How To's to a Virgin Hair Relaxer

A hair relaxer is a way to chemically straighten your hair. Many people do relaxers for long term straightening of the hair. When doing a Hair relaxer you have to decide if you will be doing a virgin relaxer or a retouch relaxer. A virgin relaxer is when the hair has never been processed with any chemicals such as previous relaxers, color, perms, hair lightening treatments etc.. any thing that can alter the natural effect of the hair. Making sure you client has not done any of the services prior to getting a relaxer is very important because if they have had any of these services in a certain time period than you client will be at risk of their hair having breakage and or falling out.

We will be talking about the steps you should go over when doing a virgin relaxer.
First when giving a client a relaxer you want to give them a patch test to make sure they are not allergic to the relaxer. You can do this by applying a little amount of relaxer to the back of the neck by the ear, leave it there for about five minutes just to see if they have any redness or irritation on the skin. If they do they might be sensitive to the product, and you can use another product. Also making sure they have not put any extra tension on the hair such as braids and ponytails. This added tension is stretching the hair out of its natural state and when relaxed can cause it to break.

Start with taking protective cream and applying it all around the hair line and over the ears. Protective cream can be Vaseline or cholesterol cream. Section the hair in a T part so you will have four sections. Mix your relaxer if it is needed if not you want to clip up all sections but the one you will be starting with. You want to start with the most resistant area of the head first. For each person it's different some may be the front others the back of the head. Generally you want to start with the back if you are not sure what area is most resistant. With your first section take 1/4" inch horizontal sections and apply the relaxer from the root which is up by the scalp to the ends of the hair working on both sides the top of the sections and bottom. Continue up the head with that section letting it hang loosely not compacted together. Go over to the next section in the back if you started in the back. You want to continue with the 1/4" inch sections through the whole head.

After you have completed applying the relaxer to the whole head you will start smoothing the relaxer for the remainder of the time. You can do this by taking the backbone of the comb and gently running it over the hair to make sure there is no waves in the hair. Once that is done and your clients processing time has reached you may start to rinse the relaxer out with luke warm water (processing time is different for each texture of hair). You want to rise for at least five min before following up with the neutralizing shampoo. Neutralizing shampoo is a shampoo that is used to stop the chemical process that is being done and also to restore the natural pH of the hair. Some of the neutralizing Shampoos are color coded witch indicates that there is still relaxer in the hair. If so it will change colors letting you know to continue washing out the hair. You will then continue with conditioner, drying and styling your clients hair as requested.