Wondering why your blowouts never seem to make it till the next appointment?
Or why your presses peter out well ahead of schedule?
Your hair rapidly reverting is probably due to one of these seven reasons. . .
Reverting: Failed blowouts all have something in common. . .
All of the reasons and rules of unsuccessful presses and blowouts reverting tie into one overarching principle. Call it the law of straightening, whether temporary or permanent, with chemicals or with heat: if you don’t get the hair straight enough, it’s just not gonna stay straight. Here’s breakdown on why you haven’t been getting it straight and why it’s quickly reverting:
Reverting: You put too much product in your hair
So you really wanted to protect your curls before putting them before the fiery blast of the blowdryer. Not willing to leave a stone unturned, you broke out the heat protectant shampoo, treatment, conditioner, and leave in, following up with the blowdry creme, the thermal spritz and a strong dose of straightening balm.
Or, you’re a fan of all things stick-straight and just can’t get over how smooth your hair looks when you run the hot comb over a thick layer of pressing cream.
Either way, you overdid it. In both cases, whether the goal was absolute protection or absolute straightness, your hair was never actually straightened, just momentarily stretched and weighted down by product.
As the product wore off, your curls became less beholden to gravity and started working their way back to wave and cloud formation.
To avoid product getting in the way of successful straightening, limit yourself to one to two leave in heat protectant products.
When you apply, apply only a small amount – i.e., just enough to cover your strands, so you can smooth and protect and still be able to tell when your hair is actually straight. If you use a concentrated protectant e.g., atrActiva Shine Drops Shield Conditioning Leave In Serum, and work it in well, you won’t have to worry about whether you’ve applied enough product as it will be effective with very small amounts.
Reverting: You didn’t go hot enough
Yes, this part is controversial. Too much heat certainly can cause damage; keratin, the protein hair is made from, begins to denature – become permanently deformed – at anywhere from 140-200 degrees Celsius or 210-250 degrees Celsius, depending on the water content and other factors.
Once it’s gone that way, it’s gone; there’s no question of bringing your hair back to its original state or repairing the damage. All should be well, as long as you keep your heatstyling tools well below these temps. The trouble is, on many heads of hair, the hydrogen bonds (the reformable ones that bring you back to curly as soon as water hits your hair) don’t want to let your hair get straight until the heat gets dangerously close to causing permanent damage.
Unfortunately, in this case, if you’ve made sure you’ve covered all the other bases and still have issues, you’ll simply have to make a choice between leaving your hair not-so-straight or taking the hit.
Reverting: Your hair is damaged
So you got your mane shiny and smooth, right from the roots down to just a couple inches away from the tips. Thinking you must have missed a bit, you slide the iron over the ends a couple more times. Nothing happens. You turn up the heat and hit it a few more times. Still nothing.
Your ends won’t go smooth, not because it’s reverting, but because they are damaged beyond repair – either from heat overuse, excessive dryness, tool abuse, or simple, inevitable wear and tear. That is why they won’t straighten again, ever. The only remedy to get your ‘do silky smooth from root to tip is to create new tips – by promptly chopping those worn ones off.
And there’s more. . .
The forces that work against your straightening ambitions are absolutely relentless. Check out Part II on straightening tresses reverting to find out the rest of the seven reasons that make your hair reversion-prone!
Image Credits
| Amandeep Singh Asnapal | Julie Monday |Uneduex | Choo Yut Shing |Helga Weber|