Straightening natural 3b hair using the Instyler

Ally has been asking to wear her hair straight for awhile, and after giving her a styling break with protective box braids, I figured I would oblige and let her wear her hair straight for a week or two. I used the Instyler to straighten her hair; this is the ONLY heat-styling tool I use on her hair and mine, and I absolutely love the results we get from it. If you haven't heard of it or seen the many, many infomercials about it, you can check out their website here.

I prepped Ally's hair by washing and conditioning as we normally would. Then I detangled her hair and put it in medium sized box braids, using just a bit of Shea Moisture's Curl Enhancing Smoothie on each section that I braided, combing it through her hair with a fine toothed comb. We used her sleep cap and she kept her box braids in for the entire next day (not on purpose, I intended to straighten her hair the following day but life happened, and we got too busy.)When we were ready to straighen her hair, I did so by removing one braid at a time, spraying a bit of Shea Moisture's Raw Shea Butte Reconstructive Elixer and ran the Intyler through each section just once. The results were absolutely amazing!

Her hair looked so shiny and healthy, and it had SO much body! I did use the instyler to add some curl and flip to her hair, but of course the curls only lasted for about a day and a half. At night, she just pulled her hair back into a ponytail and slept with her satin sleep cap on. In the morning, she removed the ponytail, fluffed her hair, and off she went.

By the third day, Ally's hair had begun to frizz a little around her hairline in the front, so I put some thin corn rows in and we had a whole new style. Note that I still have not used any more heat since straightening her hair, and it looks great!

I apologize for the horrible pictures. But you get the idea. :)

And just to give you an idea of how well this combination of instyler/Shea moisture products worked for us, here is a shot of Ally's curls, no product added:

Wow, right? Curls on curls on curls. And I went through each section with the Instyler on medium heat setting ONCE.

I am hoping to be able to keep her hair straight for about 10 days, but that is an incredible stretch for Ally, because her hair tends to get greasy in down styles. But we are already headed to day 4, and her hair looks great! And it only took about 40 minutes to straighten her hair, so I am very happy with the results.