Braids And Relaxed Hair Don'T Mix If | 20 Things I Learned In 20 Years With Relaxed Hair

On the flip side, though, braids and relaxed hair do not mix. If you like the things she did back, then we probably wouldn't do um, hey guys, welcome back to our channel evening and i'm erica all right, so we've been relaxed for about 20 years. So we know a thing or twenty about having relaxers pretty much what we learned, what we won't do again, what we stopped doing and pretty much and pretty much what we wish. We knew eye opening stuff that people probably glazed over while having relaxed hair. When we get to the end number 20 and everything that we said you had in your head and something wasn't, there feel free to add number 21 number 22 in the comment section below, because we're going to keep this thing going. But we want to kind of do it with you guys so yeah. Basically, it's just pretty much stuff that we just want to show you guys from our own experience and a lot of these 20 things. Like erica said, people have glazed over, but it'll probably have you. You know maybe switching up her, your hair routine for the better. So let's just go ahead and get into it number one having a relaxer does not magically grow your hair. I know when we're younger. We used to think that yeah, we think, oh, if we could relax our hair can get longer, but i think, but the relaxer just relaxed the pattern. Like our natural hair pattern, just made, our hair appear yeah. Some people do have this misconception, that if their hair is natural and they go to a relaxer, it'll grow a lot longer, but no yeah growth comes from your scalp y'all and by the way, having new growth does not equate to having long hair one of the Perks of having relaxed hair is that we get that visible sign that our hair is growing and that's the unrelaxed hair coming in called new growth. While new growth is a sign that your hair is growing, it doesn't mean that you're going to have long hair, because lymph retention is a big part of having long relaxed, hair um. We talked about that a lot in our videos. We give tips as well yeah. A lot of people forget that your old ends are just as important as the new growth coming in. So please y'all get a good length retention routine. If you have one already set feel free to comment in the um comment section below, because it can help somebody else out and sometimes we need it too. So if you guys have a solid and i mean solid length - potential routine, please please comment section down below so steam heat and rose water are going to be your best friends. When it comes to maintaining new growth. Yeah um, i know we love rose, white eddie loves rose water, yeah yeah. He is great. At soccer girls, we have like a whole entire video, a couple videos on that that i'll leave down below and even up here so um yeah make sure you go watch that we we talk about it all the time. If you're new to our channel, then yeah. That'S what we use. I love rose water, it's great at detangling. You grow deep into your stretch. Yes, oh yeah get on that. Also, the six to eight week rule is trash. People wonder why relaxers get a bad name or why your hair is falling out. Honestly, we don't follow the six to eight week rule and that's like the rule, the the time frame between them so outdated, yeah, very outdated from one relaxes to the other six to eight weeks. No eric and i we have trained our hair to stretch um. A lot of people did just freak out at the sign of new growth and but really new growth. Seeing new growth not assigned to go is slapping another relaxer, it really isn't. Which brings me to number five: if you stretch your relaxer stretch, the application of your laxer further down your hair, we keep using this term stretching a lot and, if you guys are new to relaxed hair or new to our channel stretching is pretty much a term. We use for the amount of time between your first relaxer and the next relaxer stretching just does wonders if it's done right. So if you do stretch your hair and you go to get your relaxer just extend apply the relaxer like this extend the application of the relaxer, because you don't want under process hair and extend it further further down. We have a video on it. A lot of people commented on that yeah part of the video. Why is she going so far and i think we have a whole video explaining that right, but it's like you have to do that to get rid of it. Yeah yeah get rid of that demarcation. Just also under processing it this way your new growth in the old hair and stuff, and it's like you're gon na, have to you're gon na have to extend that relaxation blend it in better yeah yeah again under processed hair is just i know, especially if you Relax once a year yeah and you're gon na mess up that once a year application uh number six, i will say: relaxers really aren't for everybody. As much as we talk about relaxers, i mean we are relaxed hair girls, but as much as we do talk about them, there are times when you just shouldn't relax your hair. One of them is being pressured from other people. You haven't done your research and it's just something that you really really really don't want to do the other time to sure relax is when your hair is damaged or just going through. Something like something that you have to fix with your hair, like just. Do not slap and relax around damaged hair, which brings me to number seven relaxers, do not fix already damaged hair, never ever relax already damaged hair just come up with a plan to fix your hair before you get it relaxed and let me also add going natural. Won'T fix damage relaxed, hair either if your hair is just in a bad state, natural or relaxed, one won't fix the other. That'S just plain and simple: some people are ready for that right, i know, go natural. Your hair is damaged while it's relaxed, no, don't like just go. Just go, relax fix it. Yeah go relax, leave it worth that fix it. Where it is right, so number eight vaseline need we say more. We cannot strip. We cannot stress this enough. It'S been a lot of our videos, you basically scalp with it before you get a relationship. Ears forehead. You do not want burns. I promise you, you do not