In my almost 3 year journey of being a natural I have noticed something strange about the direct use of heat in forms such as flat iron, hot combs, other new fangled hair straighteners and what have you, on coily or otherwise known as kinky hair.
These observations are based on my experience, real life viewings, and on-line browsings. These observations apply to coily hair only. It seems to me that if you want coily hair to grow to its optimum length, whatever unknown length that may be, it is best to stay away from the direct application of heat.
Case in point, all the naturals that I have seen in real life or on-line that are in the extremely coily/kinky hair category who have never applied direct heat to their hair have very long hair. I do not believe this is a co-ink-i-dink!
Even if they have been natural for either 2 years or 12 years they always rock:1) amazing volume and 2) tremendous length. While those naturals who flat-iron their hair on the regular seem to always have a shorter terminus point i.e. the hair either grazes slightly past their earlobes or barely grazes their necks.
Based on this observation it seems to me that the direct application of heat to extremely coily hair retards or deters the growth of the hair. All the heat protectants and serums of this world will not debar this fact because the heat protectants do just that; protect your hair from being singed and fried by the heat and falling of your head.
In conclusion, if you have extremely coily hair and you desire it to grow to that unknown optimum length your best best is to refrain from the direct application of heat.
Perhaps a coily haired chick can consider one of those wonderful inventions known as a wig on days when she desperately wants to switch up her look.
Slap it on in the morning and take it off at night time. Convenience at its best!
3 comments:
I agree with you completely. I get great length retention, even though I tend to cut it all off in the end, and I haven't used a flat iron in 7 years or so. I just blow dry because I hate wet hair.
The use of heat does not affect hair growth. It can't...growth is an internal process.
It can, however, affect length retention due to the way it can weaken the strands and cause or hasten breakage.
Very careful use of direct heat on an occasional basis won't hurt the hair. I used to flat-iron 2-3 times a year and never had a problem but that was because I rollerset so that my hair was already fairly straight and I didn't have to apply a lot of heat.
That's true, Anonymous. The hair will be fine if you apply heat directly once in a while is the keyword. I'm talking about people who use it on the regular.
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