Hey there everyone! I have a question for you. What should I do for my dry damaged hair? I've been trying to limit my shampooing and conditoning to every other day or every second day and have been oiling it afterwards. I do flat iron.. I know it's bad, but my hair looks so froey otherwise. I also have been doing hot olive oil treatments once a week. Any other suggestion? My hair has a natural wave in it, but not that it's dry it just get all nasty and froey unless I flat iron it. Anyone else on here have experienced this and now have beautious wavy flowing locks? If so, I need your help ASAP! :) Thank you!
Any suggestions would be appreciated! :)

Hi Backtolonghair I don't have damaged hair. But I do have naturally dry hair. What is good for it is DT every week. You can use the SMT method. Or Moisture base DT (honey) that should help. Also I know you don't want to here this put don't use your flat iron or blow dryer. If you can try and put it up for a month and that should help.

Hi Backtolonghair I don't have damaged hair. But I do have naturally dry hair. What is good for it is DT every week. You can use the SMT method. Or Moisture base DT that should help. Also I know you don't want to here this put don't use your flat iron or blow dryer. If you can try and put it up for a month and that should help.

Cool! thanks :) Btw... I am still unfamiliar with some of these hair terms... what does DT mean and SMT? Thank you! I am thinking about just flat ironing my bangs and leaving the rest to air dry. Thank you! :)

You could always turn down the tempterature on your iron to the lowest possible. I know I had mine on the max to get it hot quicker and get my hair done faster. Less heat might be less damaging, though it would take more time to do.

dt is deep treatment
smt is snowy's moisture treatment

I would also suggest to not use the flat iron...I know it's hard...but even after a month of not doing so and caring better for your hair you will notice a difference....good luck

The flat iron is a killer for dry hair.
It's also a vicious cycle because although it tames the frizz and conceals the dryness somewhat it really does make the problem worse - hair lacking in moisture is more fragile than well-moisturised hair! You need to so careful with it. Sigh. I understand why you would want to use it (and feel you need to), but I really do think it just adds to the problem with extended use.

The other things you could try are deep moisture treatments involving honey or a small amount of glycerin, damp bunning (works for some but not me personally), leave-in conditioners, alternative wash methods such as CO (maybe the shampoo is contributing to the dryness?) or just trying a gentler shampoo or one with different ingredients. Change one thing in your routine at a time - this way you can keep better tabs on what works and what doesn't.

As far as flat-ironing to make it look nicer goes, your hair might be long enough to do ponytails, French braids, etc. rather than wear it down. You could also try washing in the evenings and sleeping on it rather than washing in the morning; I find that if I wash my hair in the morning I have to damp-bun it before I go anywhere otherwise it looks like a haystack!

My hair is by nature very dry. Coconut oil treatments have been a big help. I find that I can do enough styles with my hair that I only need to wash it once a week.

I also have dry hair. I shampoo and condition once a week only. I rarely use oil on it but when I feel it needs it, I will oil it or sit with a head full of mayo for a few hours. I also have a spray bottle with water and olive oil in it for misting.

Everyone here has given you good advice. With respect to the "frooey" look without the flat iron: what does your comb look like? The 2c type tends to do better without brushing and fine toothed combs, you can greatly improve the wurly look if you don't comb out the wurls/curls.

I have given up my flat iron & blowfryer. I think my problem with feeling that I needed to use it was the length. Once your hair gets longer you will be able to manage your waves better, but at 18 inches (as indicated in your stats) The waves are usually all over the place. At least that was my problem. Now I just put it up in a twist with a stick or a clip and leave it like that until my next wash. I may not have a whole lot of variety now, but my hair will be all the healthier when it is longer, and that will last longer than this difficult stage anyway! HTH!

Shampooing with soapwort is good for me when my hair is dry. It cleanses gently without stripping the hair of natural oils.

Also, to tame frizzies, you could try using a gel made of boiled flaxseeds, instead of flat ironing.