want burns during the relaxer process. You can either ask before, and your stylist will do it or you can come prepared already have it in your bag or something or your car house. We do it in our car. Sometimes even though lisa our hairdresser, she does a good job. She wrestling yeah. She does, but we just come already that's linked up, and then she just goes in and yeah reinforces everything. So we're set mazani also has a good scout base or scalp shield. If you don't want to use vaseline yeah, some people don't want all that yeah yeah. It does get kind of heavy, so lasagna is a good one. We'Ve used that one before um. It'S no burns whatsoever so definitely check. You have options. These next few apply to people that go to a salon to get their relaxers or you're. Currently, looking for a hairdresser to do your relaxer, these will help you choose the right hairdresser and making sure you don't walk out with a relaxer horror story at the salon, so these could apply to at-home people too, but mainly i had in my head when i Came up with these people that were looking for a salon to get relaxer already have one well. That brings us to go, get a consultation. We preached this before too. Don'T just pick a hairdresser, because the website or instagram says that they relax hair. Let them tell you in person what they do have them come meet your hair and the consultation isn't all talk. You both need to come to agreement with what they do. What you want them to do. It needs to be like a yeah. They need to come together, yeah because, basically, everybody said meet your hair, so they have to feel their hair, see what type of hair they're dealing with um zoom it's kind of hard, because some people do it through zoom with times today. But honestly, i think it's best if you just go ahead and do it in person. Um you'll probably get better results and finding the right hairdresser for your hair, especially when it comes to relaxer like just go all out with it and ask all the questions. Be picky ask questions if you guys want us to come up with a list of questions to ask when you're going to consultation, i can actually, we can come up with some yeah to help you guys out we'll do we can do a video on it comment Below, if that's something you guys are interested in seeing because i actually actually i would love to do that yeah but um. You guys can comment below if you like that too relax your application shouldn't be a sprint, but it also shouldn't be a crawl either. Make sure you or whoever's doing your relaxer is not in a rush or, if you're at a salon, make sure they're not preoccupied with someone else's head, especially when it comes to applying the relaxer, like the person needs to take their time with it and really pay Attention to you, i can think of only a few hairdressers, lisa gluta, who i would trust, i think she's done our head, like in one sitting yeah and a lot of hair stylists, do that like but they're professional, so they can like multitask, however, get a feel For them, that's where the consultation comes in. Is that whatever you guys doing too many heads yeah have chemicals sitting on yours right? It depends on what they're doing to the other person's head, but mainly just make sure that they are just aware that you're there and they're, you know checking on you and just really paying attention to you. What has worked for us, especially when it comes to the relaxer application and the whole timeliness of it with lisa? She applies our hair and she applies the relaxer in rounds which you guys will see i'll have that video linked below, because i have a video showing the entire process, but basically she does three rounds. The first round is applied a few inches off the scalp. The next round you get a little bit closer and then that third round is when you go ahead and apply it closer to your roots and close to the scalp, and that brings us to number 11, never apply the first round of relaxer onto your scalp first, If you do that, you can end up burning your scalp, because the relaxer is just sitting up there. First and while they're doing other things or doing these other rounds and stuff, it's literally just sitting there through all those rounds. So, like you have to do the rest of your hair right sitting on your scalp is chilling, so then you have burns and you got ta rush. You got ta rush through. It then, like i said in the process under processing, happens basically just take your time, but in a timely manner. There is no universal time limit for relaxers, because everyone's hair is different when it comes to like thickness or coarseness for 30 minutes with the relaxer application. Could be someone else's 15 minutes and they're good, so it just depends on the type of hair you have so still in the salon. Room just make sure your relaxer is in your line of sight, while you're in the salon - and i know this happens - to have heard horror stories of this, but sometimes in salons, um, they'll mix other things into a relaxer in the back room somewhere mix it with God knows what and then they'll just bring it out when it's time to apply it to your hair, all right so most relaxers do have a unique prep and that they do mix in an activator. However, no other foreign mixes should go in there, except this one product which we'll talk about in a second at the end of the day, make sure all that prep work is done in front of you make sure you know which relaxer is being used, probably before The appointment all right, number 14 and that foreign object, we're talking about that can go into relaxers is olaplex, but the professional version, which is one and two those numbers - are used by professionals only in a salon setting. So people like us can't really get our hands on it because it's not really sold in retail stores unless you have a hookup, but for the most part i've never used one and two, because i've never had to go to a salon to get overplex put into My relaxer, but that is the only one one and two is the only one that can really be dropped into your relaxer, but what we do know is invest in olaplex and you will not regret it. I know we sound like a broken record. If you're