I've learned a lot but....

[alys]

I've learned a good bit from this wonderful site and a few others, and I consider myself now relatively knowledgeable on hair, and fortunate to have found these sites and support forums. BUT - I still have just one major WHY?!?!, and I don't know if I will ever get the answer :(
WHY is it that healthy, conditioned, reasonably well cared for hair still repels itself away from the other hairs and refuses to lay flat and silky? I'm not talking about frizz or shorter hairs, or damaged hairs, I'm talking about the entire head of hair just refusing to group together and lay down. Not just my hair, (although mine does this), but many people I see here and out in the world also seem to have hairs that wont lay close to eachother? WHY? Personally my hair is in great condition, and I treat it pretty well and apply what I've learned here. It's not curly, maybe slightly wavy at times, but the strands that fall out or that I pull out for tests are straight, strong, dont absorb water and shiny. So why the heck won't they lay against my other hairs more closely? Please?? Anyone have a good, even philosophical answer to this?

also the hair type in my avatar is WAY inaccurate!

routine (though I dont think it really matter with this question since i dont think product has much to do w/it:
wash/condition every 3rd day with nearly natural products. Use Grapeseed on my lengths 2-3 times per week and scalp massage (grapeseed/rosemary/lavendar/carrot root mixture) 3+ times per week. Occasional semi-permanent color however detrimental effects of this are minimized by the fact that I have short hair, get reg. trims and care for my hair astutely. Sleep in silk bonnet. No brushing, only combing with expensive, polished-tooth combs of the wood and bone persuasion. Virtually no wet manipulation. No blow dryer.

[Fethenwen]

Sounds like your hair is just poofy :hmm: I get that if I use too much shampoo.
Hair treatments that give more weight helps a lot. I would suggest oiling, I had amazing results last time with a honey and olive oil treatment :) But you will have to test for yourself a bit, honey and olive oil doesn't work great in everyones hair. But overall what you need is more weight to your hair, and it should lay down more nicely.

[alys]

You are exactly right about my hair being poofy - that's a good adjective. And yeah, its short so it really doesn't have a lot of weight right now. I should mention that I have had very long hair in the past, BSL at least, but still experiences the poofy-ness. But I really can't add any more moisture to my routine - with all due respect of course - because I already do about as much moisture as possible, what with all the oilings, massages and cocoa-butter based conditioner. I do occasionally do honey pre-poo. Washing my hair every third day is about as long as I can stretch it unless I cut down on the oilings, but that would be like taking from peter to pay paul, right???

here's a better example of what i mean (routines and such aside). i've a friend with long hair, pretty straight but w/some wave, but her hair lays flat. When I pluck one of hers (much to her displeasure) and compare it to a plucked hair of mine, the tensile strength, water absorption and even cuticle scale are pretty much the very same...so why does her hair lay flat and mine not? she uses the cheapest drugstore stuff, blows/flatirons, see the colorist and still her stuff lays flat and mine doesnt. (yes i have an cheapy microscope and i do look at my cutes!)

[jivete]

Static electricity maybe. Different types of hair are more prone to carry a charge. I would imagine the straighter the hair, the less charge it can carry. Even if it isn't the static-y hair we develop in dry, winter months, I do believe hair carries a charge. In fact, I think that's how some conditioning products work, they have an opposite charge of the hair so they're attracted to them and are able to coat the hair. I know I read an article about that, I thought on the naturally curly website, but I can't find it.

http://www.dralisyed.com/2009/02/static-charge-of-hair.html

[Fethenwen]

Interesting, I wonder if that charge thing could be a cause. My hair is more poofy on winter months because it is so static.

[alys]

Unfortunately I live in humidity central - it's literally been 11 years since I had real bad static. Not that it's impossible, and not that I am trying to refute each response, but I remember living in MA (and because it's so dry) my hair was always smoother and yes there was a lot of static. But here in FL I don't experience static, even when I comb...Off the topic I really dont like the humid environment!! It's great for the skin but poo poo for the hair...I may, after 30 years, just have to admit that no matter how well I treat my hair, it just aint flat and it just don't care how I feel about that :)

[MsBubbles]

here's a better example of what i mean (routines and such aside). i've a friend with long hair, pretty straight but w/some wave, but her hair lays flat. When I pluck one of hers (much to her displeasure) and compare it to a plucked hair of mine, the tensile strength, water absorption and even cuticle scale are pretty much the very same...so why does her hair lay flat and mine not? she uses the cheapest drugstore stuff, blows/flatirons, see the colorist and still her stuff lays flat and mine doesnt. (yes i have an cheapy microscope and i do look at my cutes!)

