Arctic
October 12th, 2015, 11:13 AM
Re-posting from another thread, to get more opinions.
***
Question to all of you, who thought you had straight hair, but found out you are wavies after all:
Did your "straight" hair act and look like straight hair or like mis-treated wavy hair?
I ask because I used to have straight (and fine) hair, and now I have wavy (and coarser) hair, and this has bothered me a long time, if I really had straight hair at all, or secretly wavy hair.
When I joined here in 2007 I typed myself 1a, but soon changed to 1b, because that was more accurate, as I always had had some bend at my ends. After a while I noticed suddenly I had a lot of strong s-waves, starting from the scalp. They seemed to appear out of the blue one day. The hair I have today, acts and looks like typical wavy hair, where-as my old hair acted and looked like typical straight hair.
This has always been a bit of a mystery to me, as it conveniently happened some time after I had joined LHC, and I no doubt had started to get my hair strands more moisturized. I know it's very common for members to notice waves after joining. But there are 3 buts.
One, that I had other hairtype changes also around the same time. My strands became coarser and wirier, and I developed clear wave growth patterns on my scalp (I mean previously my hair had grown flat against my scalp and straight down, and now the hairs at the roots started to form curving s-shapes, and were not growing straight down, although still grew against the scalp [with the exeption that during the recent year or so the hair at the top of my head has started to grow straight up rather than against my head, creating a natural root volume I've never had before]). My cowlicks at the crown also got bigger and worse. In general my hair changed, and started to behave like wavy hair.
Two, the waves that seemingly happened over night, were really impossible to miss, I could not have been without noticing them. Unlike so many who say they never really saw the back of their head [and thus never noticed their waves], I regularly saw the back of my head. I never since my teens have left home without checking the back of my head.
And third, my hair had always acted and looked like straight hair should until that time. I never had frizz or poof; these were foreign to me. My hair was limp, flat against my head, straight, smooth, silky, no body, no bumps, no volume. If the wearther was humid, my wavy haired friend's hair poofed up, while mine went if possible even flatter against my head, and hanged down super limp and straight - we always had laugh about the opposite reactions. I never blowdried, straightened or brushed. I did run a comb through after washing though routinely (now that my hair is wavy, a mere combing when wet or dry doesn't pull the waves out, and all I did was comb back then). My hair wouldn't hold curls at all, they dropped after few minutes. I couldn't really style my hair, as nothing stayed. Back combing slid down, styling products or blowdrying upside down couldn't give me volume, etc. I coloured my hair for years but by the time I came to LHC I had been henna-head for a long time already. Later I grew out henna and have had my natural colour now for several years. During my life I have had all hair lengths from pixies to APL-ish, once BSL, and before The Change my hair's straighness wasn't affected by the length, and now after The Change it's same thing, the length doesn't affect the waves.
My routine post-LHC did change: I started to experiment with CO, CWC, oiling... but in general I had nice, heatlhy hair without any damage or problems when I came here. Possibly it was a little dry (as in lacking moisture; my scalp is oily though), but not so dry it would have felt dry or rough. I mean dry in a way that it had felt good before, but seemed to readily absorb the extra moisture I was now giving to it. I knew about silicones and clarifying and many other things before LHC too (although not as deeply as I do now), and favoured silicone-free products. In addition to this, my scalp hated most LHC style methods, and I returned pretty much to my old routine of S+C after it became clear the new methods caused me scalp and skin problems - but the waves stayed even after I moved back to less-moisturizing routine, indicating this wouldn't be just a case of added moisture revealing hidden waves. I have also cut my hair short inbetween, and grown out again, and the waves have stayed (although they are now milder than they were at their best, when I was able to coax out 2c-ish waves, now they are even with coaxing only 1c-2a mix).
As a long time member I am familiar of the stories of "I thought my hair was frizzy and straight, but then I realized it's wavy" and some such similar experiences. I never experienced anything like that. I have always been wondering, as I have read these stories that are present at LHC very often, whether I too had secretly wavy hair prior The Change. I have come to conclusion that it wasn't so, that my hair was naturally straight prior, because it behaved and looked 100% how straight hair is described, and that my hair type changed. For example I never ever saw any charecteristics of wavy, mis-treated, or mis-diagnosed secretly wavy hair. Also no-one - friends, family or stylists - have ever thought my "old" hair to be anything but straight. I did have a rather big hairtype change in general during this time, which to my understanding are hormone related, so it is logical that also the (then) new waves would be because of that. Oh and my diet had changed around this time too, possibly signifigantly in the hair context, as I had started to eat more regularly and more protein-rich foods.
But there is always a little voice which questions my conclusion. That's why I wanted to know, how many of you, who thought you had straight hair bu were secretly wavies, actually had a hair that had all the characteristics of straight hair before the aha-moment, or was your hair poofy, frizzy, and/or whatever typical characteristics people often mention, when it comes to mis-treated/mis-diagnosed wavy hair? (I have no doubts there are many others who have gone through an actual hair type change in addition to myself, so their experience would mirror mine more likely, I assume.)
