Firstly, when I say ‘relaxer’ I mean relaxer, texturiser and texlaxer. Just submit with whatever applies to you.

Before you start, go through the list below. Answer every question with YES or NO.

Have you scratched your scalp in the past week?
Are the pores in your scalp open? This can happen when you sweat.
Do you have any scalp wounds, sores or cuts?
Have you got a neutraliser kit?

If you answered YES to the first three questions, DON’T relax your hair this week, or month if you can wait that long. If you do, you risk serious burns and hair loss in certain cases. Wait at least a week and come back. If you answered NO to the final question, you’re risking hair loss by continuing. Get to the shop and buy some neutraliser shampoo BEFORE relaxing.

To relax, you need the following items:

Vaseline/grease
When you separate your hair before applying chemicals, you need to rub vaseline/hair grease onto the areas of skin that might come into contact with the relaxer. By skin I mean your scalp, behind your ears, and around your hair line.

Gloves and mask
Gloves protect the person relaxing your hair’s hands. A mask will make the process bearable for those who do not like the chemicals’ strong smell.

Mirror
Tired of relying on hairdressers? If no family member or friend is available to do your hair, use a mirror to do the job yourself. Self-applications make women feel rejuvenated after spending hours relying on others. Now everything can move at YOUR pace, not someone else’s.

Clock/stopwatch
I would recommend using a stopwatch instead of a clock. Sometimes you forget what time you started, and then you have to work out how long ago you started. Let a stopwatch do the work for you. You should have one on your mobile/cell phone if you don’t have a digital watch.

Two towels
The first towel is for draping over your shoulders while your hair is being relaxed. You never know when a blob of relaxer will drop down, so don’t let it come into contact with your skin. The second towel is for drying your hair after you have washed the relaxer and conditioner out of your hair.

Neutralising shampoo
MOST IMPORTANT!! If you ignore everything else, do not ignore this tool. Every relaxer box I have ever purchased supplied a bottle in the box, but I have heard of others where no shampoo was included. BEFORE relaxing make sure that you have neutralising shampoo. Go through the box and make sure everything on the leaflet provided is in the box.

If the manufacturers did not provide the shampoo, you need to go to the shop and buy some separately. Normal shampoo is NOT an alternative because neutralising shampoo is designed to balance out the high ph factor relaxers/texts cause. If this balance is not restored, your hair will break/drop out. However, I used to use my normal shampoo after using the neautraliser, just to help wash out the relaxer and its smell.

Conditioner
This is usually supplied with your relaxer. This helps to restore the moisture balance to her hair, which was helpful for me in the past because the chemicals could be quite drying at times. They always smell nice, so the relaxer’s smell is masked.

Comb/Brush/Fingers
Use any of these to detangle your hair. You shouldn’t chemically process knotted or tangled hair. It will just cause more damage.

Hair clips/hair bands
Separate them into two groups. The first should be used to keep the hair separate when you are relaxing the different sections. The second is for styling your hair when it’s dry ad chemically processed. Do not use the first group until you have washed the relaxer off, or the chemicals will keep working and break your hair off.

The process

The process of relaxing and texturising/texlaxing hair involves leaving chemicals on the hair for a certain period of time. The procedure should go something like this:

1. 24 hrs before you start, test the chemical applicator on your skin, just in case you turn out to be allergic.

2. VERY IMPORTANT: Read the instructions applied with your chemical applicator kit.

3. Separate the hair into 4-6 different sections, or more if necessary.

4. Comb the different sections until all of the knots have gone.

5. Start your stopwatch.

6. As quickly as possible, apply the relaxer/texturiser/texlaxer to your hair.

7. After a set amount of time- as specified in the leaflet that should be applied with your application kit- wash the chemicals out.

8. Use NEUTRALISING shampoo supplied with product to rinse hair. DO NOT wash shampoo out hair of hair straight away or the shampoo will not have enough time to work. Wait for 5-10 minutes. If the shampoo is washed out too soon, the remaining chemicals will keep working and cause breakage.

9. Condition and rinse the hair.

10. Blow dry or air dry the hair. You can gently squeeze out excess water with a towel.

When all is said and done, style your hair and look fabulous! Why not upgrade your wardrobe to match your lovely new hairstyles?