It is not true that every woman must ‘relax’ her hair. There are many things to consider before taking that step to apply chemicals to your hair.

Are you lazy about going to the salon? If you are or you hate the dryer, then you need to consider whether or not chemical is for you. The 2 things you can not avoid once you apply chemicals are hot dryers and salon visits. You need a salon visit 7 days after a touch_up for post_perm treatments and you may have to endure 2 or 3 visits to the dryer on that occasion alone, depending on how your hair has reacted to the chemical used.

Are you stingy with money or are you one of those who still do not know that for healthy hair, you get what you pay for? Good products are mostly imported and therefore cost more than the average. If you believe that you can get away with minimal spending on your ‘relaxed’ hair, then you will not get the results you desire. So, buying a relaxing product without any after_care for scalp and hair or worse, neutralizing shampoo is not cost_saving. The only way for your hair is downhill if you ignore those products that can help you get the best out of your ‘perm’.

Are you a very busy person? Would it be too much trouble for you to attend the salon at least once a month for deep conditioning treatments that may last up to 3 hours a visit, including time for

setting the hair in rollers? If you can not spare 3 hours monthly to treat your hair, think carefully before committing.

Do you wear your hair in extensions such as weave_on or braids for the most part of the year? Then you may wish to consider stopping the use of relaxing creams and move over to a texturing cream instead. The point is that you hardly carry your own hair anyway, so why fry it only to place it under extensions and weaken it further? Your best bet would be a product to just soften the hair, remove the ‘kinks’ without frying so that the plaiting process is not painful.

Again, I repeat that the chemical relaxer is not for everybody. Some heads just have a hard time dealing with all that trauma and drama; you must be blessed with fantastic hair ‘genes’ for you to get away with murder when it comes to your hair. The main cause of damage among women of color is the ‘ordinary’ relaxer.

It hurts when one is confronted with damage that could have been avoided if only more attention had been paid to what was going on to the hair. Before you undergo that next ‘reigning’ procedure, consider this: damage may be irreversible. If you have bald spots on your scalp that are shining like a baby’s bottom, you may well have suffered irreversible damage.