Monica questions: What causes more hair loss straightening you hair with a flat iron or doing a relaxer at a salon?
Left Brain straighteners her out:
Great question Monica. A quick answer is that Relaxers lead to more hair 
loss than Flat Irons. Read on for why. If you want some additional options to flat irons and relaxers take a look at this post we did on 7 ways to straighten hair.
How Hair Straightening Processes Work
While relaxers and flat irons can give you similar styles, they work in completely different ways. To understand how they work, you first must know that hair is made up of proteins. Within these proteins are chemical bonds responsible for hair strength & hair shape. The two most important types include Hydrogen bonds and Disulfide bonds. (There are others but Sarah’s eyes are starting to glaze over so I’ll stop there.)
Hydrogen bonds are weaker, temporary and dependent on the amount of water in your hair. When you flat iron your hair, you remove curls/frizz by first mechanically forcing hair straight and then removing the water with heat. It works just like an iron on clothes. This locks hair into whatever shape it currently is in. It works great as long as your hair stays dry. But once hair picks up moisture from the air, it will start to revert to its more natural shape.
Hair’s natural shape is controlled more by the Disulfide bonds. These permanent bonds don’t depend on how much water is in hair. With relaxers, hair’s disulfide bonds get broken down making your hair permanently straighter. At least permanent until new hair grows back.
Both relaxing and flat ironing damage hair but relaxing is much worse because it actually degrades hair proteins.
3 Kinds of Hair Loss
When you ask about hair loss you could be talking about 3 different kinds; breakage, natural, and permanent. Since I’m not sure which you’ve asked about, we’ll look at all three.
- Breakage: Everyone’s hair breaks to some extent, but damaged hair breaks more. Relaxing causes much more damage thus leading to more hair loss via breakage than flat irons.
- Natural: People shed just like dogs & cats. Your hair has a natural cycle where you lose about 100 hairs naturally each day. Neither relaxing or flat irons will affect this hair loss. You might notice more hair loss while flat ironing but that just because you pull out hairs that would have fallen out on their own.
- Permanent: In this type, hair stops growing at the roots & there is not much you can do to get it to come back. It’s unlikely that flat ironing will cause this but it is possible relaxing hair can. If your scalp is exposed to the chemicals in relaxers for too long, it can burn you and cause permanent hair loss. This isn’t a problem when relaxing is done by a top notch, professional stylist but if you have an amateur, look out!
For more, see this information from the FDA about hair relaxer safety.
Should You Relax?
Despite the safety concerns and extra damage, there are some significant advantages of relaxing over flat iron straightening. These include
- More permanent
- Easier to do (if you have a stylist)
- More consistent results
- Less prone to negative humidity effects
On the other had, being more permanent might be a negative to some.
The Beauty Brains Bottom line:
Both relaxing and flat ironing damage hair, but relaxing is much worse. However, it does give some added benefits so you might decide hair relaxing is worth extra damage. If you don’t want to lose or damage hair, the best thing you can do is shampoo infrequently, condition each time, and don’t comb or style it much. Of course, that severely limits the type of looks you can get so these aren’t options for most people.
What do YOU think? Would you rather have hair relaxed or do daily flat ironing? Leave a comment below.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I also suffered from a huge amount of hair loss due to Flat Irons. I had straightened my hair a couple of months back and from then I’m suffering from this hair loss problem.
You says that relaxing hair actually makes it stronger and in this post relaxing contribites to damage that results to hair breakage. How come this?
@Creme – Great question! But if you notice in the previously sited strength study, that required that a silicone be included in the relaxer. The hair was still damaged but the silicone helped strengthen it.
Strengthened relative to how it was pre-relaxer, or just strengtheneed relative to conventionally relaxed hair?
Hi, I’m desperate to buy a pink hair straightener, but I’ve found all these brands that I’ve never heard of before, all promising to be fantastic. These are the ones I’m looking at: ISO, Chloche, Envisage and Corioliss.
Does anyone know anything about any of these brands, and which would you recommend I buy? Thanks heaps!!
