I was just thinking about this practice. Is stretching relaxers beneficial? Your hair already grows... and it has nothing to do with the permed portion. You're not giving your hair a break because the hair that you perm is only the new growth. I could be wrong though. Could someone explain this? Why do you stretch? TIA
Stretching is beneficial is you can figure out how to do it without breakage
That is the hard part. The easy part is trying to look cute with 5 inches of new growth on your head
That's why twists-outs, scarves, and big earrings were my besest friends
I stretched for 32 weeks and it gave my hair a lot of thickness, and had noticeable progress/length. Stretching makes my hair healthier overall because of the "relaxer run=off" that goes on already-relaxed hair can cause dryness and breakage (especially if the hairdresser does not neutralize properly!)
I also like stretching because it reduces to chance of overlapping already relaxed portions. It is much more likely to overlap the relaxer if you have 1 inch of new growth (if you wait 8 weeks to relax) as opposed to 2-3 inches of new growth.
My last relaxer was in December 07 and I don't plan on relaxing again until this December 2008.