Know How To Identify Damaged Hair
Knowing that your hair is damaged is half the battle when making the decision to chop. It would also make sense to be an expert at identifying when your hair is not doing too well.
Damaged hair won’t necessarily fall out before your eyes which would make things a bit more obvious, damaged hair can remain attached for a few months breaking only slightly from the ends which may give you a sense of false security but as the months and years go on you will notice that your hair retains very little length.
The are some tell tale signs that you can look for to identify damaged hair.
► For one your relaxed hair when healthy should have a natural shine to it without the use of silicone laden sprays and ‘shiners’.
If your hair appears dull and lack luster then that may be an indication that something is wrong. Define dull!? Literally your hair will not reflect light and appear to be a lower shade from the vibrant color you naturally have.
► Another tell tale sign is just plain dryness, relaxed hair should be light and fluffy if not silky and feel moisturized when healthy. Feeling moisturized does not mean wet, but it means smooth to the touch with the ends not feeling brittle or looking frayed. If you have a natural urge to tuck your ends in because you do not like the way they look then you my friend you already know what the problem is.
► Your hair loses it’s natural dark color and appears to have a brownish tint. This of course is most obvious on those who have black hair naturally but even those with off black to brown shades of hair will notice that the hair looks lighter than usual. This is usually a result of not neutralizing relaxers correctly.
►Split ends are a universal sign of damaged hair regardless of hair type. Just grab a section of your hair and if you see the ends of your hair have splits. No amount of split end lotions, potions or serums will make a blind bit of difference and they will eventually have to be cut off.
► We cannot end our identifiers without mentioning breakage. Broken hair is the single largest confirmation of hair that is distressed and damaged. If you see broken pieces of hair all over your bathroom floor after styling or on your pillow then it might be time for you to admit that there is a problem and your current regimen is simply not working.
Big Chop With Patience
Getting to the point of damaged hair for some of us who use relaxers can happen relatively quickly if you do not know what you are doing. Many women relax too often and end up with over processed hair where the strand is so broken down by the chemicals in the relaxer, no amount of protein treatments can save it.
It would be unfair not to warn you that it is much harder to maintain and subsequently retain maximum length when you are relaxing your hair but it can be done. It is imperative that you stretch your relaxer to avoid over processing your hair while at the same time getting rid of the damaged ends as you go along.
Journey to Waist Length says
ive had to start over a few times, when i was fully relaxed
Kerimah Rogers says
Big chop!!! Uhhhhh NO! Not me! I don’t want to look like a man!
Candi Ballard-Zolicoffer says
Even when I went natural 10yrs ago I never bc I just grew it out and gradually cut my hair until there was no more relaxed hair I wasn’t down with having hair that short cause its only so much you can do to it
Joyce Hellaclassyandsassy Williams says
Your hair is bang’n! Journey to Waist Length
Krista Kinchen says
Yep, it sucks
Jenny JackJack says
Ive been relaxed 21 years and ive never had to big chop at all…..
Andrea says
I cut my hair very short once while relaxed because of heat damage. a Halle Berry pixie. When I went natural I cut my relaxed hair off after four months. in my opinion the first cut was nothing like learning to handle an entirely different curly hair texture you’ve never dealt with before. That is what bc means to me. Not going from long relaxed to short relaxed. I just consider my relaxed cut a hair cut. I like short and long hair.. At times think I’d like to go back to twa. I think they’re cute sassy sexy but I like big hair too so haven’t decided. I didn’t think any time I decided on a short hair it was that big of a deal because if I didn’t like it I grew it out. A lot of people in my family are cut off and then grow out their hair long again.