Hey girl hey! My name is anjela renay, I'm a licensed cosmetologist.
After having multiple consultations & conversations I'm realizing women are having issues with their textured hair. from hair being dry , to brittleness & breakage, to hair is not growing or stops at a certain length. this is usually because we don't have the knowledge to care for our strands. we don't have hair care regimens & often we are simply using incorrect products. i got you tho babe! this blog solves that problem. it gives you the education amd tips to not only grow healthy hair but to retain the length and care for your extensions too.

Let's start with the fundamentals shall we?  Let's talk hair's structure. Every Hair strand is made of 90% keratin. Keratin is a protein (like collagen & elastin) that grows inside the hair follicle.  So anj, if keratin makes up 90% what about the other 10%? The remaining percentage is other proteins, water, Lipids and melanin (which give hair its color).

Now that we know what makes up the hair strand, let's talk whats inside each strand. Each strand has up to 3 layers, a cuticle, a cortex & maybe a medulla.

the cuticle is the outer layer of a hair strand. the cuticles job is to provide a protective barrier for the cortex preventing any damage. a healthy cuticle illumintes a natural shine to the hair and makes it feel silky & smooth.

The cortex is where all the magic happens. Cortex is the middle layer & the core of fibrous proteins that make up a strand. the cortex plays an important factor in your hair's porosity, elasticity, hair color & wave pattern. so basically, any haircoloring,  roller setting, thermal styling (flat ironing & curling), or hair relaxing takes place in the cortex.  Inside the cortex are 3 side bonds that are responsible for the strength & elasticity of your hair. Those are hydrogen bonds, salt bonds and disulfide bonds. the best examples i can give for each is as follows:

hydrogen bonds are broken when you wet your hair, which is why hair is in its most vulnerable state when wet.  the hydrogen bond reforms when hair is dry. so during your shampoo, conditioning & blow out process, you break and reform the bond. 

Salt bonds are broken by ph. The ph scale ranges from 0-14. 0 being hella acidic, 7 being neutral & 14 being super alkaline. Hair sits at a range of 4.5-5.5 but different products and chemicals can cause the ph to change. This is one reason why the products used matter. alkali products raise the cuticle to allow product to absorb inside the hair strand. Acidic products seal the cuticle close to lock in product. only products with a ph of 4-8 should be used. shampoos are usually a bit alkali to lift the cuticle so hair can get  hydration & and good clean. conditioners are usually more acidic to close the cuticle and trap hydration inside, & to balance the ph closer to normal. in essence you can break salt bonds when shampooing your hair. You restore those bonds when the ph is balanced back to normal.

Disulfide bonds are broken by relaxers &  chemicals that alter the shape of hair. These bonds are be broken by extreme heat like boiling water or high-temperature styling tools like or flat irons/curlers. once these bonds are broken they can be reformed thru neutralizers but are converted to a different bond. 

do you ever wonder how hair gets its natural color? also within the cortex. They are small pigments in there to determine hair color. the 2 pigments are eumelanin and pheomelanin. Eumelanin is the predominate range of dark brown to black pigment that produces brunettes. Pheomelanin is the lighter pigment that produces your reds, ginger and blonde tones. as you can probably imagine, gray hair maybe a few scattered eumelanin grains & white hair has none.

The inner most layer is the medulla. This layer serves no purpose, No chemical or physical changes happen in this layer, in fact not all hair has a medulla. Only thick coarse hair like men's beards has a medulla. Now that we have a we know the basics let get to the good stuff. Let's talk wave patterns!