Dominican Blow Out on Natural Hair
I’m usually really quick to reply to emails and will answer questions to the best of my ability.This is another topic that seems to be raised a few times. I my own personal hair-beliefs, so don’t take what I say as gospel. Just use what works for you and pass over anything else. Because I have gotten this question several times, I felt it was worth addressing in the Questions and Answers section.
Someone, who shall remain nameless, as I’m very respectful of people’s privacy, sent me a link to a video showing a woman with natural, coarse hair, not only getting a dominican blow out, but she had her hair set in rollers prior. I watched the entire video from beginning to end and have some very strong feelings about what I saw.
While I love the swaaaay that I get from doing my roller sets and blowing out my hair, I am not a fan of using excessive heat. It is my opinion, and only my opinion, that in some cases doing a dominican blow out on natural, and even relaxed hair calls for using too much heat on the hair.
If you have the type of hair that will wrap around a roller without having a relaxer, chances are your natural hair will look just as sleek as someone with a relaxer. However, if you have coarse, kinky hair, which there is absolutely nothing wrong with having, and your hair puffs up on the rolos, then your hair will require extra heat.
Some say that since the hair is natural it’s stronger, therefore, it can handle the heat. That may be true, but if you are going to apply that much heat, you may as well just use a flat iron. At least in that case, there’s no pulling, or tugging of the hair with a brush.
Keep in mind, it takes only one mistake, one slipup to damage your hair. Once the damage has taken place, you then have a choice to make: gradually grow out the weakened hair by getting regular trims, or just cut it all off. Oh, I forgot, some of us use the “ignore it, it will grow” technique and this tends to lead to further damage.
I want to keep my hair healthy, moisturized and on my scalp, so I prefer to use minimal heat. Whenever possible, I just air dry my hair, that way if I need to pass the blower over it, I don’t have a double dose of “fire.”
In some cases someone will bypass rollers and go straight to the blow out, but the two main differences, in my opinion, is the frequency and the hair type. Although my hair is curly, I have very tight curls, relax my hair and don’t think that I would be a good candidate for frequent blow drying.
Yes, I like my hair straight and shiny and to have swaaaay, but I don’t want to sacrifice my entire head of hair by over doing the heat.
Mi familia ha dicho, my family says, that everyone did rolos growing up, but the blow dryer wasn’t part of the equation when she was coming up. Without giving away ages of my family members, I’ll just say that a few of them probably were around before the blow dryer, and they still managed to have bounce, body and healthy hair.
As I always say, use your discretion. Take precautions, pamper the hair you have now, or you may have to learn to be patient as you grow out damaged, burned hair.
