Relaxer Touch Up

I ended my 10 week relaxer stretch this past Friday and I followed my usual method, relaxing my hair in halves. You can watch the video of how I self-relax my hair here. Here's what I did in steps:

1. I started off by basing my scalp, coating my hair, sectioning off my hair into larger pieces than normal. The sections were out of laziness really but it worked out. The larger sections reduced manipulation because I didn't have to part my hair as much. (a) I coated my hair first with silk amino acids. Silk forms a protective coating over our hair, preventing it from being damaged by the chemicals in relaxers. (b) I coated my hair next with Roux Porosity Control. Roux PC lowers hair's pH level. Relaxers have a pH level between 10-14 so coating my hair with Roux PC helps prevented my previously relaxed hair from being processed from relaxer runoff. (c) I coated my hair next with Paul Mitchell The Detangler for its detangling properties and (d) Paul Mitchell Super Charged Moisturizer because it's a thick and moisturizing conditioner, squeezing in a moisturizing pre-poo. (e) Lastly I based my scalp with Vaseline.

2. I relaxed my hair in halves, back half first using ORS Relaxer, lye formula, normal strength and used my trusty Sprush to apply the relaxer to my new growth only. For each half, application took 7 minutes, smooth 4 minutes, total of 11 minutes (each half).

3. Applied Redken Extreme Strength Builder Plus to my hair for 10 minutes, each half, then rinsed.

4. Neutralized with Motions Neutralizing Shampoo. I shampooed 3 times and left it on a for about two minutes the last time to make sure the relaxer was properly neutralizing. Properly neutralizing the relaxer is extremely important!

5. Applied Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Daily Treatment for a few minutes to smooth out my hair and loosen any tangles.

6. Did a green tea rinse to reduce shedding. I opted not to use black tea because black tea stiffens my hair and I wanted to avoid that since I'd already done a protein treatment in step 3.

My texlaxed texture. Freshly conditioned hair.

7. Deep conditioned with Silk Dreams Vanilla Silk Cream Moisture Dream for an hour under my heating cap. My hair felt so soft afterwards. After rinsing out the conditioner, I wrapped my hair with a t-shirt for a little over an hour to soak up excess water. 

8. Applied Darcy's Botanicals Daily Leave-In Conditioner and let my hair air dry. 9. Once my hair was dry, I lightly sprayed my hair witn ApHogee Keratin & Green Tea Restructurizer (to strengthen my hair). 10. Applied Redken Smooth Down Heat Glide, concentrating on my ends, before flat ironing my hair.

Once my hair was flat ironed, I trimmed off half an inch. Check out how I trim my hair here. Ok, enough chitchat, pitchaaasss and results time.

Left picture, my hair after I air dried. Center and right, flat ironed hair:

Here's my length check! Claiming waist length, whoop whoop. Seeing and dealing with this length made me reconsider growing to w/hip (between waist and hip length) length. It'll just be too much. I'm still going to try and grow to hip length in 2013 but no way am I staying at that length. I'm cutting once (if) I reach hip length.

This next picture is of the newer length check markers in the t-shirt shop. There are a few readers that use the pics of my shirt for length comparisons so I wanted to make sure I posted a length check pic with the newer length check design. For me, waist length falls at line 18.

I'm happy with the results from this touch up. I was heavy handed when I applied the Redken Smooth Down Heat Glide so my hair clumped together and was more weighed down than I prefer but I'm still happy.