Hair straightening is the most common way of styling hair and women just love the look of sleek, simple, and tangle-free hair. If you’re thinking about straightening your wet hair because you’re in a pinch, you should know that all hair straightening salons suggest otherwise. You should flat iron dry hair only.
Straightening Wet Hair
Straightening wet hair doesn’t seem like a problem. You just hopped out of the shower and wanted to style your hair immediately. What may be wrong? Well, everything! Wet hair and heat don’t go together at all and straightening wet hair is like adding gasoline to an already blazing fire. Wet hair usually can’t be straightened and even if you try to, you will damage your hair to no extent. So, you shouldn’t try.
Side Effects Of Straightening Wet Hair
These are exactly the things that you will experience when you try to straighten wet hair.
A Mountain Of Frizz
Frizz will be a huge issue when you style wet hair. First of all, heat will make your hair sizzle and you can even hear the sound, but that’s not even the worst part. This sizzling is the hair getting fried and damaged and ultimately it will lead to frizz.
Your hair will stick up in the most random of places and you won’t be able to settle it down. What’s alarming is that frizz will become permanent if you keep this habit up.
Endless Damage
Heat will do damage of epic proportions, especially if your hair is wet. Wet hair is already quite fragile and if you’re putting it through the torture of heat, then you better kiss your hair goodbye at this point, because your hair will be damaged, fried, and extremely dry. A heat protectant also won’t be able to protect your hair from the damage train that’s about to hit your hair head-on.
Hair Doesn’t Get Straight
This is amusing and surprising at the same time. Wet hair actually won’t get straight, even if you style it on the highest heat setting. Wet hair isn’t structured at all, and the water prevents the heating tool from holding the style in place. So, even after spending a good chunk of time on straightening your wet hair, it will go down the drain, because your hair won’t be able to hold the straight style for even 5 minutes.
Do you want to put your hair through this? If the answer is no, then wait until the hair is completely dry because you’ll just be wasting your time and energy.
Premature Graying
Along with damage, straightening wet hair can also cause your mane to turn gray. This is just one of the drawbacks of heat styling your hair frequently, in general, but with wet hair, the effects will be multiplied. It’s better if you don’t straighten your hair when it’s wet because it’s going to turn your healthy hair into a hideous shade of gray.
Instead of looking like someone who’s aging at a rapid speed, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Just wait it out until your hair is dry and then use a hot straightening tool.
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Hair Fall
Your hair, when it’s wet, is also prone to breakage. When you tug on your wet hair while straightening it, it’s going to cause breakage, from the root of the hair as well as the middle of the shaft. If you want to test it, you can try a strand test as well. Take your hair when it’s wet and try to pull a strand. It will immediately break.
However, when you dry your hair, the strand is elastic and even though it will break when you pull it with force, it will resist for the most part.
Rough Texture
If you straighten wet hair frequently, then another thing that you might notice is the fact that your hair is rough and not smooth at all. This is the damage surfacing on the hair and now it’s noticeable to everyone. You can easily figure it out when you run your fingers through your mane and feel the roughness of the hair. It’s not pleasant at all, and it’s going to lead to even more damage and hair fall.
Alternatives To Straightening Wet Hair
Straightening wet hair is completely out of the question. Here are some other things that you can try:
Blow Dry Instead
You might think that blow drying your hair will also be damaging, but in reality, it’s no way near as harsh as a straightener. Blow dryers use a powerful gust of air that’s hot and the hair isn’t in direct contact with the hot air, so it doesn’t damage the hair nearly as much as a straightener that sandwiches a strand of hair between two very hot plates. So, if you’re running late and can’t wait to air-dry your hair, then a blow dryer will be your best friend.
Air-Dry Completely
This is something that’s highly recommended even if you’re pressed for time. Air-drying is great for the hair because there is no damage, you can run your fingers through the mane to make the process quicker and when the hair is completely dry, you can use any styling method to get picture-perfect hair.
A lot of women don’t have the time to let their hair air-dry and they tend to blow dry it in a hurry because they fear that there won’t be enough volume. There is an easy fix for this problem too. Just tie your wet hair into a top-knot and once it completely dries, let it down and get surprised by the volume.
Be Prepared In Advance
If you want to wake up with straight hair, that doesn’t need a lot of touch-ups, then get done with straightening it the night before. Straighten the dry hair at night and secure your hair into an updo by wrapping the strands over your head in opposite directions and securing them in place with pins.
Wear a silk cap on your head to prevent friction from the bedsheets. Once you wake up, you can unravel the strands to straight hair.
Use Low Heat
This tip applies to dry hair only, because with wet hair, you won’t be able to get straight hair, no matter how much heat you use. When your hair is partially dry, apply a bit of heat protectant to seal the hair cuticles and prevent heat from penetrating deep into the strand. Then, use a hair straightener on low heat and run it over your strands.
Once that is done, take the heat up a notch and go over the strands again. Your hair will look like it has been straightened professionally.
Conclusion
Straightening wet hair isn’t recommended at all unless you want to damage your hair. So, you should wait it out and let your hair air-dry before you let it near a hot styling tool. In case you don’t want to straighten your hair every day you can choose a permanent hair straightening by going to a Brazilian keratin salon Rockville.