PS. I suck at inventing thread titles, lol. :)
***
Question to all of you, who thought you had straight hair, but found out you are wavies after all:
Did your "straight" hair act and look like straight hair or like mis-treated wavy hair?
I ask because I used to have straight (and fine) hair, and now I have wavy (and coarser) hair, and this has bothered me a long time, if I really had straight hair at all, or secretly wavy hair.
When I joined here in 2007 I typed myself 1a, but soon changed to 1b, because that was more accurate, as I always had had some bend at my ends. After a while I noticed suddenly I had a lot of strong s-waves, starting from the scalp. They seemed to appear out of the blue one day. The hair I have today, acts and looks like typical wavy hair, where-as my old hair acted and looked like typical straight hair.
This has always been a bit of a mystery to me, as it conveniently happened some time after I had joined LHC, and I no doubt had started to get my hair strands more moisturized. I know it's very common for members to notice waves after joining. But there are 3 buts.
One, that I had other hairtype changes also around the same time. My strands became coarser and wirier, and I developed clear wave growth patterns on my scalp (I mean previously my hair had grown flat against my scalp and straight down, and now the hairs at the roots started to form curving s-shapes, and were not growing straight down, although still grew against the scalp [with the exeption that during the recent year or so the hair at the top of my head has started to grow straight up rather than against my head, creating a natural root volume I've never had before]). My cowlicks at the crown also got bigger and worse. In general my hair changed, and started to behave like wavy hair.
Two, the waves that seemingly happened over night, were really impossible to miss, I could not have been without noticing them. Unlike so many who say they never really saw the back of their head [and thus never noticed their waves], I regularly saw the back of my head. I never since my teens have left home without checking the back of my head.
And third, my hair had always acted and looked like straight hair should until that time. I never had frizz or poof; these were foreign to me. My hair was limp, flat against my head, straight, smooth, silky, no body, no bumps, no volume. If the wearther was humid, my wavy haired friend's hair poofed up, while mine went if possible even flatter against my head, and hanged down super limp and straight - we always had laugh about the opposite reactions. I never blowdried, straightened or brushed. I did run a comb through after washing though routinely (now that my hair is wavy, a mere combing when wet or dry doesn't pull the waves out, and all I did was comb back then). My hair wouldn't hold curls at all, they dropped after few minutes. I couldn't really style my hair, as nothing stayed. Back combing slid down, styling products or blowdrying upside down couldn't give me volume, etc. I coloured my hair for years but by the time I came to LHC I had been henna-head for a long time already. Later I grew out henna and have had my natural colour now for several years. During my life I have had all hair lengths from pixies to APL-ish, once BSL, and before The Change my hair's straighness wasn't affected by the length, and now after The Change it's same thing, the length doesn't affect the waves.
My routine post-LHC did change: I started to experiment with CO, CWC, oiling... but in general I had nice, heatlhy hair without any damage or problems when I came here. Possibly it was a little dry (as in lacking moisture; my scalp is oily though), but not so dry it would have felt dry or rough. I mean dry in a way that it had felt good before, but seemed to readily absorb the extra moisture I was now giving to it. I knew about silicones and clarifying and many other things before LHC too (although not as deeply as I do now), and favoured silicone-free products. In addition to this, my scalp hated most LHC style methods, and I returned pretty much to my old routine of S+C after it became clear the new methods caused me scalp and skin problems - but the waves stayed even after I moved back to less-moisturizing routine, indicating this wouldn't be just a case of added moisture revealing hidden waves. I have also cut my hair short inbetween, and grown out again, and the waves have stayed (although they are now milder than they were at their best, when I was able to coax out 2c-ish waves, now they are even with coaxing only 1c-2a mix).
As a long time member I am familiar of the stories of "I thought my hair was frizzy and straight, but then I realized it's wavy" and some such similar experiences. I never experienced anything like that. I have always been wondering, as I have read these stories that are present at LHC very often, whether I too had secretly wavy hair prior The Change. I have come to conclusion that it wasn't so, that my hair was naturally straight prior, because it behaved and looked 100% how straight hair is described, and that my hair type changed. For example I never ever saw any charecteristics of wavy, mis-treated, or mis-diagnosed secretly wavy hair. Also no-one - friends, family or stylists - have ever thought my "old" hair to be anything but straight. I did have a rather big hairtype change in general during this time, which to my understanding are hormone related, so it is logical that also the (then) new waves would be because of that. Oh and my diet had changed around this time too, possibly signifigantly in the hair context, as I had started to eat more regularly and more protein-rich foods.
But there is always a little voice which questions my conclusion. That's why I wanted to know, how many of you, who thought you had straight hair bu were secretly wavies, actually had a hair that had all the characteristics of straight hair before the aha-moment, or was your hair poofy, frizzy, and/or whatever typical characteristics people often mention, when it comes to mis-treated/mis-diagnosed wavy hair? (I have no doubts there are many others who have gone through an actual hair type change in addition to myself, so their experience would mirror mine more likely, I assume.)
PS. I suck at inventing thread titles, lol. :)