Hair Talk: The Devil That is Heat Damage

Hi loves! Here I am again with another hair-related setback!  This one is even more devastating than the first.  The last one I talked about here when I had my hair colored late last year.  This time it is something I never really dealt with before in 3 years of being natural---heat damage.

I went to the stylist who did that crazy color job I talked about previously only because my other stylist was not available.  I figured it would not be another catastrophe because he had done my hair for 12 years prior to that and I was just letting him straighten it this time, not coloring it.  He had straightened my hair in the past numerous times and had always done a great job.  This time, not so much.

Red flag #1 was that after he shampooed and conditioned my hair, he immediately pull out his hand-held blow dryer and proceeded to use high heat on my sopping wet hair.  No attempt to detangle or anything.

I should have said something but, I didn't (lesson learned). After cringing and praying that my hair would be okay, when he was done he said, "I don't like how your ends are looking. I'll trim and we can do some protein treatments".  My color is growing out so, I just assumed that maybe it was due to damage from the color perhaps.

The day that I left the salon, my hair did not feel right.  There was no bounce, swang...nothing.  My hair felt limp and weighed down. My hair is pretty thick  and I only straightened my hair once every few months so, this time I knew that my hair had been damaged solely from this salon visit.

A few days ago, I decided to shampoo my hair and deep condition it with my Huetiful steamer and Carol's Daughter Treatment masque.  While shampooing in the shower, I noticed that when I was running my fingers through my hair too easily. I rinsed and rinsed some more hoping that my curls would come back.  I hopped out of the shower to take a look and I could not believe what I saw!  What the hell?

I do not have pictures of my wet hair because I was in tears! I have never seen such damage on my head before and I could not believe that my 3 1/2 year natural journey of being natural seemed like it was all in vain.  There were bone straight ends almost everywhere and the front of my hair was the worst where my hair was straight almost to the roots! In other areas, my hair was frizzy, dry and breaking off.

Here is what my twistouts and braidouts looked like before the heat damage situation:

Lawd, here's what it looks like now:

Do you see this? I attempted a twistout with perm rods on the ends and this is what I got! The thickness and texture I had is now gone and it has really made me feel self-conscious.  I know it's just hair but, it was mine.  I nurtured it, struggled with it and taught myself how to care for the past few years and I miss it!

My first thought is to go and get it cut short (like real short in the back and a little longer in the front) but, I don't know how that will look on me.  Then, I thought about getting some extension braids or twists put in to rest my hair for a while but I read somewhere that this is no-no on heat damaged hair because it could cause the hair to break even more.

I have no idea what to do but, for now I will be doing protein treatments until I can gather my thoughts and really wrap my mind around what I need to do.  I am also researching other blogs and sites for tips on getting rid of heat damage.  I need all the help I can get right now!

Have you ever had heat damage? What did you do to recover from it?