Beauty Digest: Hair Straightening

I'm not sure if it would be too much of an exaggeration to say that the invention of the hair straightening cream and technology has changed the lives of many, many women around the world. In a good way, of course.

I have often heard many females with straight hair say they envy the natural waves of those with curly hair, citing their lack of need to get their hair permed.

In reality having wavy hair isn't really that easy. Yes, there could be the lucky girls with really healthy and shiny hair that happens to be neatly curled and flow their shoulders in beautiful waves. Unfortunately, not too many are that lucky. I for one possess wavy hair that is neither naturally beautiful nor easy to control. Apart from the uneven waves around the head, my hair is dry, puffy, and just unhealthy. It neither looks nor feels nice.

Hair straightening or rebonding started becoming a "hit" when I was in second year of college. Before, it was expensive, and not many people were known to have done it. All of a sudden the price was lowered and more girls were doing it, with very satisfying results. So one Saturday I went to a salon with my friend (who, honestly, had nice natural straight hair - but wanted it 'perfectly' straight) to get my hair straightened. And that had basically changed my life.

From that day I've been straightening my hair roughly every six months. After doing it a few times I realized the wiser thing to do each time I went to the salon was to straighten only the roots (the newly grown, curly hair) - as the rest of the hair was already straight from the previous session; redoing it would just do more harm to the already damaged hair.

I've changed salons a few times as well. The quality of hair straightening really depends on the brand of the cream they use, and on the expertise and care of the hair stylist. The ones on the careless end could leave out a few small strands of hair unstraightened, for example.

Hair straightening has not only gave me a new (prettier) look, but it has massively reduced the time needed to style my hair every morning. Rather than blow drying it for at least 15 minutes, I can simply blow it for less than 5 minutes, and then I'd be ready to go.

If you're someone who's extremely bored of your uneven waves and get frustrated trying to style your fluffy hair, hair straightening is definitely something you should try.

Image from: harpersbazaar.com