How to Safely Straighten Your Hair

Whether you straighten your hair once a day or once a year, you’ll need to take steps to maintain the health of your hair. Luckily, there are ways to straighten your hair without frying it beyond recognition. And we’ll tell you exactly how to do it in this article!

Wash Your Hair First

Before you even think about pulling out your flat iron or blow dryer, you should wash your hair. Washing your hair with a clarifying shampoo will eliminate product build-up on your scalp and the surface of your strands. Applying heat to hair that has product build-up is the perfect recipe for dry, crispy strands. Avoid this by starting with clean hair.

Do a Hair Treatment

Before putting your hair through the wringer with heat tools, you should ensure that it’s adequately conditioned. After washing your hair, you can either do a hot oil treatment or apply a deep conditioning mask to your hair. Either treatment will add a layer of moisture and protection to your hair before the straightening process begins.

Straighten Your Hair with Heat

Now that your hair is adequately shampooed and conditioned, you’re ready for the straightening process. Here are some steps you can take to straighten your hair safely:

• Divide your hair into four equal sections, and then apply a leave-in conditioner and heat protectant to all of the sections.
• Use a blow dryer to dry and stretch your hair before straightening. We recommend using a very low heat setting to minimize heat damage.
• Use a flat iron to straighten small sections of hair. Try not to pass the flat iron through any section more than once.

Heatless Hair Straightening Tips

If you’re not a big fan of heat or your hair is damaged, you can try one of the below no-heat hair straightening tips.

• Blow-dry with cold air:Blow drying your hair with cold air is much safer than blow-drying with heat.
• Hair wrapping: Starting with damp hair, comb through your hair to remove all tangles and knots. Then apply styling mousse and brush your hair around the perimeter of your head (it should be flat to your head). Then tie your hair down with a satin scarf to keep it in place as it dries. Once your hair is dry, it’ll be much straighter than it was before.
• African threading: The African threading method is time-consuming but just as effective as other heat-free hair straightening methods. To do African threading, part your hair into sections and wrap some thread around each section from roots to tips. Remove the thread after a few hours. The longer you keep the thread in, the straighter your hair will be.

Keep in mind that the methods in this section will not get your hair as straight as the heated methods, but they are great for you if you want to preserve your hair’s health.

Straightening your hair doesn’t have to result in a hair disaster. Using the above methods, you’ll have hair that’s both straight and healthy.

Author: Andrea Reyes

Andrea is a mother, wife, writer, and natural hair enthusiast of 15 years. Currently on her natural hair journey, she’s been trying countless products and techniques to understand and embrace her natural hair. She is the creator of NaturallyTextured.com, a new website featuring informative articles that share tips, tricks, and techniques aimed to help others learn to love their hair through proper hair care. She writes with the hope of making hair care easier to understand and implement.