(here goes my rant)
That doesn't mean that I wanna wait for ages. I just feel like its been 2 months (cue "girl please its only 2 months" speech) and I just wanna be apl already. Its just frustrating when people say negative things to me about my journey, I don't know how other people on their hair journey put up with it but I absolutely hate it. People and their myths about black hair not growing long really upset me, especially when this negativity is coming from people who should be in your corner.
(whew...ok I'm done)
So I was doing another search for more people who had long hair and I came across kimmaytube. Kim Love'sYouTube channel contains all the information you could ever need about the structure of your hair, the ph level your hair should be on, and more. she kinda made me want to try going natural again for just a couple of minutes. lol
What I learned:
- relaxers are alkaline and takes your hair on a ph roller coaster because your hair is acidic. for all of us who probably did at least intro to chemistry, we should know that alkalines are on the opposite side of acids. Here's a chart to clarify:
(source- richardanderson.me.uk)The pH indicates how acid or alkaline a substance is. The scale ranges from 0 to 14 with 0 being a very strong acid and 14 being a very strong alkali (aka a base). Both strong acids and alkalis should be avoided as they will burn skin. (haircrazy.info)
- Water has a ph of 7, our hair is naturally between 4.5 and 5.5 in the acidity level. A lye relaxer is between 12 and 14 and a no-lye is between 9 and 11. So when we apply a relaxer our hair is forced to an alkaline level, then quickly neutralized and then returned to its acidic level with certain products. that can be very damaging.
- An alkali will open your cuticle while an acid will flatten it/close it, thus making your hair shiny.
- Hair is not a living structure and hence, cannot be healthy. It can only be preserved to make it stay on your head.
- In order to not have dry hair the cuticle layer of your hair must be kept closed.
- Heat and can cause the cuticle layer to lift and cause dryness.
- aloe vera juice is a great hair acidifier and is therefore good as a leave-in.
I have a new leave-in to try from Kimmaytube. She mixes her favorite oils with aloe vera juice to create her own leave-in conditioner.
Learning this much is great because now I know so much more about what is good for my hair and what's not.
If you have anymore tips to add, please comment :)
Thanks for reading!
2 comments:
This is a very interesting post. It made me think about not only the harsh chemicals that are made up in these relaxers, but also some of the ingredients in the products we use and buy such as amino acids. I will be looking into amino acids soon and do some research on them and post to my blog. But I love this, I'm going to check out Kimma's youtube now. I wonder if there's some test we can take to measure the current pH balance in our hair. LOL I think that would help with part of the journey, don't you?
Kira
www.damage2manage.com
hey thanx 4 reading it :)..i will definitely be looking out for what you find out about the ingredients we use on our hair, because knowing this stuff will help us to maintain our hair.
but as far as testing the ph of our hair...idk about that because kim said something about only being able to test the ph of liquids....but then again there should be a way to do it, cuz how could they know that our hair is usually around 4.5-5.5? hmmm....
evidently i'm gonna need to research some more lol
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