heat styling- how is it damaging?

**amaiaisabella** · August 27th, 2008, 09:17 AM

There is always mention of the damage that heat styling causes. But how is it damaging? Is it the heat itself? Or is it the brush pulling the wet hair to straighten it?

Some members on here still stick by the blowdryer, but just use it less often. My hair seems perpetually stuck between a wave and straightness- if I do manage to get it wavy, the waves fall out or lose their shape after a day.

I ended up blowdrying the other day- I waited until my hair had become 90% dry and used my fingers instead of a brush to run through the hair, never applying the heat directly to the hair. I pointed the nozzle downward alongside the hair, if that makes sense.

Was this method damaging?

Obviously we all take steps to protect our hair, wearing it up, washing less often, etc. I CWC every 4-5 days, depending on if I need to go to school or going out. If I let those natural oils accumulate, and do my method of blowdrying, am I reversing all the good I am trying to accomplish?

I guess I am trying to find justification for the blowdrying, but I would love to get your opinions

**Nightshade** · August 27th, 2008, 09:21 AM

Personally, I don't think the drying method you described is (that) damaging. Mostly it's the people who set their hair dryers to Solar Flare and brush while doing it that get the worse damage.

I stole this straight from the Damaged Hair article in my siggy

It may be worth reading the whole thing if you find this bit interesting:

Heat Damage
I know you love your flat iron and hair dryer. They make your damaged, frizzy, flyaway hair lay nice. But for damaged hair it's like putting a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. You're not helping the problem, and in fact, you're making it worse. Even healthy hair cannot stand the abuses of heat damage long without showing significant wear and tear.

The main problem with heat appliances is that warmth, in general, opens the cuticle of the hair, which is why on a hot and humid day hair will frizz out to no end. The second problem with heat appliances is that often they are way too hot. Hot enough to actually physically BOIL the moisture within the hair, and that water, now steam, will try to escape the cortex of the hair, rupturing the cortex and the cuticle on the way out. Now take that uplifted cuticle, add steam escaping and compound it with the mechanical damage of the round brush with the hair dryer, or the abrasive action of the flat iron scraping along the hair (no matter how much "protective gel" you put on there, it still happens). Big problems:

Here is a case where the hair has been overheated to the point where the moisture inside has started to boil, permanently damaging both the cortex and the cuticle. Eventually the hair will break down and split, sometimes into a "white dot" which is just a split in the center of the hair. The second picture shows
a case of trichorrhexis nodosa (white dot), where the cortex was disrupted by an overheated hair dryer.

The problem with all these types of damage is that your hair is often exposed to more than one of them, and the trick is to minimize it as much as possible. There's often the argument of, "But my hair is shoulder length and looks great!" At shoulder length I'm sure it does. But keep in mind that your hair currently at shoulder will be at your waist, at tailbone, at classic or longer, three, five, seven or ten years from now. What you do now to your hair is only compounded by time, and by weathering. Unlike skin, hair doesn't heal. You can minimize the damage already done, but there's no putting those cuticle scales back on once they're gone. Period.

**Fencai** · August 27th, 2008, 09:25 AM

omg! those pics are scarrrrrrrryyyy!!!!!

I dont have anything to add, I just wanted to see the scientific aspect of it..... now I will run away.....

**amaiaisabella** · August 27th, 2008, 10:27 AM

Thanks for the article, Nightshade

I have read it before. I have to laugh at the "Solar Flare" description of blowdrying- that was me in high school!

I only wear my hair down the first two days, and the last three days I wear it up or in pigtail braids (only if I'm not leaving the house). I think if I damp bun the hair the remaining three days, or even two days, I might be able to save the hair a bit of damage.

I really don't want to cause any more damage, and perhaps as the hair gets longer the waves will come out more, but I really can't stand this half-wave/half-straight thing! Can hair have a personality disorder?

**Iylivarae** · August 27th, 2008, 10:28 AM

Also, hair consists of keratin, which is a protein. Proteins have a 3D-structure, which can be altered by heat and some chemicals. If you heat the hair, it is likely that the keratin chains will move, and thus slightly alter their structure (that's why heat-styling works). If you do it too often, then the chains can't go back to their normal shape, because the bondings are too damaged. Then your hair gets weak and breaks off.

**Nightshade** · August 27th, 2008, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by amaiaisabella

Thanks for the article, Nightshade

I have read it before. I have to laugh at the "Solar Flare" description of blowdrying- that was me in high school!

I only wear my hair down the first two days, and the last three days I wear it up or in pigtail braids (only if I'm not leaving the house). I think if I damp bun the hair the remaining three days, or even two days, I might be able to save the hair a bit of damage.

I really don't want to cause any more damage, and perhaps as the hair gets longer the waves will come out more, but I really can't stand this half-wave/half-straight thing! Can hair have a personality disorder?

anytime.

You and I actually have a very similar hair type. Mine used to be more wavy, but as my hair has gotten healthier and longer, it's mellowed down a bit. I dithered between 1c/2a and since Amoretti and I have similar hair types, and hers is 2a, I went with that.

For me, anyway, I can comb a bit of Max Green gel through my wet hair as it dries and it'll stay pretty darn straight

**GlassEyes** · August 27th, 2008, 10:47 AM

You'd think someone would've invented something that could cause the scales in hair to lie flat and bone again by now. o-o;; It doesn't seem like it'd be an impossible task...

Thought that's coming from someone with only a bare-bones high school level understanding of chemistry and biology.

**DavidN** · August 27th, 2008, 10:52 AM

I USED to straighten my hair, almost daily, as a matter of fact, and stopped about two years ago, when I realized that that hair could not be grown really long if it was subjected to heat damage.

In fact, it was exactly those same photos (that Nightshade just posted) that caused me to put away the irons for good, when I googled "hair damage", back in September 2006!