msdeekay wrote:
Pinke I have a quick question whenever you have time can you gimme your 2cents on this. I was watching a video and the lady was ranting about this type 4 hair cant do wash and goes topic, and she was saying the only reason a type 4 natural shouldnt consider wash and gos is because type 4 hair is prone to knots and tangling and breakage when doing a wash and go, so if your goal is length retention then wash and gos arent for you...in my opinion from what I understand concerning the maximum hydration method is, due to higher moisture retention levels there will be clumping hence minimal knots or tangles and also due to regularly doing the regimen you shouldnt have a lot of shed hair stuck causing knots and tangles, therefore with this regimen length retention should be possible...am I right? what do you think? |
exactly. A lot of the time when wash and goes are done on type 4 hair that isn't maximally hydrated, the hair does not clump, and looks almost like there is no product in it, or a shrunken clump-free fro. This lack of clumping, is soley caused by lack of moisture retention in the cortex.
With lack of moisture retention in the cortex, the hair is very
lightweight. The more lightweight your coils are, the more prone they are to over-shinking. So you'll have a 4c coil that not only springs into a tight coil(which it is supposed to do), but also repeatedly, and randomly loops back over upon itself(which it should not be doing).
This causes the individual coils to be unable to have a uniform pattern down the strand, and also makes it so you get prone single strand, two strand knots, matting, locing, and tangling when you try to wear your hair loose. Single strand knots also make the individual coil strands want to bend in weird angles further disrupting the uniform pattern of the hair strand.
Over all with all these different strands bending and twisting and randomly re-looping upon itself, it makes it impossible for the coils for form a uniform pattern that will readily clump together. It helps to think of each strand like a puzzle piece.
Pinkecube wrote:
A visual of why 4c hair will not clump:
Compare the two strands after being put in water to the ones after
being treated with baking-soda. Which one is more likely to want to fit
together like a puzzle piece?
http://www.thenaturalhavenbloom.com/2009/11/myth-or-fact-baking-soda-relaxer

Under soaked in water, the water likely did not penetrate the strand, just sat on top of it.
After bakingsoda treatment, the water is able to penetrate the strand because
the tightly shut cuticles have been opened. This increases weight of
the hair strand, which is what most hair is meant to do in water, but
low porosity 4c and 4b hair adamantly resists.
|
The Maximum hydration method wash and go, is actually is better at preventing tangles than most of the other protective styles done. Once you retain length in the cortex, your hair isn't as lightweight, so many of the negative impacts of lightweight hair that effects type 4 hair, doesn't actually happen. In fact the entire point of the method is to make your hair less lightweight by retaining maximum moisture in the hair cortex.
MHM wash and gos are actually the ultimate protective style. The gel works to hold the clumped curl perpetually in that state
and prevents it from tangling on other curl units. This makes it more
effective in retaining length. I remember doing small twists and various protective styles, where they would actually encourage knots, dryness, and split ends, and i end up trimming and pulling all my retained length away. It was very frustrating because it took a lot of discipline to hide my hair most of the time, only to not get the results i expected. Where as now my hair seems to be growing at a faster rate than it was before, and I don't get those single strand knots and matting anymore.
I've actually got an faq topic in regard to the ultimate flaw in protective styling too, which i finished yesterday.
Watch this video, especially toward the end(@6:40), where aketafitgirl says something about how her hair stays detangled with a really good visual.
Edited by pinkecube - Apr 25 2014 at 2:06pm