Using Coconut Oil and straightening Irons?

[Jenny.Wren]

Today I applied coconut oil to my towel dried hair and then dryed my hair with my dryer (diffuser) and was really pleased :D (I was a tad cynical thinking I'd have greasy hair). Anyway, I feel this will be great when I want to leave my hair au natural with the curls but sometimes I like to use my straightening irons.

If I use a heat protection spray can I iron away - I'm not sure of the implications with oil in my hair?

Does anyone else have this combo or perhaps I should use conventional products with the the irons? :confused:

[MelodyGabrielle]

I would be a little wary of oil and too much heat. I don't know exactly what it would do but heating up oils do change them chemically so it might not be good. I read once on a site that it might be like "cooking" your hair although I don't know why it would be more like cooking than adding heat to your hair in general

[Jenny.Wren]

hmm, that's interesting about the oil changing chemically. Perhaps someone with knowledge about this will be along later....

[Fractalsofhair]

You generally need cones if you're going to heat style your hair. If you have undamaged resilient hair, oiling after and before might be enough to stave off a lot of the damage, but generally cones seal the hair and hide damage, making it healthier looking(Since flat irons aren't good for your hair. In my experience, and I can say it takes some effort for enough of my hair to break off to notice, but heat styling does that to me!). The biggest issue with oiling and heat is that some oils might smoke and smell off at the 400 or so degrees of a flat iron. Hot oil treatments are very beneficial to your hair, but they only get to like 150-200 degrees as opposed to the 400 or so of a flat iron. You'll definitely want to oil AFTER you've flat ironed, but I would suggest a coney serum for when you're actually doing the heat styling.

[Jenny.Wren]

You generally need cones if you're going to heat style your hair. If you have undamaged resilient hair, oiling after and before might be enough to stave off a lot of the damage, but generally cones seal the hair and hide damage, making it healthier looking(Since flat irons aren't good for your hair. In my experience, and I can say it takes some effort for enough of my hair to break off to notice, but heat styling does that to me!). The biggest issue with oiling and heat is that some oils might smoke and smell off at the 400 or so degrees of a flat iron. Hot oil treatments are very beneficial to your hair, but they only get to like 150-200 degrees as opposed to the 400 or so of a flat iron. You'll definitely want to oil AFTER you've flat ironed, but I would suggest a coney serum for when you're actually doing the heat styling.

ok, thanks for that. Perhaps I should just use the oil when I know I wont be using straight irons.

I'm assuming it's ok to dry my hair using the hairdryer (with diffuser attachment) when coconut oil is applied - or are we talking about absolutely no heat with oil?

[Fractalsofhair]

Jenny Wren, depends on the heat of the blowdryer. I do do hot oil treatments where I massively over oil with coconut oil and take a blowdryer to my hair to heat up the oil. I would suggest the cones for regular blowdrying, if it's on anything but the cold function. However, coconut oil can be used in addition to it. I'm not a big fan of what heat styling has done to my hair, (blowdrying my hair daily for one month, plus one gentle bleaching(didn't even lighten my color!) has caused 75% of it at the ends or more to break off, and my hair to go from shoulder length in parts to my chin.(In the front where the hair is more delicate.) This being said, I really don't think this amount of damage is normal for simple blowdrying and the maybe 10-20 volume peroxide bleach I used! I would definitely suggest using the coconut oil the day after you flat iron and at the end of the day when you're done blowdrying your hair, since it is said to prevent protein loss, and any sort of oil will help protect your hair and coconut oil penetrates the hairshaft, thus healing your hair to some degree.(Yes, hair is dead and can't really be healed.) I'm really not the best person to ask for help with heat styling, since my hair reacts sooo poorly to it(whenever my aunt has tried to straighten it, chunks just break/burn off. I have very thick hair so it's not a big deal, but still...). If you blowdry to prevent frizz, the coconut oil does a wonderful job with that!

[Honey39]

I wouldn't straighten with oil on your hair - I am vaguelyremembering that 200 degree straightners boil any water/oil in your hair and cause the hair shaft to explode...there are some horrible pictures of this somewhere around.

[Dars]

I wouldn't straighten with oil on your hair - I am vaguelyremembering that 200 degree straightners boil any water/oil in your hair and cause the hair shaft to explode...there are some horrible pictures of this somewhere around.
http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_110/hair_03.jpghttp://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_74/hair_twh_74_03.jpg

Courtesy of Nightshade's "Damaged Hair: Understanding, Preventing & Rehabilitating (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=79)" article.

[GlassEyes]

Actually, oil and silicone accomplish pretty much the same job when using heat. They basically slick up the hair shaft to make it smoother/make straightening easier.

The misconception with silicones are that people ACTUALLY think they protect from heat. Nope. What they really do is make straightening easier by filling in the cuticle and sealing it in. That means that damage is still done, but it looks nicer. Oil does much the same job, though to a less scientifc/plastic degree.

Really, and keep in mind that I thought that heat-protectants would help my hair when I straightened (though I knew there'd be damage anyway), if they could really protect from 500 degree bars of heated metal, we'd be using them to protect firemen. Which we aren't.

