Once you lose your curls to chemical processing they'll never come back. I've been hearing it for years and I believed it. I believed it until I saved my curls from what seemed to be the point of no return. It's true, chemical processing can be detrimental to any type of hair, dying, perming, and even keratin can cause terrible damage. This damage can leave hair weak, brittle, and in the case of curly hair straight. So why do we do it? Frankly, because it is fun to create a new look, to be a new you, or look similar to a favorite actress. I get it, believe me, I do. Dying my hair has become a sort of hobby. I love playing with my hair color, texture, and everything in between. Many stylists look at my hair in wonder when they see my hair is still attached to my scalp. My most recent and only dye job mishap was not a result of my fabulous hair stylists M and A, but indeed a diabolical team from a company called scruples. Their objective was to lift my hair one color lighter and keep my bouncy curls intact, the result was Sia worthy white, nearly bone straight hair with black roots. My hair broke to the touch and wilted at the ends. I wanted to look like Halle Berry's "Storm", but I ended up looking like Cruella De Don't and thank god M and A agreed.
(Cruella for Halloween?)
The first step in regaining my curls was restoring the bonds in my hair. A used a system called Olaplex to do this. The system restores the bonds lost when one chemically processes hair. After the Olaplex most of my frayed ends closed up and my hair looked and felt significantly more healthy. My hair was dyed either before or after that, I'm not sure of when exactly we dyed it.
The next step was to roller set my hair. When a person's hair is wet it is in it's most fragile state, A knew I wet my hair almost every day so she decided to straighten it so I would not need to wet it to style it. The roller set was the best straightening choice to avoid excess damage to the hair so that's what we did.
(first day after roller set)
I left my hair straight for a week and three days, every three days I would mix coconut oil and hair serum and apply it to the most damaged parts of my hair. I would apply the oil at night, pin curl my hair, and wrap it in a scarf. This process aided greatly in my crusade to keep length and avoid cutting off a lot of hair.
After the week and three days I washed and deep conditioned my hair at home using my favorite line right now "L'Oreal Extraordinary Curls". I was immediately happy, my curls sprang back up to lose waves with minimal damage at the ends. However, I only left my hair curly for two days before we straightened it again.
(First wash)
The second time A roller set my hair we nixed the Olaplex because too much would make my hair brittle ( too much of a good thing). We deep conditioned my hair with a deep penetrating mask from the Royal Moroccan hair care line, this time my hair felt the same as it had before the scruples disaster and I was beyond ecstatic. A had dyed my hair in a way that would allow me to achieve a dark rosy gold color after it was washed enough and it was beginning to get there which made me super happy. I left my hair straight for longer this time because A was going out of town for two weeks. I continued the coconut oil and serum routine and every once and a while I would wand curl my hair on low.
(second time my hair was straightened. H for Howard ;)
The next time I washed my hair it was significantly healthier, stronger, shiner, and more manageable. A was back, but I was too lazy to go to the salon. I shampoo'd and conditioned my hair every three to four days and constantly added moisture in between. I mostly wore my hair in protectives styles and made sure to be extremely, EXTREMELY gently when I detangled my hair. (hair is very vulnerable when wet). I did this for two weeks and I am proud to say that today my hair is nearly exactly as curly as it was before my scruples calamity and I'm beyond happy.
(Before)
My attempt to recreate the before photo in the now photo was a fail, but my efforts to regain my curls after losing them did not. So before you give up on your hair after a dye job disaster, find an A1 stylist like A, buckle down, and fight for you babies.
