What to Do When Your Natural Hair Feels Like Straw

It’s every natural’s dream to have hair as soft as a baby unicorn flying through clouds’ bottom. The reality is that properly moisturized hair is a regular, sometimes daily effort to achieve. When your natural hair feels like straw – meaning that it is not only dry, but brittle and frizzy – it is often a signal that your hair needs more protein. Since my hair has been brittle and even breaking, Here’s how to transform your straw-like natural hair to moisturized kinks!

Protein-Moisture Balance

Some people get confused with the notion of a protein-moisture balance, but it is quite simple. Your hair needs both protein and moisture to thrive, and too much and too little of either is often the cause of hair woes. If your hair is not properly moisturized, it will not have enough stretch or elasticity, and will break easily. If it has too much moisture and not enough protein, it will be limp, a strange texture, and difficult to style, which might make you use more tension while styling to achieve your desired look. While regularly using products or treatments with protein is a great way to balance protein and moisture, sometimes you might need an extra boost of serious protein – and for that, you HAVE to use a protein treatment like Aphogee’s Two-Step Protein Treatment.

ApHogee Two-Step Protein Treatment

Aphogee Two Step Protein Treatment is a unique treatment formulated with magnesium and modified proteins which fuse into the hair with the application of heat. The result is that breakage is drastically reduced. Though ApHogee Two-Step Protein Treatment is a salon service product, it’s completely safe to be used at home and many people have done so with great results. Here’s how I did my treatment:

1. Start by washing your hair with a sulfate-free shampoo – the ApHogee Deep Moisture Shampoo is NOT sulfate free, so I used Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Moisture L.O.C. Cleansing Shampoil. If your hair does have a lot of build-up, consider using a clarifying shampoo to strip excess product.
2. Dry your hair with a t-shirt to sop up excess water.
3. While still in the shower, or over a sink, apply ApHogee Two-Step Protein Treatment to hair in sections, smoothing from root to tip.
   1. The instructions state you should comb the product through your hair, but I know better than to comb hair without conditioner, so I used my fingers to rake and slightly detangle
4. Sit under hooded dryer for 20 minutes on medium heat – without a shower cap. Hair will be extremely hard to the touch!
5. Rinse hair for several minutes with water, then apply ApHogee Balancing Moisturizer all over hair. Let sit for 3 minutes and then rinse out.
6. IMPORTANT! Follow up protein treatment with a thorough deep conditioning treatment. I used Dark and Lovely Deep Conditioning Delight with a shower cap under high heat for 30 minutes, before detangling and rinsing out.
7. Style hair as usual, preferably in a protective style.

Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Moisture L.O.C. Collection

Hair is freshly shampooed

After applying the ApHogee, hair begins to shrink

After sitting under the dryer, hair is hardened

Protected with an updo for a week!

Three incredibly important things to emphasize: when your hair becomes hard like uncooked ramen noodles, DO NOT TOUCH IT. Doing so could seriously break off your hair. Secondly, some people complain that the ApHogee Two-Step Protein Treatment left their hair feeling hard – this is because they neglected to follow up with a deep conditioner. Remember what I said in the beginning, you want to achieve a protein-moisture balance, so following up a protein treatment with a moisturizing deep conditioner should be as natural as spreading jelly on a piece of bread with peanut butter.

Lastly, putting your hair away for some time right after a protein treatment is good practice because you want to be able to maintain your newly strengthened strands. If you wear an out style, you may be tempted to fall right back into over-moisturizing or using too much tension or manipulation that may result in protein issues all over again!

By the way, protein treatments should be done every 8 weeks, or for severely damaged hair that is not protein sensitive, every 4 weeks (but be sure to use that deep conditioner!)

What do you do to your hair when it feels like straw?