new to our channel, we love olaplex. It has um really saved the day, especially with my comeback from my slight setback a couple years ago. Actually, last year i could actually do a whole video on olaplex and how it helped me. Oh wait. We do. We have several videos right now, but yeah we do have several videos on old plex. We got a nice little cute playlist is you can check it out on like the home page of our channel i'll? Have it linked up here, i'll, have a link down below in the description box and probably at the end of the video too, because that's a really important playlist, because we dive deep, especially to number zero and three. Those are the main two that have really helped. My hair, when i use it in my wash days and stuff and i've really i've, seen a difference because i've actually been consistent with it, so um yeah, olaplex and relaxed hair combination, but moving right along what else have we learned? Oh yes, protective styles. Protective styles are for us to us: relax girls can have music styling. I don't know why, but i used to think that protective styles, especially like the really um nitty gritty protective styles, like you know, wigs weave, knotless, braids and everything i thought those were just assigned. Mainly for people with natural hair, i never really like put the correlation between oh relaxed hair. If my hair is relaxed, i don't need protective styles, i'm good. I don't need to put braids in no. I honestly protective styles of besides old plex have also helped my comeback too. It could really benefit people with relaxed hair. I mean i have it in now. I love my braids and i kind of put mine back in on the flip side, though braids and relaxed hair do not mix if you're just going to take the braids out and relax right after you. Just can't do that. Try to wait up to two weeks or if you just get a relaxer, and you want to put like knotless braids in your hair. Try not to do that, because you do tug on your edge line. It'S a lot of tugging and braiding and pulling! And you just got your relaxer, so your hair's already sensitive up there, the general rule is probably to wait, probably a month after getting a relaxer to go ahead and get knotless braids, because it's good to have that new growth. New growth is a lot stronger than your relaxed hair, so the new growth that the braids can catch on. It'S a lot better. That way for me, i i usually just wait until i'm kind of deep, in my stretch, not super deep, but i would say about a few months after getting relaxer i'll just go ahead and you know get my braids, i feel comfortable getting braids in, but general Rule of thumb - i would say a month after also dirty hair - makes healthy relaxed hair, and i know this sounds crazy, but go with me on this. I'M saying that, because with freshly washed hair, a lot of people like to wash your hair and then get a relaxer after that like if you have a relaxer appointment, i've seen people be like. Oh, i washed my hair. I want to go ahead and just go ahead and get my relaxer. It'S probably not a good idea, because when you're washing your hair wash day, it's a lot of strong manipulation right. It is a lot of manipulation and you can add chemicals. On top of that yeah, so your scalp is already going through it with the wash day and then that next day or next couple days, you're gon na go and get it relaxed. It'S just not a good idea for your scalp. You it's gon na hurt. It'S gon na burn, you're gon na have irritation and stuff, so definitely wait. Uh about two weeks or so after with us i'll, probably make a mud a month. You know we are because we only wash our hair once a month, so our whole thumbs a month, but maybe general rule of thumb. I would say maybe two weeks but never right after your wash day. Do you want to get a relaxer all right so having a relaxer is hard work, but hardly working having a relaxer doesn't mean that the work you put into your hair means that you have to ease up. You still have to take care of your hair. However. The maintenance process and maintaining your hair is not as tedious as you would. If you had natural hair yeah, that's another advantage to having relaxed hair and a lot of people who are natural, do kind of bring that up when they want to or they're thinking about going to relaxed hair. They bring up the maintenance aspect, really not a lot of heavy maintenance, but you still need a routine. You still need to keep track of what you're doing products you're using it's just a tad bit easier and it's less frustrating our mom did the best she could with what she knew at the time. Our mom first relaxed her hair when we were, and it's so cool to see how far relaxed hair has come since then. Yes, the information out now like the thing she did back, then we probably wouldn't do um, i would say, like you know, mainly relaxing every three months. As you guys know now we only relax our hair once a year. I would say, even if we did twice a year, it'd be fine too, but another thing that she did, that i probably wouldn't do anymore. We used to get our scalp greased right after the relaxer and it made it so stiff yeah, but like now it's like yeah. It looks like already straight on build up right, then there, but no, but i mean she was already. We were just greasing our scalp. That was a big part of our own scene back then, but now i have to get a relaxer even a wash day. I just wouldn't grease my scalp because it just makes whatever you just did it just makes it so stiff. There'S no movement, i was glad we somewhat advanced and not stuck in the 90s relaxed hair mode. I mean there's some people that are still stuck in that era of that decade of how they do their relaxers and you wonder if our relaxers can't get a bad wrap so yeah it's another video for another day again. Video does not stop at 20. again. Y'All leave your comments below keep this going. We want to see you know all the way up to 100. yeah, what we missed or whatever or if you or even if we said anything, you agree with still comment, but if you guys want to add to the list, go right on ahead anyways. Thank you. Guys for watching and we'll see you guys next week for another video bye,