For the past few months, I’d been considering straightening my hair, but the fear of heat damage was enough to stave off the curiosity. Eventually curiosity and my want/need to properly trim my ends wore me down. Below is a quick outline of my process along with a few pictures. Pictures of my hair before and after can be found on the Kinks of Nature Instagram page: Instagram.com/KinksOfNature.
I figured I needed to start off the process with an intense protein treatment, and since I didn’t have the time to do a henna treatment, which also strengthens the hair strands, I went back to good old ApHogee Two-Step Protein Treatment. A messy irksome treatment, but a good one nevertheless. After clarifying with Tresemme Salon Silk Shampoo, I applied the protein treatment and blow dried my hair to harden the product.
Once the protein treatment was rinsed out, I deep conditioned for 30 minutes with Tigi Bed Head Moisture Maniac Moisturizing Conditioner. Sidenote: I hate that this is discontinued! It’s the best conditioner I’ve ever used!
I let my hair air-dry for a few minutes until it was damp and no longer dripping. Then I layered the following products: ApHogee ProVitamin Leave-In Conditioner, L’Oreal Paris Studio Silk & Gloss Hot Straight Cream, This One Gets You Silky Smooth Light Hair Oil and Her Styler Argan Oil Hair Serum. I mixed the oil and serum and applied it as a final layer of sealant and heat protectant. After applying all of these, I blew out my hair using a Denman D3N brush and Sedu Revolution. It wasn’t my best blow out, but I think my frayed ends and the meager slip in the leave-in combo made it difficult to get the best results.
Finally, after all that prep work, I got to the real task of straightening. Shockingly, other than the shampooing, it was the quickest part of the entire process. I did the chase method, and it was highly effective in smoothing my ends. With the Sedu iron, I was able to do most sections with only one pass on a 400°F setting. I started out on 340°F, but my hair was a bit puffy so I went up to 400°F. If I’d gone up to 450°F, the highest setting, I probably would have gotten the bone-straight look, but I am terrified of heat damage so I won’t be trying it out anytime soon.
There’ll be a few additional posts with the aftermath and product/appliance reviews.
Follow Kinks Of Nature on Twitter (Twitter.com/KinksOfNature), Instagram (Instagram.com/KinksOfNature), Pinterest (Pinterest.com/KinksOfNature), Facebook (Facebook.com/KinksOfNature), and YouTube (YouTube.com/KinksOfNature) for the latest updates.
Sincerely,
AC
