By lightening your hair, bleaching enables you to experiment with vibrant hair colors or go blonde. Additionally, you may need to straighten your hair after bleaching if you want to take it a step further and get sleek and flawless bleached manes.
Harsh and strong chemicals are used during hair straightening and bleaching, which might be damaging to your mane. So, is it possible to further straighten your bleached hair without damaging the hair?
The hair cuticle is opened by the bleaching agent, leaving your hair strands more vulnerable to damage. Therefore, using both tools such as flat iron or chemical straightening processes to straighten your bleached hair may risk leaving it dry, frizzy, and damaged.
How well your hair has healed after bleaching will, however, determine this. Additionally, what kind of straightening method do you use, and how healthy is your hair?
So after bleaching your hair, can you still straighten it?
The chemicals in bleach disintegrate the cuticle, a protective covering that surrounds your hair, allowing them to penetrate to the central layer where they oxidize the melanin.
Your hair becomes light, porous, and fragile as a result of this process, which weakens the bonds inside the hair shaft and eliminates some keratin.
It may not be not a good idea to straighten your hair with either heat or chemicals just after bleaching. It is advisable to wait a while, let your bleached hair recuperate, and then straighten it since doing so will make your mane dry and frizzy and even induce hair loss.
Although you may extend the period as long as you want, you should wait at least 14 days before attempting to use any chemical relaxants to straighten your bleached hair.
If you don’t have the time to wait that long, you may try utilizing the methods in this article to smooth your hair after bleaching.
Can Bleached Hair Be Chemically Straightened?
Chemicals used in hair straightening relax the curls and frizz by disintegrating the hydrogen and disulphide bonds in the hair shafts. Your hair is then treated with a neutralizing solution to enable these bonds to repair, giving you smooth, straight hair.
Like other chemical hair treatments, this one also does some harm to your mane.
Therefore, using chemicals to straighten your hair after bleaching it within the day or a few hours ago might dry out or damage your hair, making it more vulnerable to problems like hair breakage. Chemically straightening your hair may go wrong, particularly if it is already brittle and fine from being bleached.
The health of your bleached hair is the major factor. By examining the porosity of your locks, you can determine their strength.
Nonetheless, you may still chemically straighten your hair after bleaching if you receive positive strand test results. But don’t use chemicals on your hair if it isn’t sufficiently healthy.
Your bleached hair cannot be straightened with any particular product, lotion, or cream without damaging it. Even the supposedly safe keratin treatment uses severely drying chemicals on your hair. Therefore, regardless of the hair straightening product you use, anticipate some damage.
A few creams and lotions, however, are made specifically to straighten bleached hair with the least amount of damage. They provide hydrating and moisturizing properties on hair and are devoid of harsh chemicals like formaldehyde.
Nevertheless, there are also some gentle keratin-based straightening products that will blend in well with your bleached hair.
Use Olaplex when bleaching relaxed hair in order to straighten your bleach hair in a more affordable manner.
We advise you to let your bleached hair rest for at least a week or two before using chemicals to straighten it, or even using certain straightening products.
After bleaching your hair, can you flat iron it?
After bleaching, you may use the flat iron to straighten your hair if your hair is still healthy enough with the positive porosity. However, is it advisable first to nourish and hydrate your mane. Additionally, employing heat protectants is crucial to preventing hair damage.
Use one of the methods below to evaluate the condition of your hair after bleaching:
- To determine whether your hair stretches and bounces back fast after wetting it. Weak hair does not contract or spring back again.
- By snipping a sample of your hair ends and placing them in a glass of water, you may determine the porosity of your hair. If they soak in water and are submerged within five minutes, this means that the hair is more porous. Hair strands are weaker when the porosity is higher.
After bleaching your hair, wait a few minutes before flat ironing it. It will be beneficial to let your mane rest for a day or two.
During this period of time, use a moisturizing and nourishing serum or oil. Following that, you may flat iron your bleached hair, but be sure to first use a heat protectant.
However, if your hair is delicate and damaged by the bleach, we advise that you hydrate and nourish it for a few weeks before using a flat iron.
How Can Bleached Hair Be Safely Straightened?
The middle layer of hair, commonly known as the medulla, is attacked by bleach, a harsh intruder that penetrates through the cuticle to open the hair strand and destroys many bonds to oxidise the melanin.
Because it removes moisture and natural oils from your hair, this procedure poses a serious risk to cause further dryness of the hair. Additionally, it strips certain proteins from the hair shaft, leaving it harsh and fragile.
Going through another chemical treatment to straighten bleached hair after all of this might cause damage to your hair.
As a result, you need a more reliable and secure method to complete the straightening. You may follow the instructions listed below in that respect.
- Allow enough time for your hair to heal from bleach
There is no set time after bleaching that you must wait before chemically straightening your hair. Some experts advise a month, while others advise two weeks.
The condition of your mane after bleaching will thus determine everything. How would you know that, too?
The strength of your hair strands may be checked using a variety of procedures. Once you’ve finished verifying, go forward appropriately. After 14 days, you can straighten hair that has little damage.
- Moisturize and Nourish It
Your bleached hair will need a lot of moisturizing and nourishing to become more resilient. The following methods work for doing this.
- Employ coconut oil often. It has short-chain fatty acids in it that the hair shaft can quickly absorb. Additionally, it has proteins that coat the hair follicle and makes up for protein loss during bleaching.
- Reduce how often you wash your hair so that the natural oil may accumulate in your scalp and mane.
- Apply rice water (rice boiled in water) on your hair to treat it with keratin protein.
- Apply quality shea moisture masks.
- Use moderate shampoo and steer clear of heat styling.
- Select A Milder Straightening Technique
You may still straighten your hair using some methods, such as using chemical relaxants, keratin treatments, rebonding, and thermal straightening. Different amounts of chemicals are used in each of these methods.
We advise you to straighten your bleached hair using the gentler and milder method. Some of the products that might be useful to you were listed above.
Alternatives include a Brazilian blowout, provided the products don’t use formaldehyde. How did you discover that?
Visit a specialist to have her determine the limits of your hair strand. After bleaching your hair, she will advise you on the safest technique to straighten it.
Conclusion
Wait if you recently bleached your hair and want to chemically or thermally straighten it to make it sleek and silky. While bleached hair may be straightened, your mane may be further damaged.
To determine if your hair can handle more chemical treatments, we advise first assessing its condition. Allow your mane a week or two to nourish and moisturise it after the bleaching. Visit a specialist to get professional advice.
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