Hi All! I’m back again to briefly talk about maintaining flat-ironed hair. Yesterday, a family member asked me ‘You don’t know what you want to do with your hair, do you sweetie?’ That was one of the nicest complements that she could pay me and she didn’t even know it. I say that because she thought that my flat-ironed natural hair was relaxed. She thought that I have given up and returned to a relaxer. She’s used to seeing me with a two-strand twist up-do. Yippie – that means that I hit the bullseye using the flat iron!!!

Now that I have FINALLY figured out how to get my hair straight using the flat iron (see my earlier article titled ‘A Major Milestone’), thought I’d share some tips for keeping the hair straight for up to a week. The only way that I’ve been able to keep my hair straight for several days following a flat iron straightening process is to wrap my hair each night. Luckily, I wrapped my hair at night for years when I had a relaxer so that process is a piece of cake to me. Wrapping my hair is getting easier and easier as it grows. I realized several months ago that when I would wrap my hair overnight, the next morning the ends would be puffy. The hair was too short to stay wrapped without some assistance so I started using bobby pins to keep the ends wrapped. When I unwrap my hair in the mornings, it feels smooth and I love it. Sometimes the ends aren’t curled but I don’t bother with applying heat to bend the ends if I’m not going anyplace special. For my type 4 hair, I think the key is keeping the hair stretched – keep in mind that everyone’s hair is different but it seems to work for me. I found that rolling my hair on foam or hard hair rollers at night allowed my roots to revert much faster than when I wrapped my hair. I guess a world of curls isn’t in my future LOL.

One last thing I’ll add here is a tip for working out with flat-ironed hair. I picked up this tip from one of the YouTubers – pull the hair up into a ponytail. I think this helps to keep the hair stretched if it becomes wet. This technique really does seem to work – of course you’ll have to allow your hair to get to a length long enough to pull into a ponytail but once it gets there, give it a try. I’ve done my usual – picked up extra pounds at the end of the year so I’m in the gym 3 to 4 days a week to get those extra pounds off. The ponytail has helped a lot.

This is an evolving process so I will try share any tips that I pick up along the way that may be beneficial to other naturals.

Have a good one!