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Straightening for thick curly hair

Submitted by Candy

I have very thick, coarse curly hair and it's taken me years to get a straightening system down. Here's what I came up with.

First, I wash my hair thoroughly to get all products out. Then I condition with a cheap conditioner, then repeat shampoo and condition-this time with the more expensive products. I prefer to use pantene pro-v shampoo and tresemme conditioner, heavy on the conditioner. Sometimes I will condition and rinse 3 or 4 times to get my hair as soft as possible. Then I gently pat my hair dry with a towel, brush out the tangles using a de-tangler solution (conditioner mixed with water) and twist the hair into a hairclip. 

Doing that keeps the hair from poofing while air drying. Once all of my hair is completely dry, I take small sections, about an inch at a time, and go over and over with a hot (very hot) flat iron. Make sure your hair is completely dry or it will fry bigtime! Sometimes I add a little conditioner to each section of hair after the flat iron to smooth out frizzies, but not enough to wet it. 

Wetting it only makes it curl again. Just enough to smooth it over. Do that to your whole head, the flat iron of one inch at a time, then a small tiny amount of conditioner for smoothing-you can always touch up later. Once you have your straight, smooth silky hair, I find that styling with hot rollers give beautiful body and slight, large soft curls back into the hair. 

For me, my hair is thick and shoulder length and this process takes about 2 1/2-3 hours to complete. As a note, gold-plated flat irons are the best and ethnic conditioners and styling products are supreme if you can get them. American products are water based so they tend to curl your hair easily. Ethnic products work very well against the effects of water to give you a longer lasting style.

Visitors comments

I have thick and curly hair too!! Comments By: Nikki on 2004-11-20 Im glad im not the only one who has the same hair type as me. i find it a pain in the morning when i do my hair and it tends to go static. If anyone has the same problem as me and knows a solution to keep hair static free, can you please e-mail me on 50318@newark.ac.uk. thank you. bye!!!   I'm with you Comments By: Lindsey on 2004-11-22 I'm with you Candy and Nikki! my hair is sooo frizzy and big, and it takes me forever to straighten it! My system is similar to yours Candy, i use lots of condidtioner. I never knew if there was someone out there like me with big, frizzy hair, but I guess there is!   hi Comments By: Laura on 2005-01-09 Urghh same here, except I can't be bothered with trying to straighten it every day.   I Agree Comments By: Anon on 2005-02-22 I agree with you people I have frizzy hair too it takes me about 2 hours to straighten it.   Straightening for curly thick frizzy hair Comments By: nancy on 2005-05-27 You know I have very coarse, very very thick curly hair and I have battled with finding a solution that tames my hair somewhat. I finally found a solution. I recently had my hair thermally reconditioned and it worked beautifully. I am a customer for life. It is expensive-anywhere from $250-700 dollars depending on your hair type and where you go. I had mine done and it took about 5 hours and paid 700.00. My twin just got hers done at this place where i noticed a lady offering the service for $250.00. Her results were also fantastic and for a lot less. I am going to start this as my birthday and mother's day gift to myself. Anyway, it lasts for anywhere from 9 months -1 year. There is a lot of info. on it on the web. I encourage you to research thoroughly before you decide if this is something for you. Good Luck. Sisters in Sufferage.   Im not alone wooooooooohhooooo Comments By: Pure on 2005-08-13 I have the same hair, and I straighten as much as possible, But I find it drys out my hair even more. My hairdresser told me to only wash my hair twice a week and so thats what i do. As far as the static, try a shine booster one thats not too greasy. I have to use salon products on my hair at all times, normal "drug store" shampoo and conditioner just makes my hair worse. Anyone have any advice on hair like ours   try this! Comments By: sakurakero on 2007-12-15 i have thick naturally curly hair i get it lightly layered to make it a lil thinner and i wash my hair every 3 days with charles worthington dream hair shampoo and conditioner its about £5.38 a bottle but its very good i use plenty of conditioner. you can get some great products by him. i then towel dry, brush it and use charles worthington straightening cream to blow dry my hair and yes it goes wild from that but i comb through it and use WIDE plated remington hair straigteners about £30 up full heat and a heat protection spray and section my hair. it lasts 2-3 days even when put up. will work even if hair is not layered. don't put heat protection spray any higher than an inch towards ur scalp makes it look greasy.   thick curly hair Comments By: curly haired girl. on 2009-12-31 urgh same, i have thick curly hair, really curly. And i hate to wash it because i know that i'll have to straighten it again, and i really cant be bothered - it just takes so long! But yes i wash my hair every 2/3 days. My hair starts off dead straight and then i go out in the wind and my hair just goes curly again, also im trying to decide between nikki clark and ghd iv salon stylers... the ones they use in hairdressers, but i dont know which straighteners will be best for me, any help? x   curly hair Comments By: same person as above on 2009-12-31 syrum doesnt work either   This iz Crazy Comments By: Jasmine Smith on 2010-02-18 Im glad im not the only one who has to deal with this people are always telling me how much they love my hair and how I should love it. Its not that I dont love it but who wants to deal with it 24/7? I just now got to where I can straighten it myself i bought it from the mall its called the herstyler it works great for me but it still takes myself about 2 and a half hours to straighten my hair it works pretty good but thanks anyways for the info :D nice to know im not alone Â