What is the difference between straighteners and relaxers

If your hair is manageable, then you can straighten it in a few minutes in front of the bathroom mirror. One of the biggest problems with unruly hair is how much time you spend trying to control it. With the Japanese method, you can regain control of your hair and save yourself from frustration permanently.

Especially curly hair can have traumatic experiences with permanent straightening methods. Certain types of hair like Afro-American hair might have trouble adopting the treatment. If your hair is exceptionally curly, you will be better off with a relaxer and then straightening later on.

Many hair treatments will require intense straightening, rinsing, and blow-drying. Most hair relaxing treatments just involve sitting with the product in your hair for a while and then rinsing it out.

When you have your hair relaxed instead of straightened, it gives you more style options. You can keep some of your curls or go completely straight. Previous post: Anti-Animal testing group agrees with the Beauty Brains. Flat iron or relaxing: which damages your hair more? Left Brain straighteners her out : Great question Monica. How Hair Straightening Processes Work While relaxers and flat irons can give you similar styles, they work in completely different ways.

Relaxing causes much more damage thus leading to more hair loss via breakage than flat irons. Your hair has a natural cycle where you lose about hairs naturally each day. Neither relaxing or flat irons will affect this hair loss. You might notice more hair loss while flat ironing but that just because you pull out hairs that would have fallen out on their own.

If your scalp is exposed to the chemicals in relaxers for too long, it can burn you and cause permanent hair loss. Should You Relax? These include More permanent Easier to do if you have a stylist More consistent results Less prone to negative humidity effects On the other had, being more permanent might be a negative to some.

The Beauty Brains Bottom line: Both relaxing and flat ironing damage hair, but relaxing is much worse. Furry Lee September 30, , pm. Joan C. Quinn October 16, , pm. Walter B. Havens November 10, , am. W January 8, , am. Linda February 25, , am. When some ionized thiol groups -S - are present in this structure, the covalent link may be involved in a reversible reaction of sulfhydryl-sulfide interchange, resulting in curls.

If the new sulfide bond is at a lower level of physical stress or without any stress, the reaction is favored toward its direction, 3 resulting in the relaxation of the initial stress and in a new, extended keratin chain structure. This reaction, if sufficiently extended, causes hair straightening. Therefore, this interchange favors the breakdown of bonds under stress and the creation of new bonds in equilibrium with the extended system.

However, even one thiol group may progressively be involved in the exchange of many stressed disulfide bonds and be constantly replaced at each interchange.

It is necessary that the weakly acidic thiol groups are in the ionized form, because only the ionic species -S- can start such reaction, while the non-ionized form SH is not reactive. This is why the reactions between disulfide groups and ionized thiols generally need to be conducted in strong alkaline conditions. To speed up the straightening process, more sulfhydryl groups must be created in the system with chemical reactions that are conducted on the disulfide bonds of the keratin chains.

Usually, thiol-bearing molecules like thioglycolic acid or other reducing molecules perform such disulphide-thiol exchange reactions with the hair keratin, which lead to hair straightening. While many cosmetic categories address the general population, the hair care industry is split into general market and ethnic market segments. The need to straighten very curly hair is typical of the ethnic hair care market segment. Hair relaxing, or lanthionization, is a chemical process whereby excessively curly hair is permanently relaxed.

The term lanthionization derives from the molecule lanthionine, the monosulfide analog of cysteine that is produced during the treatment.

To efficiently relax hair, strong alkaline systems are used with pH 12— In Europe, the hydroxide maximum allowed is 4. The sodium hydroxide based relaxers are called lye relaxers, while all other relaxers are termed no-lye relaxers. No-base relaxers are a subdivision of lye relaxers. They are milder to the scalp and do not require protecting it by oil or butters, while base relaxers require the application of a protective coating layer prior to the relaxer itself, creating a barrier on the skin to avoid excessive chemical aggression.

In addition, there are two subdivisions of no-lye relaxers, mix and no-mix, the latter requiring the mixing of the activator into the relaxer cream. All relaxers types: The physical form of product relaxer formulation is important for its performance, irrespective of it belonging to the lye or no-lye category. A smooth and non-pasty emulsion form is the preferred vehicle to maximize the ease of application without hindering the smoothing process. Fluid creams can envelop the entire hair shaft and perform their action efficiently during the time of application.

Oils and emulsifiers in the formula need to be stable in such strong chemical conditions. For this reason, chemically non-reactive petrolatum, mineral oil or, more recently, hydrogenated polydecenes, polyisobutenes or even dimethicones are used in combination with cetyl alcohol as the emulsion stabilizer.

The emulsifier choice and amount utilized in the formula are important for the relaxing performance. The emulsifier works as a wetting agent for the hair, and a good wetting of the hair shaft is necessary to speed up the relaxing action onto the keratin chains.

In addition, the amount of emulsifier used should be as low as possible to get an immediate emulsion breakdown when the product is distributed onto the hair. The typically trivial hurdle of formula stabilization is, in this case, more complicated than usual. The high amount of oil phase required for efficient scalp protection and the ionic strength of highly alkaline solutions make stabilization difficult.

In addition, the emulsifier works as a wetting agent for the hair. For these two reasons, the stabilizer might be used in formulae at higher concentrations than those strictly necessary for the emulsion stabilization. Generally, propoxylated and ethoxylated stearyl chains are used to alter the solubility and the flow characteristics of the emulsion to enhance stability.

Relaxers are made to "relax" the curl completely, resulting in bone-straight strands. This sometimes results in over-processing and can leave the hair with less elasticity and little or no body.

For that reason, a lot of people who choose to texturize their hair do so because they want to easily switch between straight and curly or wavy styles. With help from a curl-defining styling product or a straightening product, you can easily alternate between curly days and straight.

Overall, a texturizer can cut down on style time and make the strands a little more manageable in a humid climate. Texturizers simply give better "curly" results on some hair textures than others.

For instance, Z-shaped curls do not typically respond well to texturizers, though they do work well with relaxers. And while they can be helpful in loosening tighter curl patterns, texturizers can't create a curly texture where it doesn't already exist. With either of these processes, it's important to avoid over-processing your hair. If you remain vigilant about the chemicals used, the product is used properly, and you properly maintain your hair following the treatment, you can avoid serious problems like breakage and hair loss.

Qualified stylists who care about the health of their clients' hair can typically get consistent results with relaxers, and even texturizers, although the latter tend to be a bit trickier. While relaxers work well on S-shaped curls and Z-shaped curls, honest stylists should advise clients about unpredictable results from texturizers on Z-shaped textures. For the best results, you should go to a professional stylist.

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