You look at your roots one morning and decide you're not going to get a touch-up. Then all the questions come at once: should you cut it all off, how to style it, where to begin?
There is no single right way to manage a transition, but there are techniques that make it manageable and others that make it fail. Here are the two possible paths, what holds the whole journey together, and the exact area where hair breaks. For the daily method, our step-by-step tutorial details the six steps of the Texture Ritual®.
I was relaxed at fourteen, and for two years I was convinced that it was always my hair, simply straightened. A boy in my class told me one day: you know that what you have on your head, it's not your hair? It hit me hard. I cut it little by little, I spent my high school money on products that changed nothing. Then I went back to Guadeloupe to question my grandmother. That's when everything changed.
Ghana Elin, founderStep 1Cut it all off, or not
The big chop consists of cutting off all the relaxed lengths at once to keep only the regrowth. It's the easiest path to live: one texture, no more fragile junction, immediately clear techniques. It does, however, require accepting short hair for a while, and that's no small detail. Many women come to it after several months, when the imbalance between the two textures weighs heavier than the idea of cutting.
The progressive transition, on the other hand, consists of letting it grow and removing the relaxer cut after cut. You keep the length, which matters when you care about your hairstyles, but you live for months with two textures that do not react to water, products, or styling in the same way: one stretches and falls, the other shrinks and rises. The junction remains fragile until the last cut.
Neither path is braver than the other, and starting with one to end with the other is common. One rule, however, does not change with us: if you're not sure you want to cut, you don't cut. And when the cut happens, it is done on stretched hair, after the protective drying: we then see the real shape of the hair instead of guessing it. See when and how to cut your curly hair.
Step 2The techniques that hold the transition together
The regrowth is drier, tighter, and more fragile than what you have worn these past years. Keeping the relaxed habits by adding a treatment on top does not work: it is the order and rhythm of the techniques that need to change. The Texture Ritual® is done every seven to ten days, in six steps, during the transition as well as after.
- 01 Detangling with a Chadian finger. With fingers, on dry hair, before the shower, in at least six sections. What breaks is not the dry detangling: it's the comb on a dry and bare hair.
- 02 Hydrating Detox. A gentle clarifying cleanse, then The Repair Shampoo: the complete routine always starts with this double wash.
- 03 Lengths & ends massage. The Repair Mask, heated between the hands, worked section by section from the ends to the roots. Ten minutes of leave-in, under a shower cap if possible.
- 04 Detangling with the Man Dol' Comb. On hair still coated with mask, from the ends to the roots, back to fingers as soon as resistance appears. Never optional.
- 05 Protective drying. The Styling Cream on damp hair, then the hair dryer by small sections, in constant motion.
- 06 Seal the hydration. The Styling Cream applied generously, one last pass of the Man Dol' Comb, then a protective braid or bun.
On this last step, a very widespread habit deserves to be corrected. We read everywhere that you need to seal with an oil or a butter: this is not a step of the Texture Ritual®. It is The Styling Cream that helps maintain the hydration brought by the wash. Between two routines, a drop of light oil on the ends can complete, and nothing more: stacking layers weighs down a regrowth that needs to be left alone. See our article on curly hair hydration.
Step 3The demarcation line
It's the area where the regrowth meets the relaxed part, and that's where everything happens. The fiber changes shape abruptly there: on one side a hair that the relaxer has permanently modified, on the other a curly hair that takes back its geometry. All tension concentrates on this point, like a thread that gives way where it changes thickness.
During a transition, you never detangle by force, and never with a comb on bare hair.
The practical consequence is simple. Detangling with fingers before the shower undoes most of the knots, without a tool. The Man Dol' Comb, on the other hand, only intervenes afterwards, on hair coated with mask, holding the section with one hand above the line so that it does not undergo tension. As soon as resistance appears, you put down the tool and go back to fingers. Our breakage-free detangling method details the technique.
The other consequence concerns heat. Straightening the regrowth with a flat iron to harmonize it with the relaxed hair weakens exactly the part that you are trying to grow, and breakage happens just above the line. Protective drying, preceded by The Styling Cream which protects the fiber from heat, is enough to get stretched and supple hair.
Step 4The hairstyles that help
The most useful hairstyles in transition are those that blend the two textures instead of opposing them. Twist out, braid out, flat twists or bantu knots give them a common shape: the aesthetic problem is solved at the same time as the mechanical problem. They are also those that let you see your regrowth rather than compare it to others': six myths about curly hair do not stand up to scrutiny.
Braids and buns with extensions allow you to pass a milestone, provided you don't use them to stop looking at your hair. Over time, the transition imposes a caution that natural hair does not require: a poorly placed tension costs a few weeks elsewhere, it costs months on a demarcation line. A style that still pulls the next day is therefore to be redone the same day, without waiting to see. See our hairstyles without extensions and the signs that a protective hairstyle is damaging your hair.
Night counts as much as day, and the principle applies throughout the transition: a little Styling Cream on the ends, tight braids on themselves but never at the root, a silk scarf and a silk pillowcase. See our hairstyles to protect your hair at night.
The slump
It almost always happens, and it's better to know that it's normal. A time comes when the regrowth is too long to hide and too short to style with the lengths. Hairstyles hold poorly, nothing looks like what you had in mind, and the temptation to cut it all off one evening of fatigue becomes concrete. It's not a sign that you're doing it wrong.
We do not promise a duration, because no one can promise one. The useful benchmark is not the calendar, it's the state of the regrowth from one routine to the next: supple, detangling with fingers without snagging, keeping its length. The journey moves forward, even if the mirror does not say it yet. And when discouragement is about the result rather than the duration, it almost always comes from a technique, not a lack of patience. See how to find a good hairdresser for curly hair.
What's at stake beyond your hair
A transition is not just a technical matter. Relaxing hair has long been a rite of passage, sometimes given at adolescence as an entry into the adult world. Giving it up often means facing comments in the family or at work. Many women handle the technical part very well and stumble on that one.
The house position is constant: inform, then let choose. We do not perform relaxing and we do not offer it; we also understand those who have done it and those who are still hesitating. Without the right products, the right techniques, and the right tools, curly hair is difficult to live with daily: that's what needs to be corrected before judging anyone. For a straightening, we direct towards a partner.
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