If you are born with Type 3 Or Type 4 natural curly or coily hair , the major key for a perfect blend with straight clip in hair extensions or light yaki clip in hair extensions is to silk press your natural hair.
What You Will Need
- A Clarifying Shampoo
- A Hydrating Shampoo
- A Deep Conditioner
- A light Moisturiser/Leave-In
- Heat Protectant Serum/spray
- Blow Dryer
- Rat Tail Comb
- Paddle brush
- Flat Iron/Straighteners
Preparing The hair for the Silk press
- First step: Detangling. As with all my routine it is very important for one to start off by thoroughly detangling the hair. Using a hot oil treatment or a pre-poo product while detangling will help get rid of shed hair as well as add moisture to the hair pre shampooing it.
- Second step: Clarifying shampoo. Starting off your silk press on buildup free hair will ensure that the hair will not
be weighed down by excess product and dirt. - Third step: Deep Condition. Because a clarifying shampoo strips the hair of not only product build up but also moisture within the strands following up with a Moisturizing or balanced protein/moisture conditioner is an important step in building that moisture back.
- Fourth step: T-shirt dry. Once the hair has been washed use a t-shirt to absorb excess water (10/15mins) prior to adding styling products and blowing drying the hair is the next step.
- Finally: Leave in and heat protectant. After a few minutes of t-shirt drying, prep the hair a final time with a leave-in conditioner and heat protectant spray.
Blowing drying Stage
If you have relaxed Hair this stage is optional as the relaxing process already leaves the hair Straight and excess heat
might damage the hair.
Air Drying
- When opting to air dry the hair before straightening I like to make sure my hair is thoroughly detangled first.
- I put my hair into sectioned twists, so it dries in a stretched out state. The benefit of not blow drying your hair Straight before straightening it is that it leaves hair, especially relaxed hair with so much volume after straightening. This can only be done however when one doesn’t have a lot of new growth. If the hair is textured/coarse/coily and you choose to skip the blow drying stage it will result in you going over the hair multiple times with the straightener to try achieve the desired look and risk more damage being done to the hair.
Or blow drying
To achieve that extra silky saloon style looking silk press after t-shirt drying I opt to blow dry my hair first. Blow drying the hair allows you to smooth it out while it’s wet.
- Start off with the hair in 4 sections. Working in sections will make the process faster.
- In your divided sections use the tension method with your free hand to gently dry the hair until it’s in an almost dry state.
- Then use the chase method using a paddle brush to apply more tension to the hair and get it as straight as possible without over drying it out.
Straightening the hair
Now that the hair is dry it’s time to get to the fun part and pull out the straightener. In my already sectioned hair, I start working in even smaller sections about half an inch thick. Although working with a thicker section would make the process quicker you won’t be able to get the hair evenly straight by rushing through the process.
- I like to reapply the heat protectant serum before straightening my hair just to ensure my hair is still protected.
- Starting at the root I use the comb chase method to straighten my hair (using a rat tail comb).
- What is the chase method: the act of running a narrow toothed comb down the length of the hair as you straighten it.