Your personal progress after giving up heat styling?

[x0h_bother]

I went from every day for 3 years flat ironing (people I had known for years actually told me they "didn't know" I had naturally 'curly' hair) up until last summer, moving to flat ironing 2 times a week, to now not at all. My breakage has ceased; my splits reduced or small; my white dots eliminated; the frizz decreased; the hairs that stuck up at the top of my head from breakage gone; and my ends are less frizzy. My roots feel fabulous and I can't wait to see what it looks like in a year from no heat and going cone free.
I also struggle too now though. The half-up half-down has been my staple for going heat free, but I am tired of it. When I would flat iron, I could have all my hair down and it fell nicely. So my struggle is finding a cone-free leave-in that will smooth my hair now that it's not straight, encourage my wave, so that my hair does not look terrible all down.

[EtherealOde]

I gave up heat styling right before I joined the LHC, along with bleach and chemical dyes, and my hair looks much better now for it. While I still have about 9 inches of the worst damage left, I have gradually been cutting the damage off as my hair grows. I used to have an enormous amount of breakage, and unless I flatironed my hair looked horrible. And then it got to the point where it didn't really even look good after ironing, so I had to get a cut to get rid of that damage.

My hair looks a lot better now, though it is a work in progress. I found the curl in my hair, and love it! Previously, I had simply believed my hair to be unmanageable and uncooperative. It wasn't, the problem was the mechanical and chemical damage I had inflicted was blocking the natural curls and waves, keeping them from showing their true potential. I had bought into that idea that I had to style my hair to make it beautiful, when all it did was to keep me going back to the salon regularly to remove the damage and inflict more. Vicious circle, and I am glad I'm out of it.

[Jenn of Pence]

Ditto and ditto! I've always kept APL to BSL-length hair, thick but relatively straight, but recently I had been growing ever fonder of the my flat iron. Unfortunately (in the short term at least) I really did it in the first few months of this year, resulting in a heart-wrenching yet necessary two-inch trim at the stylist three weeks ago (I'd already sacrificed 2-4 inches in the past six months or so for other damage). Since then I've only straightened twice, and that's been two weeks ago. I haven't quite axed the blow dryer yet, but that's only super low heat and super low speed three times a week. I think that the shock of going natural is fading, though, and I'll be able to ditch that, too. So, in the long run, you could say the damage at least made me acknowledge I needed a change. And hopefully since joining the forum and already implementing good hair practices I'll find that BSL isn't my terminal length like I thought it was!
Btw, I find it "iron"ic that the ad banner at the top of the page features a flat iron I was considering buying a few months ago

[x0h_bother]

I went from every day for 3 years flat ironing (people I had known for years actually told me they "didn't know" I had naturally 'curly' hair) up until last summer, moving to flat ironing 2 times a week, to now not at all. My breakage has ceased; my splits reduced or small; my white dots eliminated; the frizz decreased; the hairs that stuck up at the top of my head from breakage gone; and my ends are less frizzy. My roots feel fabulous and I can't wait to see what it looks like in a year from no heat and going cone free.
I also struggle too now though. The half-up half-down has been my staple for going heat free, but I am tired of it. When I would flat iron, I could have all my hair down and it fell nicely. So my struggle is finding a cone-free leave-in that will smooth my hair now that it's not straight, encourage my wave, so that my hair does not look terrible all down.

Update: I rarely flat iron now, but I have stretched my trims so the damage accumulates. I do have white dots now. But it's not frizzy, my ends don't velcro as quickely, and breakage still gone. I do have little halos (nape and temple hair) but I don't think it's heat breakage- it's either shedding regrowth, updo damage like from buns, or mechanical damage from manipulation. My hair is 10xs stronger, though not as shiny.

[Iron0Maiden]

It took a very long time but my hair does not have as many split ends, and it is not as dry and brittle.

[tinywife]

It's been about 3 months since I stopped flat-ironing, and my hair texture has made a 180 turn for the better. It's soft and shiny and, well, it actually feels like hair now. it used to be straw, nothing but straw.

The first few non-straightening days were hard. My lumpy bumpy hair was a sharp contrast to the stick-straight locks around me. But after seeing my natural hair every day, I've learned how to style it into pretty waves. I actually like it better now.

[krissykins]

I haven't heat styled my hair for at LEAST 14 months, and before that one time I fell off the band wagon (it was with low heat, I swear!), it had been seven months.

Oh my gosh. I can't even BEGIN to tell you the difference it has made. I don't need as much moisture as I did when I first gave it up. My hair is so healthy and happy and loved now! I hope you stick with it, it's so worth it!

[julliams]

I stopped heat styling regularly in September 2009. I was using my straightener about 3 times a week. My hair always looks good when heat-styled but when left to airdry it looked dry. I had no splits at this stage but then, I was cutting about every 6 months so that made sense.

I also stopped cones at the same time and my hair took on a bit of a dry and somewhat unruly appearance. I started doing SMT's, coconut milk soaks and using coconut oil and jojoba oil on my hair as well as Giovanni Direct Leave in Conditioner. Within 6 months the splits started and this was alarming to me so I went for a trim at the end of March 2010. The hairdresser said my hair looked healthy which was big for me because they had always been telling me my hair was dry.

Now I only heat style once every couple of months and I have to say that the next wash, I do noticed that my hair is drier. It seems to suck the moisture right out of my hair which is what everyone has been saying!!!!

Now in March 2011 I can safely say that my hair is no longer dry and unruley. It sits nicely most days but splits are still a little of an issue for me. I just S & D and now that I'm closer to the length I plan to have, trims will become more frequent so that should get until control by this time next year.

I really do think my hair is better for not heat styling. It really does take time to start seeing more healthy moisturised hair. It's one of those Pantene lines - It won't happen overnight but it will happen!

[kanzer]

I stopped heat styling when I joined LHC in January. It was very hard in the beginning because as most of you have said, it just looked better when I straightened/blow dried it. My curl/wave pattern is very random and I used to hate how un-uniform it was. Especially my fringe (now chin length) needed to be straightened and when I stopped I didn't have a clue what to do with it. Most of my hair is 2b but my fringe dries up as one or two tight ringlets, but when I had just stopped heat styling it dried up as a frizzy mess.

Anyway, it's been slightly less than 2 months with no heat styling in which I fell of the bandwagon once and straightened my fringe, and my hair already looks and feels healthier - softer, shinier and more manageable! I don't think I'd realized how much I was damaging it by blow drying daily and straightening a few times a week.

Recently I went to a party with my "natural" hair and I got 6 or 7 compliments on it, with people asking if I'd had it curled - no one knew I had wavy/curly hair! That was pretty good motivation and now I'm finding it a lot easier to resist heat styling.

Good luck to all those trying to stop, I promise it's worth it!

[EmmyNemmy]

I stopped flatironing last week, and I've been wearing my hair natural. Even so soon after doing it I've noticed a difference- my hair looks shinier, not as stiff, and hasn't frizzed nearly as much as it had when I was straightening it. Because I'm growing out a horrid razored thousand-layer cut, though, my slight waves are causing all of my layers to flip out into a winged look, which I'm not too fond of. I've been taming the wings a little by using leave-in and braiding until my hair is dry, and I've actually been getting a lot of compliments by doing so. I hope to keep this up, although I can't guarentee not straightening for my senior pictures.