The Healthy Hair Diary: Breakage

How I Plan to Recover from Breakage

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Recovering from a Major Setback!

Sunday, January 15, 2017

During a relaxer touch up in November 2014, I unintentionally under processed my hair, leaving way more texture than planned as I had applied extra virgin olive oil to my new growth prior to the touch up and had also then covered the oil with Roux Porosity Control conditioner. Doing this step, meant the relaxer was able to process my hair the way I wanted it to and I was left with so much texture, I pretty much looked natural.

Relaxer Day - So much texture left, my roots look natural!

Within 4 weeks I had no choice but to do a corrective relaxer as my hair at 3 weeks post relaxer felt like 9 weeks post relaxer and I couldn't cope with the different textures and was struggling not to get breakage at the demarcation line.

My corrective relaxer was done on 30th December 2014 which my mother in law kindly did for me; we set the time for 18 minutes, applied the relaxer to my new growth first and then applied relaxer to the under-processed hair for the last 5-6 minutes before rinsing out.

Checking my hair afterwards, I could see I was still left with a lot of texture but it seemed fine to me and I was just happy I could finally run my fingers through my hair without the extreme difficulty.

Left: Before Corrective Relaxer Right: Afetr Corrective Relaxer

As the months went on, I knew this section of my hair was more textured than the rest but I had no idea the damage it would cause further down the line. I ensured to keep my hair moist and deep conditioned and it was only as my hair grew longer that I realised the more textured section was becoming an issue and I started to experience breakage to the front and back of my hair which I noticed in September 2015. The texture of my hair which was under-processed was so much more curly and natural than the rest of my hair and looking back now, air-drying was not beneficial to my hair as my hair was drying naturally leaving me with 2-3 different textures and no matter how moist I kept my hair, the textured sections would always dry out.

Mini Chop - March 2016

Between September 2015 and March 2016, as much as I tried to baby my hair and look after the more textured areas, I suffered from major breakage both to the front and back of my hair. In March 2016, when doing a relaxer touch up, I decided to give myself a mini chop and went from Bra-Strap length to Armpit-length as I had sections to the back of my hair which was about 3-4 inches shorter than the rest of my hair and the longer my hair got, the more noticeable it got. I really hoped, I could grow the broken sections to meet the longer lengths but realistically this would have meant I would be unable to wear my hair down for at least a year whilst I played catch up. Trimming to armpit length made a slight difference but I still needed to take off a few more inches to be level to where the breakage was.

When I did my mini cut, I was in the mind-set that I would grow out my hair until August and review my hair from there but by the end of April 2016, enough was enough, I missed not being able to wear my hair down whenever I wanted so decided to bite the bullet and get a proper cut which ended up taking me back to neck length which I haven't been in years.

Big Chop to Neck Length - April 29th 2016

September 2016

Neck length meant having to wear my hair down constantly and had to use heat until my hair was long enough to put into a bun which wasn't until July / August 2016. In October, I went away to Barbados for 3 weeks and it was only then that I realised my back section of my hair was still quite textured compared to the rest of my hair and was suffering from breakage yet again.

November 2016

Following my relaxer touch up on 24th December 2016, I gave myself a trim and I am now almost to armpit length but the back section has got to play catch up by about 2 inches.

1 Day Post Relaxer - Blowdreid hair on cold air. Almost Armpit Length

I will not be cutting my hair to match the length of the broken section, instead for the next 6-12 months, I will be making sure I give my hair all the attention it needs and wear low manipulation styles 99% of the time. This post is actually longer than anticipated so I will detail in my next post, the actual steps I intend to take this year to help recover from this setback.

Have you suffered any setbacks over the last year?

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How I Plan to Recover from Breakage

Recovering from a Major Setback!

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