To press or not to press...*shrugs*

I'm not a natural "nazi" as some people call them. You know the one's who shun fellow naturals from hiding their hair under wigs, weaves and extensions saying that you're ashamed of your hair. To me having natural hair is all about the versatility of doing whatever you feel like doing. Well this post is inspired  from Essence's "blog" posting by Anthony Dickey, which he used to promote his new product line for women trying to maintain the health and texture of their hair. Who Do You Want to Be Today?

I for one didn't find it as informative as I expected, but hey it did help with me wanting to at least add on to it. I would try to trust a stylist, but some of these stylist will singe the living daylights out of your hair since some are not trained to properly handle natural hair. Believe me I have had to tell certain beauticians not to just straight up use the blow dryer, and place me under the dryer to pre-dry (love my high school stylist for teaching me this). This way I don't have the dryer from Hades burning my scalp and my hair. Nothing like feeling like you have flames on your scalp to make you feel insecure about the person handling your hair.

Here are some tools a person would need to press their hair (I personally like the roller set and then running a flat iron over it to smooth the roots). Remember to ALWAYS start with clean hair!:

 A good heat protectant...like that should be a given. You could either use this product, its Sally's "cousin" made by GVP, or good ol' coconut oil. Use sparingly!

A good Ionic blow dryer...This prevents you from using half of the heat required to dry the hair, and makes the process quicker eliminating frizz and heat damage. Try air drying the hair in sections instead of applying heat to soaking wet hair, and plus to also cut back on the drying time.

Next you'll need a good brush to help along with the smoothing/straightening process. I pick this one because I lost mine, and now haven't been able to find a replacement at my local Wal-mart and Tarjay (with the exception of looking on Amazon of course).

A ceramic flat iron, that has a controllable heat setting. Nothing like messing up all of that good prep work just for you to singe your hair on an iron that is too hot. My suggestion is to do a check on the iron by using a damp washcloth. If it turns brown, you just might want to turn it down a notch. Better to be safe than sorry.

Hope this little bit of information helps with safely straightening your hair.