So, I tried to stop my breakage by using my replenishing conditioner, but it didn't really seem to help.
I'm thinking that my breakage isn't a moisture or protein problem, I think my hair is breaking because of heat damage. During my last trip to the salon (back in September) I had a different stylist doing my hair, she usually just does weaves but for some reason the lady who usually relaxes my hair was doing a weave which meant I had someone different doing my relaxer.
It didn't start off well, she took too long putting on the relaxer, it seemed like she was literally moving at a snails pace. It took her 20 minutes just to apply the relaxer to the back part of my hair (which is the half that relaxes easiest anyway, it's the front/crown of my hair that is more resistant) so before the hair at the front could be properly processed the back of my head started to burn. I told her so and she just said that the front wasn't relaxed yet so it couldn't be washed out. Needless to say, I did not just sit there with the back of my head burning, she rinsed out the back and left the front to relax for a bit longer.
Then came the heat. She blow dried my hair THREE times. I mean, she blow dried my hair dry, then added some product then blow dried my whole head again, then put in even more product then spent another 10 minutes blow drying my hair, like it wasn't dry the first time?!
Then she proceeded to straighten my hair. She straightened my hair in tiny sections and passed the straighteners over each section about 7-8 times. Usually, when I straighten my hair I pass the heat over each section 3 times MAX. Also, she likes to kind of curl the ends of the hair up, which is fine, I don't usually have a problem with that. But she curled the ends of my hair up so much that my hair was actually poking me in the eye. I refused to leave the salon like that and told her it was too much, so she then went over all of my hair again to straighten it out more. I don't know what temperature she sets the straighteners to but I have a feeling they were at their hottest. By the time she was done my hair just smelt burnt, that's literally all I could smell the whole week that my hair was straightened. My hair felt extremely dry and my breakage has been ridiculous since then.
I decided when I walked out of the salon that I would learn to relax my own hair, it's way cheaper and I didn't want to go through all of that again.
Back to the breakage... Now, I'm kind of scared of protein, I got protein overload right at the beginning of my journey because I didn't really know much about how protein worked at the time. Since then I've been pretty wary of protein but I've decided to do a hard protein treatment, using Nexxus Emergencee, tomorrow since it will be my last wash before my relaxer and because I think my hair just needs the protein to repair all of the heat damage and that will hopefully stop the breakage.
Fingers crossed that it goes well.
