I am pretty new to this site and before I found Nappturality, I had this mindset that my natural coarse hair had to be tamed into submission with blow-drying, but not burning the hair straight, oh no, because that would damage my hair and I didn't want that...
So every week, or every time I took down my extensions, I'd heat up that blow-dryer to the *hell* setting, saturate my hair with moisturiser and fry my hair, of course, it would be just a teeny-tiny bit brittle but that didn't matter because I was going to protect it under those extensions. HELLO - THE DAMAGE HAD ALREADY BEEN DONE!
So, if you want to blow-dry your hair regularly, remember what will happen:
1. You will LOSE YOUR NAPS
Yes you read that correctly, you will L O S E them! Now, I used to think I didn't have naps, that I just had course afro hair that was a bit wiry on a bad day. Then I found NP and decided to give up the heat and learn to be kind to my hair result, softer, coilier hair. Granted, I'm a 4-a but there is a bit of a kink in there. But I digress.
About a week ago, I was looking in the mirror with my hair all combed out and I notices that while the roots were nice and healthy, the ends were limp and wiry. Then it dawned on me: it was heat damage. This made even more sense because I had a couple of patches in the middle with short stubby hair and some limp bits hanging out - and I know I hadn't taken scissors to any patches in my hair. Now I realised the truth, I'd been too blow-dryer-happy on my hair.
2. Your hair will break and split
In addition to the limp ends, I had the most a atrocious breaking, with split ends going all the way up the shaft. Some split ends had splits; some splits even began right in the middle of the hair shaft! So when I pulled out a clump of hair to gauge the length of the healthy hair, I had nearly two inches of breaking splitting ends!
So much for protecting the hair while blow-drying! I thought if I put enough moisture on my hair it would protect it. Think about it: when you put oil on food and apply heat to that food, does the oil protect the food? No, the oil helps it to fry!
3. You will lose length
It's no biggie if you're not going for length but I was. The hair on my longest side was reaching then end of my neck, now with all the trimming and levelling a rocking and almost gown-out TWA. So much for getting a BAA by the end of the year! Still you live and learn, and I'm glad I learnt my lesson sooner rather than later. So please remember, blow-drying can be just as damaging as burning the hair straight and the damage can be irreparable, so look after your God-given naps.