Maybe your friend uses cones :hmm:.

What you're describing with your hair vs. your friend's hair describes my hair: no-cones vs. cones.

I'm a happy cone user now. It works for me. Until I am in a position where I don't need to go out in public for a whole year, I will use them. No-cones to me isn't worth the damage and hair-hatred.

[alys]

I too use cones my friend, not ashamed to admit it :) I'm not a cone-hater I just practice moderation :) My friend also uses cones but probably more often than I, you are right about that. The cones I use are in matrix biolage shine milk, which I use as a leavin after each wash, so about 2-3 times per week max, and really only one squirt at that...This conundrum of poof has led me to only one place in all these years: the CHI...phew, there, it's out. About once a month when I get desperate for the silky look I will load up on FHI hot sauce and CHI my stuff beautifully straight. And before anyone blames the CHI for my poofy-ness, please know that my hair was poofy long before I knew what a flat iron was. I really think my hair is confused about whether to be straight or wavy/curly. I dont know...but thanks all for the suggestions.

[whiteisle]

Maybe your friend uses cones :hmm:.

What you're describing with your hair vs. your friend's hair describes my hair: no-cones vs. cones.

I'm a happy cone user now. It works for me. Until I am in a position where I don't need to go out in public for a whole year, I will use them. No-cones to me isn't worth the damage and hair-hatred.

Me too. I just came to the conclusion that my hair is happier with cones right now. Whenever I try to do a natural routine my hair is a poofy mess, won't lay nicely, and is impossible to run my hands through. I think I actually got some damage by not using the cones. :(

So maybe that's an idea to entertain? :)

[MsBubbles]

Hang in there, Alys! There are a lot of people here with mixed hairtypes that can probably give you the benefit of what they have found works.

[Presto]

One method curlies use to reduce frizz AND poof, I have seen also work for straighter hairtypes.
That would be using gel. Generously applied, when dried, scrunch the crunch out.

I knew a straight haired person who did this, instead of the scrunching that most curlies do, she would take the crunchy hair between her hands and make just one short stroke between her palms. Took the crunchiness out, but left it unmussed.
Her hair lay silky, unpoofy, unfrizzy.

I don't know how averse you are to trying product though. :) Good luck!

[embee]

Maybe your hair is just poofy by nature. My hair is not and I'd love to have some. All my life my natural hair has hung there, flat limp straight - and within 5 minutes of brushing, stringy too. A comb produces almost instant stringiness for me. My ears, which lie close to my head, will poke through this limp fine hair in minutes. Oooh, so attractive - NOT.

Just because the current style is for flat, doesn't mean that poof isn't pretty. ;)

[fleurdelis]

I actually got the same problem..and the longer my hair is, the poofier it is. Funilly enought I do not see it from the front, only when I look or take pictures of the back of my head...It does not bother me too much yet, at least my hair some body, but if I want my hair to be really unfrizzy I use olive oil as a leave in...

[Tinose]

It might come from breaking up the wave pattern when you comb it. The only time my hair isn't somewhat poofy is when I haven't combed it out after air drying. My hair is very inclined to clump together and breaking up the waves makes it really pretty poofy. Weighing it down with oils helps some, using cones probably helps some, but I think very wavy hair's just kind of like that. Which probably isn't very helpful, I'm afraid.

If that's true, though, it wouldn't be poofy if you let your hair get wet and then let it air dry naturally. So I suppose you could experiment with that and see if that's the case.

[Ursula]

Well, "laying flat and silky" sounds as if you're describing what straight hair does. But you have your hair-type filled out as wavy.

Wavy hair isn't straight hair, it won't look like straight hair, and it won't act like straight hair.

