Happiness is… not having to put too much effort styling your hair every morning! And, how do you achieve this? The answer is hair smoothening! Let’s admit it… who doesn’t want their hair to look prim and proper at all times? Curly and wavy hair can be unmanageable on most days, and to top it all, frizz adds to the woes *sigh*. While hair smoothening is the simplest way to get rid of this everyday struggle, it is certainly not the healthiest option for your gorgeous tresses since it comes with its own set of harmful drawbacks.
Hair smoothening starts with a hair wash, followed by a deep cleanse, followed by application of a straightening solution and ends with vigorous flat-ironing at a really high temperature. During this three to four hour long procedure, your hair undergoes a lot of trauma. And this shows after a few months in the form of the below side-effects:
Side-effect #1: Hair fall
Did you know that chronic hair fall is the most common side-effect of hair smoothening? The heat, as well as harmful chemicals used during the treatment, is what causes your hair follicles to become weak and detach at the roots. This, in turn, leads to excess hair fall. A few months into the treatment, your hair strands tend to lose its natural strength and start breaking.
Side-effect #2: Loss of natural hair texture
Hair smoothening or rebonding seem like the best options especially when you want to keep it fuss-free and easy-to-style. To make your tresses look parlour-ready at all times, you put it through harmful procedures, and that’s when your natural hair texture suffers. The disulfide bonds and amino acids in your hair strands are broken and rebonded in order to give them a new structure. In this process, the natural texture of your hair is lost!
Side-effect #3: Dry and dehydrated strands
Hair smoothening can give you relief from unmanageable curls and frizz, no doubt. However, it can strip the moisture out of your hair, leaving it dry and dehydrated. Firstly, the chemicals used during the treatment seep into the scalp, making its surface flaky. And secondly, the residue of the toxins used to alter the structure of your hair make your hair brittle. It is, therefore, ideal to oil your hair before every wash. Oiling regularly will make your hair soft, smooth and protects it from becoming extremely dry.
Side-effect #4: Split ends
Dry, brittle and frayed ends are likely to cause split ends. And, when you notice one split end, be prepared for an army of split ends that is to follow. And do you know what’s to be blamed? Hair smoothening treatment! Yes, you read that right. During a smoothening treatment, your hair is exposed to high-temperature heat which causes split ends. Split ends, in turn, not only damage the hair strands but also tend to weaken the hair follicles.
Side-effect #5: Dandruff and itchy scalp
The worse thing that can happen to your hair post a hair smoothening treatment is… dandruff! Dandruff can wreak havoc on your scalp leading to various other hair concerns such as scalp inflammation, greasiness and itching. The chemicals used during hair smoothening accumulate as residues on the scalp, which in turn act as a catalyst in the production of dandruff flakes.
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Written by Fatema Habib on 4th Dec 2019