6 Steps To Transitioning Like A Boss
By Qhemet Biologics
Transitioning from relaxed to natural hair can be quick or protracted depending on whether you opt for a long transition to acquire a bit of length or chop it off without waiting for length and resolve to rock a short style or get extensions. Whichever you decide, you'll probably wonder how long it'll take for the relaxer to grow out, what your natural texture will look and feel like, what products work best on both textures and if you should wear it out or keep it in a protective style. In essence, navigating this process can be daunting but doesn't have to be.
1. Learn About Your New Growth
While growing out chemically treated hair, it's not uncommon for hair to feel dry and hard. This may be unsettling at first, but it's a completely normal outcome that results from years of damaging chemical treatments. What's more, it'll probably take about 4-6 months of new growth to achieve a TWA (teeny weeny afro) so it's important to be patient. Familiarize yourself with your new, natural texture and monitor it for excessive dryness or breakage as it may take a while for your scalp and follicles to heal and for healthy hair to start growing in. Returning to your natural hair comes with a learning curve, and you'll find peace of mind if you know what you're in for.
2. Don't Forget To Trim
As your natural hair grows in, it's important to start trimming your relaxed ends. This process can be short or gradual depending on how long you want the transitioning phase to be. If you fail to trim, your relaxed ends will start to split upward and lead to breakage at the demarcation line where your natural and relaxed hair meet. A good rule of thumb is to start cutting off the straight hair after getting about an inch of new growth.
2. Keep It Moisturized
Caring for relaxed hair is different from caring for afro/coily hair. To keep relaxed hair healthy, you need to repair damage and minimize breakage with protein treatments and silicones. To keep coily hair healthy, you need to gently detangle and style it to minimize breakage and keep it consistently moisturized to preserve your edges and ends and retain length. These are new techniques you'll need to incorporate into your hair-care routine. Neglecting to hydrate your hair will inevitably result in dry, brittle tresses. Depending on whether your new growth seems to suck up moisture, an indication that you may have high porosity hair or if moisture tends sit on top without being absorbed, an indication that you may have low porosity hair, you'll need a high quality moisturizer packed with nourishing ingredients to keep it soft. Our Amla & Olive Heavy Cream for high porosity hair and our Burdock Root Butter Cream for low porosity hair provide all the nutrients and moisture your hair will need to remain hydrated and healthy.4. Be Gentle
Most importantly, you'll need to handle your hair with the care and attention it deserves. In other words, you'll need to be delicate with your hair. As its texture changes, the way you style it will need to change as well. Our Cocoa Tree Detangling Ghee and Moringa Tree Conditioning Ghee offer 3 in 1 conditioning, moisturizing and detangling properties to help your fingers or a wide tooth comb effortlessly glide through your damp or dry hair without excessive pulling and breakage. Keeping your hair manageable through the use of gentle combing techniques that involve combing a small section of hair from the bottom and working your way up, are crucial to preventing damage. Our Cocoa Tree Detangling Ghee is an especially effective combing cream for extremely dry, new growth that's prone to tangling. If your hair is thin and/or your relaxed hair is more in need of the detangling, our Moringa Tree Conditioning Ghee may be a better fit.5. Find A Hairstyle That You Like
Now that you'll be working with two textures, finding a complimentary hairstyle will be a trial and error process. You'll find that your natural hair wants to grow upward while your relaxed hair hangs downward. With that in mind, you'll want to find a hairstyle and hair products that are compatible with both textures. Qhemet offers products that can be used on both relaxed and natural hair (see our product guide here). Our Aethiopika Hydrate & Twist Butter is a versatile, hydrating styling butter that can be used to create beautiful protective styles like cornrows, braids and twists and can keep both textures soft and smooth. These styles can help prevent your new growth from drying out and give it a break from the daily manipulation that can lead to premature breakage. Wearing your hair out is also a possibility but this means straightening the new growth to match the two textures and possibly damaging it right out of the gate. It's important to keep your new growth as healthy as possible before heat straightening as the stronger it is the better able it is to withstand the potential damage from heat styling. Our Moringa Tree Conditioning Ghee is the perfect leave-in to use before heat straightening as it conditions and detangles and can help prevent the new growth from shrinking.
6. Nourish Your Scalp For Healthy Hair Growth
If you've been relaxing your hair for years or even decades, your scalp and follicles are most likely damaged. Since healthy hair can only grow from a healthy scalp, it's important to focus on scalp health and addressing scalp conditions, like flakiness or dryness, while you transition. Harsh chemicals can damage hair follicles and stunt growth as healthy hair can't grow out of inflamed follicles that have been blocked by scar tissue. To get your scalp healthy again, the first step is to calm the inflammation and address the flakiness. Our Tea Tree & Lavender Therapeutic Pomade is formulated with powerhouse ingredients that contain soothing, healing and anti-inflammatory properties that heal from within. You'll want to apply this medicinal treatment to your scalp 2-3 times a week to begin the healing process and restore your scalps health.
For general scalp health and to ensure strong, healthy new growth, we created the Castor & Amla Nourishing Pomade. This Pomade contains potent African and Ayurvedic ingredients used traditionally for thousands of years to nourish the scalp, combat shedding and boost growth. This Pomade will also help to prevent breakage along the fragile natural/relaxed demarcation line and keep it soft and supple.
Our Tea Tree & Lavender Therapeutic Pomade and the Castor & Amla Nourishing Pomade are mineral oil-free, petrolatum-free, lanolin-free and 100% vegan.
7. Be Patient While You Adjust
Transitioning from straight to afro/coily hair is an adjustment that'll take some time getting used to. You may feel discouraged by how long it's taking to reach your length goal or because the learning curve turned out to be steeper than expected but stay the course and keep in mind that nothing worthwhile comes easy. With patience, a healthy hair routine and our recommended healthy hair products, you'll turn the corner sooner than expected and realize that the results were well worth the effort.Product Recommendations for Transitioning Hair
Our high performance products combine premium, ancestral ingredients to give your hair the moisture and nutrients it needs to flourish and grow! Check out our product guide to find the individual products best suited for your hairs texture, porosity, density and condition. Or let us compile the best kit for you and choose from below:
| For thick, dry & tangled hair | For fine, thin & tangled hair | For extremely dry & slow growing hair |
| L.O.C. Method Collection for High Porosity Hair | L.O.C. Method Collection for Low Porosity Hair | Castor Oil Collection for Maximum Moisture & Growth |
 |
 |
 |