You might want to do a search for the "Wavy Women" threads, here and at the archives. There was considerable discussion there about accepting wavy hair for what it is, rather than driving yourself nuts trying to get it to either be straight or curly. (The threads were named for the alliteration, and as a play off the name of the book about curly hair called "Curly Girl".)

[TheEndlessOcean]

My hair is a bit curlier and thicker than yours, but the only way I've had success getting my hair to lie flat and not poof is to virtually eliminate shampoo, use leave-in conditioner and jojoba oil, and use tons of gel.

[Teazel]

Ah, you want swishy hair, right? :D It's funny, at moments like this I remember a TV ad from the '80s (I think) which bemoaned 'limpness' and yearned for more "air in my hair".

My hair is non-swishy; I think it's pretty much how wavy hair tends to be, as opposed to very straight. I'm learning to love it. :wink:

[boomygrrl]

I think even a slight wave can off-set your hair. Even if your hair is almost straight with a very slight wave, that's enough to make it not sit straight together.
Also, you described your hair as poofy. It has no chance in it's poofy state to sit well together. The hair has poofed out...think of something expanding, it moves everything out of it's way...so if all your hair is poofing, they cannot sit well together.
There are products you could try...maybe an ACV rinse can close the cuticles, perhaps making it more likely they will lay down better together. The gel recommendation sounds promising as well, as it may "glue" them together, so to speak (force them to lay together, while maybe deflating some of the poof).
I personally think hair looks better when it isn't so neatly together. It has more of a texturized look with a little poof. But everyone has their preferences.
I hope you find something that works for you.

[klcqtee]

Do you use cones? I've found that a very coney CO (I use Herbal Essence) weighs my hair down enough that it lays smoothly together in clusters. Yours may lay straight and together.

[JamieLeigh]

It sounds like you're a victim of multi-type hair, same as I am. It never mattered whether I used cones or not, my hair has always been sleek in places and fly-away in others. I classify myself as a wavy, and on the "fine" end of "medium". In other words, most of my hairs are of medium texture, but some in my canopy are fine and they tend to frizz out and stick up away from the rest when I wear it loose. These are also the first hairs to come loose from a braid or a bun. :rolleyes:

Others have had some interesting advice, and if you're not averse to trying products like gel (it's just not for me, but there's nothing wrong with it in general) you might want to give some of it a good look. Otherwise, just be happy that you have floaty hair.

One neat thing - a good friend of mine I've known for fifteen years, and who has the most enviable sleek and shiny and straight hair I've ever seen in real life, recently told me "I wish my hair was like yours, it's so floaty! Mine just sits here, no matter what I try to do with it. Just straight and flat." I was surprised, because more than once, I've tried to imitate that look and tried to make my hair behave. So you never know. One person's frizzy is another person's floaty. ;)

Good luck! :flower:

[jivete]

Humidity would make your hair poofier if it's a little curly. The hair is more porous and absorbs water from the air,making each strand swell.

[piratejenny23]

i second the suggestions already made, of eliminating shampoo & trying gel.

--i have somewhat thick, low porosity hair that ALWAYS looked a mess. it either looked frizzy or stringy. since switching to CO, it lays together much more nicely and has more weight to it while also having more root lift and body...i guess because i'm not stripping away all the natural oils?

--i was a supervisor at a factory that primarily employed south american women, who pretty much all had gorgeous hair. one girl in particular had what i considered enviable hair...super thick, super black, super sleek. i asked her how she got her hair to behave, while indicating my "halo", and she laughed and said, "hell!" :p (phonetic pronunciation of "gel" in spanish)

also, before i started doing CO, my hair would look SO much neater/sleeker when i blow-dried it, and very disheveled when i let it air-dry.

last night i tried fabric softener as a hair conditioner, and my hair is REALLY behaving beautifully today; very soft, not tangling or separating into clumps, just lying over my shoulders like a shawl.

to answer your actual question of "why" hair does this, i suspect it has something to do with cuticles (since humidity/static/waviness/products/porosity/texture don't seem to be the determining factors). hairs with roughed-up cuticles definitely repel each other and don't lie together nicely.

