Raechele Cochran Gathers, MD It’s not a rumor. You can lose your kinks and curls from too much heat. Let’s discuss what causes heat damaged hair that won’t revert back to your natural curls, and how you can try to fix it.
Causes of Heat Damage
Even if your hair is naturally very curly or kinky, too much heat can cause heat damage and loss of your curls by denaturing the proteins of your hair and breaking the natural bonds in your hair.Denaturing a protein means to make it lose its shape. Your hair is made of a protein called keratin. Typically, curly natural hair is in a helical (coiled) shape. A denatured protein will lose this natural shape.
Denaturing and damaging the proteins in your hair will make it so that your hair will not revert back to its curly or coily state and will look straight and limp. It will lose some or all of its natural ability to coil and curl.
In natural hair, the proteins in your hair exist in a coiled shape called an alpha helix. The curls in your hair are held together by both hydrogen and disulfide bonds. Hydrogen bonds can be broken by water or heat. That is why flat ironing curly natural hair will temporarily straighten it, and why wetting it again will make it become curly once more.
Hydrogen bonds are broken by heat (dotted lines)
Relaxers are known to permanently break the disulfide (covalent) bonds in the hair—leading to a straighter strand. But too much heat can also permanently straighten out your hair by destroying the shape of the proteins of your hair, making it difficult for the bonds to reform and for the coiled/curled shape to re-establish itself.
How to Fix Heat Damage
1. Protein
Protein treatments may help to support the repair of damaged hair. Remember, heat damage can make your hair’s proteins lose their shape. Adding protein can help build up weak spots in the hair and fill in gaps in the hair structure. Both ApHogee and Palmers have popular protein treatments that might help you with heat damaged hair.
2. Hydrate
If your hair is heat damaged, remember that water is your friend. Don’t go too long between washing/conditioning sessions. Hydrated hair will have better elasticity. More elastic hair is less likely to snap and break when you comb it. Read more on preventing dry hair here.
3. Avoid Ingredient No-No’s
Choosing the right hair care products is key to recovering your hair’s health, elasticity and natural curl. Avoid products with petrolatum and mineral oil. They coat the hair and prevent needed hydration from being absorbed into the hair shaft. Read our ingredient do’s and don’ts here.
Avoiding Heat Damage
1. Avoid Excessive Heat
When straightening your hair, try to keep your flat iron at 350º or lower. Use a ceramic flat iron with dialed temperature control.
2. Don’t Apply Heat Too Often
Try not to use heat on your hair more than once weekly. Some women use a little heat every morning to straighten their edges or ends. If you can, try to avoid this. For many, the ha is too fragile for daily heat.
3. Always Use a Heat Protectant
Heat protectants are a line of defense between your hair and the flat iron. They are essential for protecting the delicate proteins in your hair. Here is a heat protectant to consider.
