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View Full Version : How to make hair look better straight vs wavy??



honeyblonde
January 30th, 2013, 08:29 AM
Hi all! I have been wearing braid waves for a while now, it makes my hair look fuller and disquises any damage that I may have imparted on my hair.....no pun intended!! :p

Anyway, I would like to wear it straight from now on, besides having regular trims what can I do to make it look smooth, sleek and fuller? I just took 1/2 inch off the ends. Any tips would be appreciated! Thanks in advance! :blossom:

Zabethbartsch
January 30th, 2013, 08:51 AM
Hmm... sleek AND fuller? Might be tough to achieve. What is your natural texture?

akilina
January 30th, 2013, 09:02 AM
Sleek as in smooth and not frizzy?

Using a coney serum always does the trick for me. Many people dont like cones here but I love them and so does my hair..so I just give it what it likes. I also use conditioners that have 'cones in them. I am lucky that I never really have build up and hardly ever have to clarify.
Doing this daily definitely makes my hair look very smooth, shiny and sleek. It even makes it feel thicker for some reason (its not build up). My hair is pretty healthy but the ends of my layers are a bit damaged and using the products I use gives it that extra little boost of the appearance and feel of totally healthy hair.

rowie
January 30th, 2013, 09:25 AM
It really depends on your hair texture as to how you can achieve "straight and sleek" without a flat iron or blow dryer. If I ever want to do this you can try using serums like silk drops on damp hair (cones, and sulfphates I find fights curls), and then binding the length with a silk ribbon and letting it air dry. This will take time so planning early will be helpful. I'm sure you can find many sites on google on how to bind your hair with ribbon to get it to be naturally straight. My hair texture is somewhere around the two spectrum so I can achieve this really easily if done correctly.

ETA: I agree that shampooing and conditioning with cones adds more help to the silk drops. Just make sure to clarify on a monthly basis. :)

torrilin
January 30th, 2013, 10:16 AM
Can you show us some pictures of hair that you find appealing as examples of "smooth, sleek and full"? Coz speaking as a 1c who pretty regularly gives curlies a massive case of envy about how good my (non existent) flat ironing job looks... Smooth, sleek and full just aren't words that go together in my head. I can get pretty close by going full on Curly Girl in my styling, and it does look really good when I do that. But it's never going to look just like heat styled hair does on TV.

And well, if your hair type isn't somewhere in the 1s, my methods are going to be 100% useless to you :D. Hair type really matters a lot for this sort of thing. I just need to accentuate what my hair does naturally, so it's pretty low effort to get my hair to look straight. But someone with even a bit more typically curly hair will have to do very different things from me to get a straight look.

Vanille_
January 30th, 2013, 12:19 PM
I like Herbal Essences Touchably Smooth. It does weigh the hair down a little, but it straightens it well. I also like Chi Silk for smoothing. If I am going out somewhere specially, I use Chi Silk on partially damp hair and blowdry on low heat for as little time as possible. This helps me tame flyaways. The picture in my signature is using this method.

kidari
January 30th, 2013, 03:04 PM
I agree it depends on your natural texture but if your hair is more straight than wavy there are things that can help. Use a shampoo and conditioner that says "sleek or soothing" then follow with a coney serum while hair is damp. How your hair dries is the most important. You can air dry and then when it's close to getting fully dry start gently brushing it with something like a Mason Pearson mixed boar bristle brush to ensure the hair finishes drying completely smooth and straight. It's easier to do this on a cooler setting with a hair dryer or in front of a fan and the best thing to do is to do a traditional blow dry. Depending on your length (the shorter the easier) you can even set your damp hair in HUGE rollers the size of coke cans until fully dry. When you take them down it will give you huge volume that will naturally fall as time goes on but it won't exactly give you curls. If you wear your hair in an updo make sure you find ones that don't give you kinks or curls/waves too noticeably. Pencil buns usually preserve most of the straightness on my hair. Coney serums also sort of prevents tangles, keeps the hair smooth, and protects it a bit from wearing it down.

Dorothy
January 30th, 2013, 08:02 PM
I know exactly what you mean. I have some drying techniques that help. After I wash and condition, I put a few drops of camillia nut oil in the length, and then damp bun on top of my head. I then let the ROOTS DRY in an upward direction like this by sitting under the ceiling fan while on LHC. This is for lift, or what I think you're calling "fullness". When the roots are totally dry, I take out the bun, gently detangle and comb smooth downward with a seamless comb. Then I sit under the ceiling fan and let the length dry, periodically combing, then getting up to whip my head up and down while standing to break up the comb sections. This eliminates any wave from shoulders, sleeping on it, drying in a bun, etc. My hair was completely straight until I got greys, they are wavy and make my head fuzzy, but this technique helps. If it's humid, smoothing down the fuzzies with aloe vera and letting them dry, then combing, after the previous process, helps make it smoother. If it's dry I don't want the aloe to suck moisture out of my hair so I live with the fuzzies.

spirals
January 31st, 2013, 12:58 AM
I find an orchid bun gives me very loose waves. They look more straight than braid waves. It would be hard to sleep with one on the back of your head, but one on top of your head overnight would do it, and give you root lift.