Your hair can be your crowning glory

Get into a weekly routine where you wash with a shampoo that replenishes Apply a moisturiser that locks in moisture and curbs your hair from breaking.

Joburg air tends to be drier in the chillier months and can make your scalp and hair feel slightly dehydrated and sensitive. Giving your hair extra TLC will make all the difference.

A crème relaxer is made to chemically alter the texture of very curly and coarse hair. It contains chemicals like sodium hydroxide or lithium hydroxide to break the bonds until the hair becomes silky straight. Hair remains straight over the next few weeks or months depending on individual growth, without reverting back to curly. This process tends to dry each strand out, resulting in very thin, brittle and uneven hair.

Chemically treated hair that’s been relaxed, s-curled (the same process as relaxing is used but maintains a curl ) and even dyed tends to be weaker than chemical free hair. Maintaining relaxed hair may seem like a daunting experience but it’s easier than it seems.

Follow these tips and tricks to keep your relaxed tresses healthy: OVER-PROCESSING CAUSES DAMAGE

Avoid over-processing your hair when relaxing, if you’re at the salon and you feel your scalp burning, speak up. Chemicals aren’t meant to be left on your hair for too long, in most cases they leave a damaged burnt scalp which causes your hair to fall out and in other cases a bald patches. Crème relaxer should only be applied to newly growing roots, and never to chemically treated hair. This is called a retouch and is advisable to do every six weeks. If the same strands are continuously relaxed the already straightened hair will be weak and brittle leading to breakage.

ROUTINE IS KEY

Get into a weekly routine where you wash with a shampoo that replenishes the protein and keratin in your hair followed by a conditioner with soothing ingredients. As an added treat, apply a deep conditioning hair mask once every fortnight.

Most hair masks have ingredients that work better with heat, so put on a shower cap and spend 20 minutes under a hooded hair-dryer.

If you’re doing your treatment at home, leave the shower cap on for 30 minutes. Your body heat will help do the job, so any treatment you apply will penetrate into the shaft and scalp.

REPLENISH YOUR MOISTURE

It’s important to replace the moisture and hair nutrients you lost while straightening with crème relaxer and shampooing. Apply a moisturiser that will lock in moisture and curb your hair from breaking. Use a light hair moisturiser or argon oil. Heavily oiled moisturisers can clog the pores of your scalp and on the downside, overly moisturised hair isn’t appealing and loses its natural movement. It has no volume or bounce.

GET A TRIM

The ends of your hair tend are the most fragile. Factors such as excessive heat styling, regular dying and even adding extensions and removing them incorrectly will leave your ends uneven and frayed. Leaving the damage unchecked can run down to the entire hair shaft leaving it split and extra brittle. Get your ends trimmed, regularly to avoid uneven, weakened hair that appears thinner. The right trim can even give the illusion of thicker hair.

GO EASY ON THE HEAT

Flat irons, tongs and blow dryers are convenient and quick solutions to instant styling. Using a heated hair device that starts at 120ºC going upwards repeatedly on relaxed hair, dries and damages it even more. The best way to avoid the breakage is to wear perm rollers, or wrap your hair at night by parting the hair down the middle, taking one section and brushing it around to your forehead, do the same to the second sectioned hair in the same direction, until it looks like you’re wearing your hair like a turban. Cover with a scarf. In the morning remove the scarf, brush the hair and it will remain straight.

DON’T RELAX AND DYE

Colour treatments are as harsh as relaxer treatments. Both cannot be done on the same day. It’s usually recommended you wait at least two weeks after relaxing before adding colour. Chemicals such as ammonia and peroxide can leave your hair more porous and strip it of its moisture.