Mixing braids and relaxer can damage hair
Please, I want to know which relaxer and hair food I can use to enhance the beauty of my natural hair. I've been suffering from a lot of breakage, especially around my forehead. It has become bare as a result of braiding so I’m unable to braid certain hair styles because there isn’t enough hair on my forehead... Please I need your help to prevent further damage. -Grace, Ghana
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You are asking the right person, Grace, because I had a similar problem. Though I didn’t lose a lot of hair, but it started getting thinner and breaking very badly.
The problem here is that you should not really be mixing braids and relaxer.
I wish I had known this earlier but mixing braiding and relaxer require a delicate balancing act and if done wrongly, will destroy your hair!
How hair relaxer works
Relaxed hair is weaker than natural hair that has been dyed.
When you have your hair relaxed, the cuticle layer has to be lifted in order to let the relaxer in. The cuticle layer is then flattened again but the very act of lifting and flattening the layer weakens it. At times, the cuticle layer doesn't get re-flattened properly leading to a damaged strand of hair.
Furthermore, not only is the cuticle layer lifted to let the relaxer in but the very bonds that give your hair its kinks, curls and coils are permanently changed further weakening each strand.
If you then braid your hair, you're braiding hair with a compromised protein infrastructure. The likelihood of incurring hair breakage is a lot higher with relaxed hair than when you braid natural hair.
Really, if you prefer to have relaxed hair, you should avoid braids. Relaxed hair needs constant refortification with protein conditioners to keep it strong. If you braid your hair, you are much more likely to forget to do this and to neglect the hair beneath.
I will advise those who want to braid their hair again if they really want to do so to wait until two months have passed or when you have about an inch of new hair growth before you get extensions. Your new growth won't have been relaxed and will be stronger - the protein infrastructure will be intact.
To start relaxing hair again
Personally, if I decide to start relaxing my hair again, I will stop braids completely to spare myself the damage.
There are other things about using relaxers that are unknown to us: For instance, did you know that it is not good to apply relaxer at certain times of the month?! Or that relaxer has been connected to fibroids? I’m not trying to scare you at all, however, I do want people to be aware that if they choose to relax their hair, they should check what the potential side effects are – mixing relaxer with braids is not a good combo.
Have you mixed relaxer with braiding and had dire consequences as a result? Tell me, please!
The writer is the founder of the UK's largest blog on natural hair, NenoNatural.com. If you want your natural hair questions answered through this column please email them to [email protected].