Seriously, my teenage daughter has been ruining her hair with her flat iron. For years I have been trying to get her to take better care of her hair. She HATES her waves and volume. She turned to using the flat iron every day because of this and now she has damaged dry hair with lots of flyaways due to breakage. On the advice of a friend she finally gave me her flat iron and let me look at her hair and help her mend it. I showed her the reason it won't go straight anymore-the daily flat iron use has made it too brittle and broken to behave otherwise. She's finally letting me teach her how to embrace her waves as she wants long hair still. It's the same advice as others have given here. Do treatments and wear it up more often. Also, learn how to do other styles. I have slighly wavy hair as well that goes froefy. To keep it from going froefy I use products in it (hair creme or serum) after washing it. (Not everyone's hair can handle the silicones in those so look into that as well.) When it was longer I would also bun it at least once a week to minimize blowdrying it. If you must blowdry (I still do as mine is currently short) do it on low and only for a bit. Hair can still look good and "styled" down without blowdrying all the way.

I say this because I care. If you don't give up the daily flat iron use all the treatments in the world will not make up for the damage. You can break the cycle and be free! Good luck. :)

well the flat iron is damaging your hair. My hair looked severely dry & damaged on the days I did not flat iron it....but just beautiful when i did it. I used all kind of heat protection & used one of the best irons out there but still it did damage my hair. Also the extreme frizz on non-iron days is the cut hairs from the ironing itself. just try to do lots of deep conditioning which helped me to some extent & stop the flat ironing if you can. I had to cut my damaged hair as I just could not deal with the tangles & frizzing. Hopefully you find some easier answers. Good luck

You know giving up the iron and blow fryer was hard fo rme as well; alas I was poofy like you. However after a month I didn't have the poof anymore because I realized the poof was from it being dry and me drying it out more with ironing and drying. I noticed with fuzzy hair try a tad more oil when it is dry and it will prob tame it down for you. Try it on a weekend where you don't have plans and see how it works for you. :flower:

I second all the suggestions here. Remember that oils don't moisturize hair, though. What I would reccomend is a clarifying shampoo, a deep conditioning treatment, a very light oiling, and then putting your hair up.

Flat ironing is one of those things that makes the problem worse in the long run. Let me see if I can't make it a bit clearer what's happening to your hair :twisted:

http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_73/hair_twh_73_01.jpg

http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_73/hair_twh_73_02.jpg

http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_73/hair_twh_73_03.jpg

Bubbles inside the hair cortex from a too-hot heating appliance, and the resulting spli (http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_73.htm)ts.

http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_74/hair_twh_74_03.jpg
A case of trichorrhexis nodosa, where the cortex was disrupted by an overheated hair dryer (http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_74.htm)

Those pics made me shiver nightshade....eww

Besides all the excellent suggestions I have recently discovered that shampooing my length is not a good idea. At this moment I wash my scalp about 2 x week and CO my length.

This article from the Loom about Long hair Do's and Don'ts is excellent http://www.network54.com/Forum/246853/message/1055844089/Long+Hair+Do%27s+and+Don%27ts%21
There are other great articles too :)

Hey there everyone! thanks for all of your help and suggestions. I am definitely going to try to wash my hair less and when I do, just try to wash the scalp and not the length. I will CO the full length of my hair though, and see if I can find some good DMT at a health food store around here, or maybe perhaps do the hot olive oil treatment more?

As far as the flat iron goes, I have been using it on the lowest heat setting, but I think you are right that even that can cause damage. I couldn't believe the pictures! You guys are right, the flat iron "seems" to help, but it actually is causing more damage than good.

For right now, the only thing I will flat iron (after I wash my hair) is my bangs, otherwise it looks really really bad.. I will leave the rest of the hair alone and let it air dry. Thankfully I haevn't been using the blowdryer.. or blowfryer as you guys said on here.. hehe ;)
I usually let it air dry anyways, so at least I was doing one thing right. :)

Thanks again for all of your help. You all are great! :)