxer service on the client above. She does have existing color highlights. She had been back and forth out of braids as well as trying to decide if she wanted to go natural. Fiberguard Normal had been her regular touch-up strength. I used the Design Essentials Restore as a pretreatment on the color-treated areas as well as through the rest of the hair ends. I applied relaxer as if was a virgin application. I started applying relaxer an inch away from the scalp and extended the relaxer over about 2 or 3 inches to make sure that I covered all potentially underprocessed areas. The processing time took about 25 minutes mainly because I did not want to overstress the hair strands as I parted gently. I manipulated the hair gently because of all the weight from the relaxer. I applied the relaxer to the roots after I finished putting relaxer on the midshaft. The roots ended up a little more texturized because parting the hair with so much relaxer on the midshaft was hard to part using gentle manipulation.

The end result was beautiful. We did a blowdry/style service to make sure the roots were straighter. In another 6 to 8 weeks, I will extend the touchup service about an extra inch out. Because the scalp heat processes quicker, I do not have to worry about overprocessing. The hair that is farther away from the scalp will process slower.

My client was happy with her corrective relaxer and final hairstyle. We were too short on time to take a picture on the relaxer day, but we did have time five days later to capture the final styling from our maintenance hair service. The picture above is after our followup shampoo/style after corrective relaxing on color- treated hair five days before. My client's hair is still strong and shiny. The Fiberguard Affirm relaxer with the Design Essentials Restore Pre-protect treatment worked well. By the way, Fiberguard Affirm does have its own Preservo protective lotion; however, I have found the bottles have short expiration dates. I did not feel that they sell enough on a regular basis.

Overall, I was happy that Fiberguard Affirm relaxer system was gentle, but effective!

Are cornrows and canerows the same?

The answer is YES! Some regions of the world are more familiar with sugar cane versus corn. So canerows are cornrows, and cornrows are canerows. They are also called "three strand twists" as well as "braids."

Another Wash n Go Regimen for Texturized Type 4 hair

I really have been fighting with crystallization on my hair lately when I used the Kinky-Curly Knot Today leave-in plus the KeraCare Defining Custard. So I decided to add in the Sedal Co-creation Curly Conditioner that has to be rinsed out. I skipped the leave-in conditioner and went directly with the KeraCare Defining Custard. Pictured are the results of Day one hair. So far, I had less "film" on my hair, and it has control and definition. Reminder: My type 4c hair is texturized. Also, notice that the Sedal Co-creation treatment is enhanced with the Ouidad curl line technology. Please see separate article on Ouidad line for curly hair. Also, I am suppose to get the Kinky-Curly shampoo to try so that I can use the whole Kinky-Curly line at least once without crossing product lines.