Straighten You Out

About three weeks ago, I flat-ironed my hair for the first time in eight or nine months.  My complaints and rantings on facebook about fighting with my very thick mane sparked a conversation amongst my friends about their preferred methods of straightening their hair.  My text message to my father (you have to love a 66-year-old man that texts!), who has a HUGE thing about long hair, about how long my hair had gotten sparked a similar conversation amongst family members about straightening hair.  My rekindled love affair with CHI was briefly mentioned in a post a week ago about my September crushes.  To my surprise, that was the part of the post that received the most feedback.  SPiCY included John Frieda Frizz-Ease Secret Weapon in her top ten of the moment.  It seems that dealing with our hair is a universal area of frustration for women.

There are a few ways to permanently, semi-permanently or temporarily straighten hair for those of us with naturally curly tresses.  Some of the more expensive ways are Thermal Reconditioning (also know as Japanese Hair Straightening) and Keratin Treatment (also known as Brazilian Hair Straightening).  Relaxers and Hair Texture Softeners are much less expensive methods.  However, I am a fan of the ever-popular flatiron, despite the time and energy it takes to use it.  My primary reasons are that Thermal Reconditioning is not appropriate for my hair texture, both Keratin Treatment and Thermal Reconditioning are extremely expensive, relaxers are, for the most part, too strong for my hair type and cause dryness and breakage and (though I am a big fan of hair texture softeners) I like to wear my hair curly at times.

I have had the same 1" CHI ceramic flatiron for the last 7 years and strongly advocate paying the extra money for this long-lasting quality iron.  It is worth the money.  I also use and am a HUGE fan of the CHI Straight Guard, 44 Iron Guard and Infra products.  (These are only my recommendations for straightening hair.  I'm sure a future post will get into my deep abiding love for Mixed Chicks products and the Naturally Curly website).  A non-CHI product that I highly recommend using as a deep-conditioner is Mixed Chicks Deep Conditioner.  It is a brand aimed at Curly Girls of all races and ethnicities and the deep-conditioner is fabulous whether you are going straight or staying natural.

What are your preferred methods of straightening wavy or curly hair?  What products do you like best and recommend?

My apologies to all of you naturally straight girls out there.  All of my 25-years experience in hair care has been focused on curly hair.  I will leave the discussion on naturally straight hair to SPiCY.