Can Our Hair Be Strong?

Everything I've ever read describes black hair as weak and fragile. However, are they talking about natural or relaxed?

I know we can achieve healthy hair but can it be strong? Does healthy hair automatically mean strong?

Is there such a thing as fragile but strong? erplexed

Our hair IS strong.
There's stuff we do to our hair that can make it weak and fragile (excessive manipulation, rough handling, chemicals, etc). But I believe that Black hair is strong by nature.

Hmmm fragile but strong...raw silk comes to mind. My hair is healthy but extremely fragile. It's just the nature of my nappy kinky hair. Within every coil, curl, kink, & napp is the potential for breakage simple because my hair naturally does these things. IMO our already fragile hair is made even moreso by chemicals, I don;t think they do anything to enhance the strength of our hair.

Yes our hair can be strong. Mine is. It takes a lot for my hair to get damaged.

I think all the things we do to our hair can make it weak. For me, when I lessen heat, cones and up my use of more natural stuff my hair is almost impossible to snap when pulled apart. It actually feels like a piece of wire. And I'm relaxed.

discodumpling said:

Hmmm fragile but strong...raw silk comes to mind. My hair is healthy but extremely fragile. It's just the nature of my nappy kinky hair. Within every coil, curl, kink, & napp is the potential for breakage simple because my hair naturally does these things. IMO our already fragile hair is made even moreso by chemicals, I don;t think they do anything to enhance the strength of our hair.

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Well, I should have said MY natural hair is not fragile. I shouldn't have spoken for every Black person's hair.

They are usually talking about both natural and relaxed hair when they say Black hair is weak. The reason for this is because of the curl that goes down the hair shaft from root to tip. Each curl represents a potential breaking point. It also contributes to dryness of the hair because the natural oils our scalp makes (ie sebum) does not flow freely down as it does in straight hair.

That said....if you learn how to treat your hair w/in the limits it presents, it can be as strong as anyone else's. There's no hair texture that doesn't have it's inherent limitations, but learn the ones that apply to your hair and work accordingly. IOW, don't treat your hair as if it comes out of the scalp straight even if it's relaxed.

My natural hair is very strong but my girlfriend who is Indian has the strongest strands I have ever felt! No wonder she is able to treat her hair so badly and still maintain butt length for years. She never DC .

Mystic said:

My natural hair is very strong but my girlfriend who is Indian has the strongest strands I have ever felt! No wonder she is able to treat her hair so badly and still maintain butt length for years. She never DC .

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I have a friend with two sisters and their hair is so strong that it won't even break when I pull as hard as I can. They all have waist length hair. My hair is fine and breaks easily. However, it can take a lot of damage and still grow. It's weird. Protein makes it stronger.

I dont think they mean weak. I think they mean the weaker of all hair types. But just because we have the weaker hair type doesnt mean its weak, just not as strong as others.

i agree with most posters because of the intense curls we have it causes our hair to break. each curl is potential. i find that my hair is very strong tho but when compared to other races in general my hair will still break slightly quicker (if you pull as hard as u can on a strand)