Caring for Heat Damaged Hair

Bonjour tout le monde!

I know is been over two weeks since my last post but I've had mock exam week so please forgive me. I thought in this post if give an insight into caring for heat damaged hair. Heat damage seems to be a taboo in the natural hair community as no-one really wants to talk about it. All you hear with regards to heat is 'make sure you only use heat occasionally on your hair' and that's about it. When in reality, the vast majority of the naturalistas have heat damage, some very obvious to see, however try to hide it from their fellow naturalistas. Now near enough everyone has experienced some kind of damage to their hair and isn't something to be ashamed of. However many of our natural hair idols try to style out their damage by altering what they deem to be their hair type. So subtlety they've gone from telling you that their hair type was 4C to it now being 4A. This is because with heat damage, they are unable to recover the tight curl pattern that they once had giving them looser, straighter curls causing them to instead hide their damage by changing what they claim to be their hair type. 

I think that by being a natural hair blogger, you should convey each and every trouble you've faced with your hair and be completely open with your fellow naturalistas. As some of you will know from a few of my prior posts, I do have heat damage. I cut my hair rather short to get rid of about 80% of the damage however some parts, namely the front of my hair, has seen more damage than others. It's been an interesting transition having to learn how to care for my hair when it consists of two different textures. Overall my hair is a lot drier and requires a lot more moisture than before. Also the straighter parts of my hair are a lot weaker than the normal texture of my hair as I'm sure you can imagine. So below I'm going to give you my new hair regime on how I now take care of my hair:

First of all, I've had to incorporate a lot more moisture into my regime. To wash my hair, I use the Coconut Water Shampoo and Conditioner (a review of these products can be found here) and deep condition. I used to always co-wash my hair (washing my hair with conditioner) however these products give my hair so much moisture that I shampoo and condition. I tend to wet my hair first, shampoo twice and then condition once. I shampoo twice as on a day to day basis, I use a lot of products in my hair and there can be a lot of product build-up so I make sure that my hair is completely clean before conditioning. I only condition once as I know my hair is going to receive a deep condition. Here's a picture of my hair after having been washed:

These pictures make it very clear of the two different textures I'm working with right now. You'll see that the front of my hair is a lot straighter and the back of my hair seems to resemble my natural texture. The majority of the damaged ends have been removed however some still remain. I was using 'Doo Gro's Mega Long Extreme Reconstructor' as my deep conditioner however now I use a child's deep conditioner.

I bought this from the kid's section of my local natural black hair shop. I prefer to use products for kids as they're less harsh and tend to contain less chemicals and more natural products. This is a deep conditioner that doesn't need to be washed out and so I put it on my hair and put a plastic cap on. Luckily I have a full steamer at home that I use when deep conditioning however you can just wear a plastic cap as it does the same job. 

I stayed under the steamer for 20-30mins and then just towel dried my hair. Here's a picture of my hair after:

I have been avoiding using heat but will start to blow dry my hair again once my hair has grown out more and I can get rid of the damaged ends. The shrinkage looks like my hair is really short but it's actually long enough to do my go-to hairstyle with ease. I hope this was a little insight for you guys and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me! 

Au revoir x