Hiya,
How's it going ladies!! Hope well, I'm a super busy bee lately and will be until the 2016 Salon Day Out coming up on Sunday the 5th of June!! The plans I have this year!! God help me....I will unravel a few soon so stay tuned ladies and prepare for some FUN!!
Now to my topic...I was reading an article on a blog one random day and in the comments section(where all the fun happens) someone had written something along the lines of 'People condemn girls that bleach their skin but don't you know when you relax your hair it's the same thing?'. I read that and sat up!! I was like hhhhhhhoooollllddddd upppp, is this true?!
A majority of you my dear readers are natural and this is something I truly appreciate because I find that naturals who read this blog and enjoy it are naturals with the correct understanding of what HEALTHY HAIR is about! Sometimes I feel like I'm always having to defend why I have stayed relaxed (texlaxed) and that's because of uninformed unfounded comments like the above on a public forum for all to see! Making a negative impression on the impressionable! Anyways, as usual I did my research on the statement mixed with some common sense...so here are just 3 reasons why that comment and the argument is just weak!
1. Frequency- this point was common sense derived...LOL. How often are bleaching creams used compared to relaxers? For you to see any difference, you must use a bleaching cream daily, sometimes even night and day!! It is that frequency that makes those creams quite dangerous....if you rub bleaching cream today and then not again till one random day next month....homegirl that cream will not work! Now with relaxers, the maximum number of times you can use them is three to four times a year! Gone are those days when relaxing your hair every month was cool but even still, the exposure to any 'harmful effect' from relaxer use is still relatively much less to the exposure to harmful effects of bleaching cream use so how can you compare the two?
2. Chemical Composition- Have you tried to read the labels of some of these bleaching creams? Some just have the label Bleaching Cream- GBAM! take it or leave it!LOL. There's all sorts of stuff in some of them, hidden
dangerous stuff like mercury, steroids etc. My sister is a skin care guru visit her new blog HERE so trust me I know what's up...ever wondered what's in a relaxer? Well check your box of relaxer...I did and here's what was in my last relaxer used- Creme of a Nature straight from Eden-Ingredients-
Straightening Creme: Water (Aqua) , Hydrogenated Soybean Oil , Ceteareth-20 , Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil , Cocamidopropyl PG-Dimonium Chloride , Glyceryl Caprylate , Glyceryl Undecylenate , potassium sorbate ,
Creme Booster: Water (Aqua) , Calcium Hydroxide , Propanediol , Ceteth-10 , Steareth-21 , Laureth-2 , Cetearyl Glucoside , CI 77288 (Chromium Oxide Greens)
As you can see everything is listed! The Creme booster which is the 'activator' is where all the magic happens is a milder form of Sodium Hydroxide called Calcium Hydroxide since this is a no-lye relaxer and that's what straightens the hair...if you use just the straightening Creme without the 'booster' your hair will remain the same!
You know where else LYE is found?? In your bathing soaps, washing liquid, bubble bath...anything that creates bubbles with water!! So how can something so wildly used in many products be so dangerous to the point that it's compared with another thing that has steroids, hydroquinone, mercury, acids!!
3. My third and final argument is bothered on the scope of use- this will also include the time frame! People that follow instructions on relaxer boxes know that the chemical should be used on only the new growth simple. The application should also be done in 30 minutes max if you are relaxing and 15 minutes for texlaxing, your previously processed hair is completely left out of the equation, In fact in my salon that part of the hair is drenched with regular conditioner, once the relaxer is washed out the process is complete...that's it till the next time you choose to use a relaxer!
Hair strands are dead cells, the chemical will not be absorbed into your blood stream no matter what except you are relaxing your scalp! That's why it's advised to base your scalp with petroleum jelly as a block if you have sensitive scalp or your stylist can't just relax the new growth.
Now let's switch and examine the scope with bleaching creams, they are used everywhere on the body if you want an even tone. Your skin is absorbing the cream and all it's chemicals into your blood stream, you take a bath and rub again, most cremes even advice that you avoid sun exposure which can cause burns as mentioned earlier, this cycle needs to be consistently pursued for any results to be seen...how is this scenario and the one I just painted above the same?!
You know what irks me about making uninformed statements? It's not so much the people that make them, it's the people hearing them that I'm bothered by! Sometimes people say things just to get a reaction from others or just for the sake of saying them but you need to think of how what you are saying will affect a decision of the person hearing it and that's why I always feel the need to address statements like this....gotten me in some deep water in the past but I truly can't help it...after reading that comment which got quite a few likes, I needed to come on here and put things straight in case any of my blog readers read that comment and got confused, scared or rattled!
Go natural for the right reasons and I'm the first to applaud...we deal with natural hair on a daily basis at the salon with great pleasure...In fact with the thickness I have going on with my hair I'm like a natural with say looser curls like 3c faked by my texlaxes!! LOL but going natural and making stuff up about using relaxers, I think is wrong. The information is out there ladies....no matter what you choose to do with your hair, the best advice I will give is to get informed and know what you are doing...that's what I'm here for and that's when you will see results!! Let's make this about healthy hair! I know that has been my consistent message!
Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to share your opinion on the top
