Hello my lovelies, we all know that using heat to style or dry our hair too frequently will not do our hair any favours. Even when you use a heat protectant prior to using heat, your hair may still be negatively affected when heat is used too regularly. The heat I am referring to is in the form of direct heat such as curling wands, hair straighteners, blow dryers and so on. Indirect heat on the other hand is much better for your hair. Examples of indirect heat are steaming or deep conditioning your hair with heat or roller setting.



It is recommended that even if you need to use heat, this should be limited to only once a month (or at the very least, twice a month). It is therefore important to embrace the art of air drying, you can even achieve curls on your hair without heat (you can refer to my post here). You can however use indirect heat to style or dry your hair if you prefer that option for a roller set, flexi rod set, curl formers set, perm rods set as they are forms of indirect heat which are less damaging to the hair as your hair is in curls underneath a hair dryer. Minimizing the use of heat is extremely beneficial to our hair and I will go ahead to state 5 reasons why:

Heat dries out the hair: Have you ever wondered why your hair is dry, dull and feels hard to the touch? This could very well be because you are using a lot of heat on your hair. When you use heat to dry your hair even though you apply moisturiser and leave in treatment prior to using heat, the heat in the process of drying out your hair also dries out the products that have been applied to your hair. That is why sometimes when you blow dry incorrectly you notice your hair feels hard and crunchy. This is not a good look and would not help in our aim to achieve healthy, long hair. When you air dry correctly the result is fluffy, bouncy and well moisturised hair which feels supple and soft to the touch.

Your hair is flat with no volume: Most people use heat to achieve straighter hair. However remember that our hair is not naturally straight even after it has been chemically altered through relaxers and that is why even for relaxed/texlaxed hair, you hair would not typically air dry straight, rather it retains some of its natural texture. We should enjoy our hair in its natural texture and not always feel the need to have straight hair every single time. So take for example you wash your hair every week and flat iron/straighten it weekly and you sometimes go over it with your hair straightener/flat iron in the middle of the week and you go on like this constantly, you may find yourself with limp hair that lacks volume over time. This is especially true for people with fine hair, it is therefore important for those with fine hair to minimize the amount of heat they use in their hair. You get more volume and thickness with air drying. If you want thick, voluminous, healthy hair constant heat styling will prevent that from happening.

Here is an example of my air dried bun, I would not be able to achieve this sort of volume on blow dried hair



Heat may lead to more breakage: Another reason why excessive heat is the enemy is because too much heat can cause breakage which usually occurs as a result of the hair being dry and brittle, also the amount of combing/brushing the hair has to undergo in order to be heat styled can also lead to breakage.

Heat may cause damage to the hair: This happens when heating tools are used on the hair on a very high temperature thereby causing damage to the hair cuticle and for those with natural hair it can actually alter their curl pattern.

Heat may also cause split ends: It is already established that excessive heat usage can dry out the hair, this may however also lead to split ends.

As the saying goes everything in moderation, nothing in excess. Please share your experiences with using heat as well as with air drying your hair. Your comments, suggestions and questions are absolutely welcome.

PS. I just have to share some exciting news, my article on “How to save your receding edges and sparse hairline” was featured on Bella Naija here.

TONKABELLE, xoxo



“Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops at all.” 
– Emily Dickinson