[Heavenly Locks]

Some people out there actually have "uncombable hair syndrome" -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncombable_hair_syndrome

http://www.orpha.net/data/patho/GB/uk-uncombable.pdf

[Bene]

Hair civil war? Just sayin'....

[alys]

Isnt it funny how we seem to want what we dont have, and if we had it would probably get sick of it? I may try the GEL so thanks for the suggestion. Thanks to all of you for the responses! Each one of you is right in a way it seems. My hair really is and isnt wavy (please ignore the hair type in my avatar, I just threw it in there and really without a clue to boot), and it is and isnt straight. I read somewhere that after a while of curling or straightening you can actually 'train' your hair to become different. Not sure if this is true, per se, but I think I've confused my hair. It was long and flat and straight when I was kid, then in teenage years it became wavy because I permed it, and early 20's it became spiraly just for no apparent reason. Then I started using manipliation (hands) to straighten and smooth, and later the CHI and what not, and after about 5 years of that my hair is mostly straight but with the behaviour patterns of a wavy. Some hairs when plucked are ram-rod straight, and others dont have a curl per se, but they resemble what a 5 year old would create when trying to draw a stright line. Wobbly straight, if that makes sense. It's pissed at me I think. Thanks also to the one funny soul who pretty much put it in black and white thay "Hey, you want your hair to act straight, but really its not"....I needed to hear that I think:) But I want the movement and velvety-ness!! Is that bad?
Multi-textured hair, someone suggested...hmmm...I need to mull that over too.
Someone please tell me more about the fabric softener? Sheets or liqiud? What's in fabric softener?

[Sara Smile]

I agree that you can sort of train your hair. I've always had stick straight hair, but after 8 years (wow, that long?) of wearing my hair in a bun every single day, I have persistent bun waves. Also, I've just recently noticed that some of my new hairs are growing in spiral -- they stick out like little curly alien antennas from my straight-ish hairs. I guess my hair is changing as I'm getting older.

[pinchbeck]

Isnt it funny how we seem to want what we dont have, and if we had it would probably get sick of it? I may try the GEL so thanks for the suggestion. Thanks to all of you for the responses! Each one of you is right in a way it seems. My hair really is and isnt wavy (please ignore the hair type in my avatar, I just threw it in there and really without a clue to boot), and it is and isnt straight. I read somewhere that after a while of curling or straightening you can actually 'train' your hair to become different. Not sure if this is true, per se, but I think I've confused my hair. It was long and flat and straight when I was kid, then in teenage years it became wavy because I permed it, and early 20's it became spiraly just for no apparent reason. Then I started using manipliation (hands) to straighten and smooth, and later the CHI and what not, and after about 5 years of that my hair is mostly straight but with the behaviour patterns of a wavy. Some hairs when plucked are ram-rod straight, and others dont have a curl per se, but they resemble what a 5 year old would create when trying to draw a stright line. Wobbly straight, if that makes sense. It's pissed at me I think. Thanks also to the one funny soul who pretty much put it in black and white thay "Hey, you want your hair to act straight, but really its not"....I needed to hear that I think:) But I want the movement and velvety-ness!! Is that bad?
Multi-textured hair, someone suggested...hmmm...I need to mull that over too.
Someone please tell me more about the fabric softener? Sheets or liqiud? What's in fabric softener?


I have multi-textured hair, too, and it doesn't behave. My canopy is straight and when lifted it reveals wavy hair underneath. Perhaps this has something to do with its unmanageably since as some have suggested. The hair doesn't sit together because they are shoving each other out of the way. My sister uses cones and has great results with it and I am beginning to think that perhaps this is what I should try to give my hair a break because each time it is combed it has snarls.

It's hard because some have said it is great, others have said it causes build-up, and I read somewhere that this build-up causes breakage.:confused:

I hope you find a solution and than post it here!

[alys]

yeah after much debate and a few instances of making myself look like a complete fool on this site, i do use cones and have gotten off the ' i hate cones' train, (not that there's anything wrong with that) :) maybe i should up my cones...currently my poo and conditioner are cone free, only my leave in spray contains them....
i'm going to cruise on by the wavy threads and see what I can glean. thanks all you guys rock!