Welcome to It’s Textured, the column where we unpack the joy, trauma, confusion, and frustration that comes with Black hair. This month, writer Kayla Greaves delves into the controversial practice of heat training and all the cultural nuances and effects it entails on hair health.
I had no idea what my hair texture was (or even felt) like until I was in my early 20s. Like many black women, I have a complicated relationship with my hair. For most of my life, I never felt like I was in control of the way my hair looked. From about age 4 until I was 23, my hair was straightened, but it wasn’t my choice. In the late ’90s, it was pretty common for black mothers to chemically straighten their daughters’ hair. At that age, I had no say. Done Have a say.
My mom was the one who did my hair, so she set the rules. Even after I was in my 20s, long after I started styling my own hair, the rules still seemed to be there. I continued to use relaxers for no particular reason other than that’s the way I was programmed to do it.
Then came the second wave of the natural hair movement in the early 2010s, fueled by YouTubers and bloggers. Everywhere I went, I saw black women proudly wearing their voluminous curls. And for the first time, I began to wonder what my hair would look like. actually I thought about what I wanted my hair to look like: I stopped using relaxers and focused on accentuating my natural texture, which I found to be a task that took a lot of time and energy.
Fourteen years later, a reverse revolution seems to be happening in some ways. While there’s no doubt that natural curls and frizz are more accepted than ever, many black women still choose to charm As we’ve reported before, people who are more and more fond of straight hair are turning to chemical treatments like relaxers, texturizers, and keratin treatments to achieve it. More recently, “heat training” has become a buzzword for maintaining straight hair.
While black women have been straightening their hair frequently for decades, the term heat training applies to the choice to intentionally “train” their hair to withstand more modern heat styling methods like silk presses and blowouts. There doesn’t appear to be a single agreed-upon method for heat training, but it typically involves frequent use of a straightening device like a straightening iron (or a hot comb, if you’re going old-fashioned) to loosen up the natural texture of the hair. In theory, this allows the hair to get used to the heat, which in turn allows it to hold a straight style for longer periods of time without developing typical signs of damage like curl, frizz, dryness, split ends, and uneven texture.
Source: Allure – www.allure.com
