How do you go natural with your hair if you're used to relaxers?

Quit the Creamy Crack

There's only one thing you have to do to go natural with your hair; stop using chemicals to straighten it. Chemical treatments like relaxers and texturizers permanently break the chemical bonds in your hair that cause it to curl, wave or kink. If you like wearing your hair straight, you can continue to wear it just like you do with a relaxer if you want to. Lots of black women with long, healthy, straight hair do not use relaxers to straighten it.

Their hair is 100% natural but you simply can't tell by looking at them. After I transitioned to natural hair I mentioned it to lots of people including family and friends. I was totally shocked at how many of my cousins, Facebook friends, etc. that stopped relaxing their hair many years ago and just didn't tell me. Every one of them have a head full of long, beautiful hair that was straight every time I saw them. And here I was thinking that if I just took better care of my relaxed hair, I could make my hair look like theirs when all along, their hair wasn't even relaxed!


If you're having problems with your hair, it might be because of damage caused by chemical treatments such as relaxers and color or from heat damage. If your hair is dry, grows slower than you think it should, dull, thinning and otherwise just blah-looking then you might benefit from going natural. One thing to note though is that stopping relaxers alone may not get you the head of hair you want. To make your hair as thick, shiny, long and healthy as it can possibly be, you'll need to take good care of it.

Will My Hair Fall Out If I Stop Relaxing It?

NO! No, it won't. That is one of the biggest misconceptions there is about going natural with your hair. Relaxers do not support the health of your hair. If anything, they make it more likely to be unhealthy. Still, if you stop relaxing your hair you do need to take a few steps to prevent breakage. At the point where your relaxed hair meets your new natural growth, the hair is somewhat weaker than it is along the rest of its length. However, it's not going to break off on its own. It could break off if you're too rough with it, though.

How to Prevent Breakage, Damage & Hair Loss When You Go Natural

Once you get to a few inches of new growth, you'll start to notice that it's harder to detangle it after you wash it. To make matters worse, hair is more fragile when it's wet. What you can and should do to prevent breakage at the line of demarkation (the point between your natural and relaxed hair) is detangle it while the conditioner is in it and it's soaking wet. The easiest way to do that is while you're in the shower. After you wash it (preferably with a sulfate-free shampoo), add a thick, rich, slippery conditioner and detangle your hair with a wide-tooth detangling comb. Then rinse the conditioner out.

When you shampoo, use hand motions that go from front to back being careful not to tangle your hair. Don't ball your hair up on the top of your head then attempt to detangle it later. That only makes matters more complicated. You can keep your hair relatively untangled while you wash and condition it which makes things easier later and limits breakage.