How to Pick a Relaxer for African American Hair

Choosing a relaxer for African American hair is a serious undertaking. Making the wrong choice can cause damaged hair for many months, or worse, irreparable damage. Here's how to pick the right relaxer for African American hair.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Determine what kind of perm you need based on the outcome you want. If you want to make your hair more manageable, you want to purchase a relaxer which relaxes the natural curl pattern of the hair. A relaxer will make your hair moderately straight. If you want to still feel the natural texture of your hair, you will want a texturizer. If you want your hair very straight (bone straight) you will want to purchase a perm relaxer.

2. Determine the strength of perm you need for your hair type, as well as scalp sensitivity. Relaxers come in mild, regular and super. If you have fine hair strands you should use a mild relaxer. If your hair strands are thick and course, you will need super strength relaxer. They also have no-lye and lye relaxers. While lye based relaxers tend to do a better job, they are best handled by professionals as you can end up with chemical burns.

3. Determine the amount of product that your hair needs based on hair thickness and length. Many people make the mistake of using super strong relaxer because their hair is thick (they have a great many strands of hair). This thick hair, however, may consist of fine strands. This means the person will still need a mild perm, only they may need twice as much product.

4. Do a strand test before you begin processing your hair. You should always do a strand test in an inconspicuous spot before relaxing your hair. Many people skip this step and regret it later. If the hair has recently experienced stress like coloring, or too much swimming pool chlorine, it will certainly break off or fall out. A strand test will tell you if your hair can handle a relaxer, or the particular relaxer you plan on using.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not skip the strand test. Failure to do so you end with hair loss.

[emmy000]

on 2/12/2008 Good tips! I've given up relaxing my own hair. I used to relax my own hair and it would always break off. Even when I go to the salon my hair continues to break off. The only way I've been able to have any length was to wear a weave for several months. I'd have the weave taken out, have my hair relaxed & put the weave back in. I didn't put the weave back quick enough & lost almost ALL of the length I had. The joys of Black hair!