The Awkward Stage's 3 Tips to Healthy Relaxed Hair

Happy Wednesday lovelies!

In my day to day comings and goings, my hair is often looked at as an anomaly. Outside of this hair blog/ hair forum world, a lot of AA women look at long, relaxed hair as something that is impossible for most. Something only achieved if you have 'good hair.'

And that makes me sad.

In my experience, growing relaxed hair to great lengths isn't impossible. With a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of care, achieving long hair becomes possible.

In my opinion, meeting that goal is pretty easy, especially if you follow these 3 tips that I tend to follow in my own hair care practices.

1) Relax less frequently. Trust me. You aren't doing your hair any favors relaxing your hair at 4, 5, or 6 weeks post. There is barely enough new growth and if anything, you are merely relaxing already relaxed hair (which can ultimately lead to breakage). So do yourself a favor, don't relax until you're at least 8 weeks post. If you can push it to 10 weeks post-great. And 12 weeks post is even better.

1a) Since we're here, when you do your relaxer touch up, don't do it from root to tip. Again, all you are doing is relaxing previously relaxed hair, which is a recipe for breakage. I don't know who spread this lie that relaxers had to be done this way but it needs to stop. Seriously.

2)Limit the heat. Back in the day, before I knew better, I used high heat every day (via curling iron, flat iron...it didn't matter). EVERY FRIGGIN DAY!! And my hair suffered for it. Since I've started my journey, I have learned (and re-learned) that my hair can only handle 1 type of direct heat, once a week at that. So if you are using heat every day, try and cut back to 3 or 4 days a week and see how much better your hair feels.

3) Moisture is key. And moisture is not grease. Moisture can come in the form of a great moisture based DC ( like ORS Hair Repair Nourishing Conditioner) ,an awesome water based moisturizer (ORS Carrot Oil and Qhemet Biologics AOHC are great ones), a great leave in (Jane Carter Solution Revitalizing Leave In and Kinky Curly Knot Today are my faves), or a combination of all 3. It is key to remember that our hair craves moisture and when you relax, even more so. If you do all you can to keep your hair moisturized properly, your hair will thrive.

Those are the three things that I think contribute to healthy, relaxed hair. When I first started my hair journey, those were the first 3 steps I took. Once I got those down, thing like protective styling were easy to understand and conquer.

What do you think contributes to healthy relaxed hair?