That said, a palmful of olive oil used to be the only thing that could get and keep my hair straight with cones.

[Jenny.Wren]

Jenny Wren, depends on the heat of the blowdryer. I do do hot oil treatments where I massively over oil with coconut oil and take a blowdryer to my hair to heat up the oil. I would suggest the cones for regular blowdrying, if it's on anything but the cold function. However, coconut oil can be used in addition to it. I'm not a big fan of what heat styling has done to my hair, (blowdrying my hair daily for one month, plus one gentle bleaching(didn't even lighten my color!) has caused 75% of it at the ends or more to break off, and my hair to go from shoulder length in parts to my chin.(In the front where the hair is more delicate.) This being said, I really don't think this amount of damage is normal for simple blowdrying and the maybe 10-20 volume peroxide bleach I used! I would definitely suggest using the coconut oil the day after you flat iron and at the end of the day when you're done blowdrying your hair, since it is said to prevent protein loss, and any sort of oil will help protect your hair and coconut oil penetrates the hairshaft, thus healing your hair to some degree.(Yes, hair is dead and can't really be healed.) I'm really not the best person to ask for help with heat styling, since my hair reacts sooo poorly to it(whenever my aunt has tried to straighten it, chunks just break/burn off. I have very thick hair so it's not a big deal, but still...). If you blowdry to prevent frizz, the coconut oil does a wonderful job with that!

thanks for all your replies. At the very least I need to user the dryer with diffuser attachment as my hair would never dry if I left it dry naturally so I will continue with conventional products and save the coconut oil for scalp and pre-wash treatments and I will apply a little after I have styled my hair - I'm happy with this.

On any odd occasion where I wont use heat (perhaps on holiday), then I will apply the oil and leave to dry.

[Ursula]

LHC standards of "safe for hair" are a bit stricter than the typical hairdresser standards of "safe for hair." When you're growing your hair long, the question is not whether it is safe for a few uses, but rather whether the cumulative effect, along with ordinary wear and tear, will be unacceptable five or ten years down the line.

As far as heat goes, a reasonable rule of thumb is no to use anything on your hair that is too hot to be safe on your skin. For example, a hot oil treatment done with a heat cap is no warmer than a heating pack you'd use on a sore back, and no more than "warm" on the scale of what hairdressers do to hair - not hot. A hot iron, on the other hand, is hot enough to give your skin a severe burn nearly instantly.

The idea that hair will "never dry" if you don't use a blowdryer is an exageration. My hair is quite thick, and yet if I wash at night and leave it loose overnight, it will be dry by morning. If I wash in the morning, and put it up in a bun, it will be damp in the bunned length and dry along my head by night, and if I take it down for an hour or two, it will be completely dry.

One of the advantages of washing less frequently than daily (as is commonly done by LHCers) is that it is much easier to time your washes so that you can let your hair dry on its own, without it interfering with your daily routine.

[jenwexler]

I heard grapeseed oil can be used as a heat protectant? Does anyone have info on that?

[torrilin]

At the very least I need to user the dryer with diffuser attachment as my hair would never dry if I left it dry naturally

You're probably using a routine that doesn't suit your hair very well then. Or maybe just being impatient. I promise, evaporation doesn't stop working just because the water is in your hair and not in a glass. The laws of physics are not optional for hair.

If I use a conventional routine where I shampoo all my hair, and then add conditioner, my hair will take about 8 hours to dry when left loose, starting around armpit length. A lot of this is just how fine my hair is. It doesn't absorb much water, but boy is my hair fond of playing games with water and surface tension.

If I use CWC (condition from ears down, wash scalp, condition again), my hair dries a bit faster. It depends a lot on which conditioners I use, and which shampoo, and maybe even more important, whether I use the shampoo straight or dilute it. With most products, CWC alone would get me around a 7 hour dry time. It may seem illogical, but if I also use a leave in conditioner and then add hair gel the way a lot of curly hair routines would... my dry time goes down. A lot.

The absolute fastest dry time I've had is plain baby shampoo with *nothing* else. Takes maybe an hour for my entire head of hair to dry. But... I also get tangles from hell. I am not fond of tangles from hell, so I don't do this. Everything I've tried that causes less tangles with the baby shampoo also increased the dry time.

At the moment, my two favorite options are kind of opposite seeming. One I wash my scalp with diluted shampoo, rinse with dilute vinegar, add leave in conditioner and maybe some gel. With gel, it's maybe 3 hours dry time. The other, I do a CO (conditioner only) wash with a conditioner my hair particularly likes, then the dilute vinegar rinse, then leave in conditioner, and maybe gel. This gets a pretty similar dry time, but involves a *lot* more fussing in the shower.

My hair seems to be at the extreme long end for dry time. Very few LHC members seem to have a base dry time of 8 hours at APL. That is a much more typical time for someone whose hair is well past their waist. Even so, I can swap things around a fair bit to get into a more reasonable range.

(I'm not naming names on products because our hair types are really different, and the products that work well for me are unlikely to work well for you)