Straigthening really ruined my hair & practically my life. I once had thick wavy brown lock,nw due to constant ironing it has shrunk & its shape is less pronounced. Nw im having a hard time styling it. No drastic style could hide the bald spot. My hair is disappearing bt my forehead is growing.
Hey,
this was an amazing read. I never knew the basics on what really happens nor did anybody till now inform me about this. Thanks for this great read
Japanese straightening is the way to go for smooth, silky hair. It’s permanent and leaves your hair looking gorgeous! I just had it done for the second time and I’m sold.
Japanese straightening is NOT The way to go. It literally ruined my hair. You will wind up with, dry, broken, damaged hair. I had it done three years ago and I wound up having to cut all my hair off because of the damaged it caused. Use a flat iron or get a relaxer, much less damaging. A flat iron with a heat protector spray of course! I have had at least three relaxers since my nightmare (Japanese straightening). I highly recommend not getting that done, speaking from experience.
Reading this definately helped. I’m mixed so I have thick medium sized curly hair and I straighten almost every day with my chi flat iron. I’m seriously thinking about getting a relaxer because when I flat iron my hair it gets really frizzy and poofy the minute I step outside so I think the relaxeer would help me out by keeping it straighter longer. Does anyone know a good salon that does relaxers??
My daughter went to the most reputable salon in town. Her relaxer cost $150, so as you can see, it was a high end salon. So much of her hair fell out it is unbelievable. Now she has 1/4″ hairs sticking out all over her head mixed with long hairs. It has been a nightmare. She is only 16.
I bought a ceramic flat iron for $100.The company made claims that it would not damage my hair. At first, I thought it was the best thing in the world because it kept my hair straight but after a couple of months of using it, the elasticity has totally left my hair and now instead of my hair being very course and drawed up, it is now curly as though I have a mild relaxer and it has shed quite a bit however I keep it trimmed and I still have some length to it. I contributed part of the damage to the hair color I had on the ends of my hair but I believe the ceramic flat iron caused most of the damage. I was also using a product called Hair Culture solution on my hair. Can anyone give me more details about this product because I am not sure if the flat iron damaged my hair or the Hair Culture Solution did. Please advise. I must say for the record that my hair is completely free of chemicals and not when I press it it is thinner now as though I have a relaxer. Relaxers are out of the question for me because they totally damage my hair. I have tried too many times and I always end up with the same result–cutting it off and starting over.
Just wanted to get a second opinion. For the past year and a half I have rocked a fabulous afro. Recently, I flat ironed (only no chemical) my hair for 2 occasions. Excited about going back to my afro, I washed my hair but it is taking a long time transitioning back to its nature state. Why is this and how long will it take to go back to its original state?
Just to comment on both ends of the spectrum. I’m mixed and have both asian and african american hair …making my hair quite a difficult case. It’s naturally curly and super coarse and super SUPER thick. I’ve had everything. Relaxers. Blow dry and flat irons. Japanese bonding. Of it all, chemically unbonding my curls works the best. But I can definitely say it’s not for everyone.
I personally just can’t deal with the 1 hour of blowdrying time and 1 and a half hours of flat ironing. And relaxers only last for a few months with still those necessary styling times. Salonists have had their arms sore by the time their done with me! SO! To save the world (and myself)time and trouble, I get my hair permanently straightened once a year. It’s costly, but it’s the only solution. There is some damage, but I definitely make sure to condition, condition, and condition! Hair loss I cannot tell if its from the chemicals or if its natural because I still have plenty more where that came from. It’s a solution for me because it cuts down the density, thickness, and styling time, and I always keep on top of it to make sure its healthy. But to those with naturally fine, thin, and sensitive hair…DON’T DO IT.
I had the japanese straigthening couple of times now and i have been noticing that my hair is falling like crazy!. I went to the dermatologist but they dont give me any solution. I also noticed that my hair is not growing as it used to be. Can you please let me know what i am supposed to do to help my hair grow like before (apart from not doing the japanese straigthening?. Also what other method do you recommend to keep my hair straight?. Thank you so much for your help!.