Best Tips For Using Heat Without Damaging Your Hair

Most naturals know that utilizing too much heat on natural hair at once is not good for the tresses.

It dries the hair out faster and could even burn it straight off in front of your own eyes!

Most heat products, like curling irons and flat irons, can reach heat levels to 550 degrees Fahrenheit!

That’s enough to give a person a 1st degree burn.

The belief that extreme heat had to be used to straighten kinky and curly hair types date all the way back to the early 1900s during Madama C.J. Walker’s time, the woman who modified the hot comb to what is it today.

The hot comb, essentially an iron “comb” placed over heat, usually a stove, and then glazed through curly hair types, was one of the very few ways to straighten black hair. Through the decades, it became an iconic must have in black households, creating plenty of stories and jokes about little girls sitting in the kitchen dreading the heat of the hot comb!

But over time, women with kinky and curly realized that, without some better attention being given to the amount of heat women use of their hair, the hot comb, and other heated hair appliances, may be causing more harm than good.

To avoid burning your lovely mane completely off, follow the tips below on better ways to use heat.

1. ALWAYS have a protectant. If nothing else can be stressed, it is the use of a heat protectant. While there are many products that can be used as a protectant, the bottom line is it is imperative to protect your hair from extreme heat. Even if it is just coconut or jojoba oil distributed evenly around your hair, you need something that bar the heat from getting too hot on your hair.

2. NEVER use high heat. It may take you a little longer to achieve the look you want with lower heat settings, but you will. High heat, especially for plug in appliances, get well over 550 degrees and that is nonsensically too hot! Medium heat should be more than enough for whatever style you are attempting.

3. ALWAYS, if you can help it, air dry your hair. The time will come when you simply do not have time to allow your hair to air dry, but if you can, always go for the air dry option. Your hair will slowly get dry and more importantly, no heat is required.

4. NEVER get back-to-back styles done that require heat. This is exactly Dominican and Brazilian blow outs are to be done only when needed. You have to sit under a dryer twice and then have direct high-heat applied to your hair from a hand held blow dryer! Do that too many times too often and your hair will be completely fried!

5. NEVER allow a curling iron to sit on your hair for longer than a few seconds. Sometimes you are trying to achieve the perfect curl, you take your curling iron, blare the heat, wrap it around a piece of hair and let it sit for several seconds so the curl will be defined. Yes, the curl will be
defined but your hair will feel dry and brittle shortly after.