How to Chemically Straighten Your Hair at Home

Kill your curls by chemically relaxing your hair.

It's common to want what we haven't got. For the curly-haired, that means having perfectly straight hair, and the only way to get it is to chemically straighten it or use products on a daily basis to tame the curls. Chemical hair straightening, also known as relaxing, uses strong chemicals such as sodium hydroxide, guanidine hydroxide or ammonium thioglycolate to straighten the hair shaft. These chemicals have been known to damage hair, so before you decide to use them, make sure you really want straight hair.

Things You'll Need

• Conditioner
• Neutralizer
• Chemical hair-relaxing formula
• Warm water

Instructions

1. Apply chemical hair-relaxing formula to your hair according to the manufacturer's instructions. The formula will soften, loosen and relax the natural curls. For overly curly or damaged hair, apply conditioner before the relaxer.

2. Wait for the appropriate length of time. Thoroughly rinse the formula from the hair with warm water.

3. Apply a neutralizing formula. Because hair relaxing can cause a high pH and result in broken hair strands, this process helps to oxidize and restore the hair to a normal pH.

4. Apply conditioner. You can also apply conditioner before the relaxing formula and again at this stage.

Tips & Warnings

• Condition severely damaged hair until it recovers before attempting to straighten it.

References

• "Beauty Magazine"; Chemical Hair Straightening FAQs; Karen M. Shelton

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• "Curl Talk"; Ouidad; 2002