Hair relaxer ruined my hair!

[LongLiveDisney]

Yesterday, I bought a "natural" relaxer for my hair. It was called African Pride (I'm caucasian, but decided to try it anyway since I have frizzy hair) and it had all kinds of oils and things in it. I followed all the directions and then washed it out. I let it dry and now, a day later, it's dry. It feels and looks like straw. It's all stringy and just looks terrible. I'm crying! I didn't know it would do THIS to my hair. Will it ever go back to normal? Any products I should use? I used to have curly hair, frizzy but it looked nice. Now it's just stringy waves that are totally dry.

Any DIS friends have experience with this?

 

[sonnyjane]

Unfortunately some relaxers can fry your hair as they "get the curls out". Don't wash your hair very often right now. Let your natural oils replenish. You can even add a serum or hot oil treatment to it to help restore some of the moisture. Just don't do too much. Let your hair "chill" for a while.

 

[superme80]

Sure did. I was in 8th grade and my mom took me to a nice salon to get my hair done. I am half black half white, but my hair tends to lean towards the white side. The relaxer did its job, then it proceeded to break off in chunks. It was way too strong for my hair. I hope your hair goes back to normal. That is awful.

 

[LongLiveDisney]

Sure did. I was in 8th grade and my mom took me to a nice salon to get my hair done. I am half black half white, but my hair tends to lean towards the white side. The relaxer did its job, then it proceeded to break off in chunks. It was way too strong for my hair. I hope your hair goes back to normal. That is awful.

Oh my! That's terrible. Did your hair ever return to normal?

 

[superme80]

I think that since I did it when still in puberty my texture was still changing. It is fairly dry, but not has poofy as it was when I was in Jr high.

 

[low-key]

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[LongLiveDisney]

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If I knew how, low-key!

 

[E-P-C-O-T]

Do you have a Sephora nearby? I have not used a relaxer on my hair, however, it used to get dry and frizzy due to hair coloring. I asked an employee with very shiny hair at Sephora what I could use and she recommended a product called Ojon Restorative Hair treatment. Let met tell you, this product is so wonderful that my friends even noticed the difference and they all went and bought it too.

Just be careful not to use too much, because it can make your hair very oily if ou don't remove it completely. I have been using it for over a year, whenever my hair needs a little love and I am still using the same jar.

Hope it works for you!

 

[DLgal]

Make an appointment at a good hair salon so they can fix it. It will probably be fairly expensive but they can usually reverse most at home hair mistakes.

Next time, don't go the DIY route with your hair. This is what happens...

I once did something similar in college with DIY hair color. I had dyed my hair dark red (from natural blonde) and wanted to go back to blonde a few months later. My hair ended up blue-green with streaks of orange! I called my mom in tears and she told me to go to a hair salon and she would pay for it just this once. $250 later, my hair was back to normal. Lesson learned.

In the future, OP, buy hair products specifically designed for YOUR hair type. Products for African American hair are very strong. They should not be used on caucasian hair.

 

[bjscheel]

Visit the forums at naturallycurly.com. Maybe they can help you fix the damage, and along the way, help you learn to care for your curls. They are big on the Curly Girl method, which could turn your frizz into nicer looking curls that you'll want to wear instead of straighten.

You can read about the CG method here:
http://www.livecurlylivefree.com/curl care.htm

 

[bjscheel]

This might be more explanatory:

http://dormroomcurly.blogspot.com/2008/12/style-definitions-table.html

 

[LongLiveDisney]

Thanks a lot everybody. I'll be making an appointment at a reputable salon soon. Yep, lesson learned.

 

[Buckalew11]

There's not a lot of help for this type of damage. Your hair sounds overprocessed and like it does not have much elasticity now. Be very, very careful with it and avoid any type of coloring. It is very fragile and needs TLC. This is more the fault of the user than the product. good luck!