Your personal progress after giving up heat styling?

[OrganicJewel]

I used to flat iron my hair at 425 degrees. Eek. Then I bleached the heck out of it and realized that now that it's chemically fried that I couldn't use heat on it anymore. It was so hard because as we all know the heat styling temporarily makes fried hair look much better. But with each and every flat ironing I did, my hair was worse off and breaking more. So I stopped. It looked so awful for the first month or tso. I started to Henna it hoping it would help. Honestly, the colour doesn't look very good on me, but it coated my hair and made it heavy, Henna wasn't for me. But now after it's been a solid two months since I've stopped heat styling and it is finally paying off! It's so much smoother, and bouncier and softer! Plus it's actually gaining length, instead of just breaking off. Just keep at it and it will eventually get better!

[MaryMarx]

When I feel the urge, I just look at the pics in my hair album, and when I see what heat made to my hair, I want to throw the straightening iron down a cliff.
(I still have it but never uses it)
Those pictures can make anyone stay off the iron, with joy!

[Becky Safari]

My hair is much less dry and breaks less often. Also after about one and a half years of being straightener-free I have noticed that my hair has become thicker!

[cremenoir]

the condition of my hair really seems to be improving after giving up the flat iron. i'm not 100% heat-free, since i still blow dry with a diffuser... but i use a pretty low heat setting and only get it about 60% dry. it hasn't been long enough for there to be a significant change in my hair's condition (I haven't trimmed since giving up the flat iron) but since it's staying so much more moisturized without all the heat abuse, it really does look a lot better already.

[palaeoqueen]

I haven't used heat since December and before then I'd already cut down drastically. It sounds mad now but for years I washed, blow-dried and straightened it Every. Single Day. It was a horrible cycle I was completely stuck in. My hair is now so much happier and healthier. I also have a lot more time in the mornings now as I only wash it twice a week and never heat style

[DarkCurls]

Oh, I love this thread. I love how almost everyone here thinks flatirons are evil (if used often), whereas at school for example, because I'm a boarder, I've noticed practically every single girl blow-dries and straightens her hair.
I used to have straight hair. Then when it started frizzing out weirdly, though it was still mostly straight, I started straightening it with a flat iron every two or three days (after washes). Then after a while, I couldn't even straighten it properly and started upping the heat 'til I was frying my hair at 210°C (which is, like 410°F). My hair was really hot after I'd finished straightening it, and it still wasn't properly stick-straight.
Then I cut back on the straightening to only every few weeks, realised I had curly hair (I have no idea how or when that happened), and stopped straightening forever. That was, what? Probably less than a year ago.

What changes? Well, now, every time the hairdresser (every six months) asks me if she should straighten it, I make a face. I now hate the idea of heat styling my hair, even just once a year. Going from one extreme to the other, eh? Oh, and she also says my hair is pretty healthy even though (she's a stylist, she's supposed to say this) I really don't trim it very often. I've noticed more body & bounce to my hair (obviously, since I now wear it curled), definitely more shine, less damage, and especially, less dryness/feeling of having fried hair.
But that's just because I was using the flat iron way too much to start with. ^^

[melusine963]

After I gave up heat styling (straightening, in my case), it took a few years of S&D and trimming to grow out most of the damage. Today is literally the first day in two or three years that I'm wearing my hair down. I'm trying to see if it can look presentable using only curl creme. So far so good, but I have yet to leave the house or do anything that might mess it up.

[Vampyria]

I haven't touched the flat iron for a year and a half. My hair was breaking all the time, I had a lot of splits, the ends were stringy and thin.

This is my hair 6 months after I stopped straightening:
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...ctureid=128096

I already cut off the more visible damage here, there were no visible splits or white dots, but the ends still looked fried. Nothing really helped with that so I had to cut that too.

Now my hair is softer, I don't get split ends, it doesn't break and it looks better. It also got thicker (well I stopped dyeing at the same time also) so I 'm trimming frequently to get rid of all thinness.

This is now (a lot shorter but feels a lot better )

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/...ctureid=130679

[hairconvictions]

I've never been a big heat user, only because of sheer laziness, not because I knew it was bad.
But I have a friend who grew her hair out to terminal recently, and afterwards stopped using heat completely. And her hair grew another FOOT! Just from that one change! It's now past her knees. I couldn't believe that heat could be so bad for your hair.

[proo]

I have an entirely different head of hair now;
It's been 2 & 1/2 years since I last used heat, mostly flat ironing to get rid of frizz.
I bit the bullet, chopped all damage off and continue to microdust often.
My hair is now smooth, moisturized, thick and wavey instead of a big unmanageable poofball.
I love it now. Too bad it took me 53 years to figure out something so obvious.