14 Weeks Post Relaxer And Breaking Out The Flat Iron

First I want to say thank you to everyone for your encouragement on my last wash day post. I had mentioned that my ends were looking kind of raggedy and a few readers commented that my ends may be weighed down by product. I think this assessment was correct as later in the week my ends looked better and I hadn't applied any moisturizer or oil to my ends in several days.

I have a touch-up scheduled for the 28th which will be 16 weeks post my last relaxer touch up and I plan to get a trim then.

This wash day was a co-wash day. Additionally, I decided to flat iron my hair because I wanted to wear it down a day or two this week.

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I started by pre-pooing with coconut oil and grapeseed oil hot oil treatment to my scalp and new growth. On the rest of my strands, I used Suave Natural Infusions Moisturizing Conditioner. I left all this on for a little over an hour and sat under my hooded dryer for about 10 minutes.

After rinsing I cleansed with Eden BodyWorks Coconut Shea CoWash.

Next was a rinse with green tea and apple cider vinegar that I massaged into my scalp for a couple of minutes. I rinsed and then applied a coconut milk conditioner and let it sit for a couple of minutes before rinsing.

I dried using a t-shirt and then my blow dryer on cool. Here are the results after blow-drying.

Next was flat ironing. As a heat protectant, I used my current go-to leave-ins Nothing But Melted Shea Butter, grapeseed oil, and then Thermafuse f450 One Pass. I put the heat setting on the flat iron on 320 degrees. I didn't do more than two passes per section. This resulted in my new growth being smoothed instead of straight which was what I was shooting for. I wanted to avoid causing any heat damage to my relaxed hair and natural hair by using the protectants, a lower heat setting, and doing only two passes.

Related read: Preventing Hair Damage From Direct Heat

While I liked the look of my flat ironed hair the flat ironing will not be happening often for a couple of reasons

1. The first one was it extended my wash day by an hour and a half. 
2. The second is I don't like using a lot of direct heat on my hair. I cringed every time the flat iron touched my hair despite the iron being on 320 degrees, using a heat protectant, fully drying my hair prior, and not flat ironing my ends.

A couple of days later I wore my satin pillow rollers to bed and wore my hair in a half-up, half-down style. It looked pretty good though the curls fell throughout the day because I didn't use any setting lotion.

This wash day went well and I'm looking forward to next week because it's going to be a clarifying wash day and is my last one before my relaxer touch-up.

What products do you use when you flat iron your hair?