How to Stretch Out the Curls in Natural Kinky Textured Hair

The curls in tightly coiled, otherwise known as kinky hair can shrink up to 80% of their actual length. Meaning that hair that's actually shoulder length when pulled can look as short as a Halle Berry pixie once it's released. Here are a few techniques to stretch out the curls so they can loosen up and retain their length.

Banding

Banding is a technique that uses rubber bands or elastic hair bands (preferably) to stretch out the curls in natural hair.

A section of wet hair is combed and then a hair band is placed around it in order to make a small pony tail. Next, the section is banded a few more times down the length of the ponytail to keep stretched out curls secured in place. This is repeated around the whole head and then the hair is either air-dried or dried under a hooded dryer.

I did a variation of banding twice, I sectioned my hair in small ponytails and wrapped them in elastics, but instead of banding the length of each ponytail, I just twisted the sections. My roots were stretched out, but all those elastics gave me a headache, so I didn't bother trying it anymore.

Twisting

My favorite way to stretch out my curls is through twisting my hair. I divide my wet hair into sections and then I part each section in two and simply twist the two ends around each other.

Thin twists help to stretch out the roots, but the ends of the hair still shrinks a lot. Thicker twists usually stretch out the length of the hair, but they leave the roots un-stretched and looking a bit puffy.

So whenever I make twists, I know that once my hair dries it will still look much shorter than it is, especially if I've made smaller ones.

So if I want to stretch the curls further, I wait until my hair dries, and then I simply wet and then re-twist my hair again. It's a bit time consuming and I'm not shrinkage-phobic so I'll usually re-twist when the style looks old, anywhere from 5 - 7 days later, but it can be done sooner - on wet or dry hair.

Sometimes I'll repeat this 3-4 times and by the last time the curls in my hair loosen up considerably, so that my hair looks very close to its actual length.

Braiding

Braids create the same stretching effect the twists do, but because three sections of hair are used for a braid, rather than two, the hair is more tightly wound so the curls won't stretch as much as they would with twists.

Pinning and Ponytails

I discovered this technique on accident. On a summer day I was wearing my hair in twists but it was hot and I wanted to wear my hair up so I just put my hair in a low ponytail and then I stretched out the shorter sections in the front and used bobby pins to hold them in place.

The next day when I took the ponytail down and removed the pins I realized that my hair had loosened up a lot and looked much longer.

Along with re-twisting, I use this technique to loosen up my hair all the time now. I prefer to do it with twists and braids, but loose hair can be stretched with pins the same way. Just make sure to stretch out the hair and pin loose sections flat to the head, then band, twist, or braid the ends.

Bantu Knots

This isn't my favorite way to stretch my hair, because it tends to create more tangles than I need, and it doesn't stretch my tightly wound curls out dramatically. But it's still a viable option for a lot of people.

The knots are created by making a square shaped part, then the roots are held while the remaining length of hair is wrapped around it. Once the hair is dry the knots are taken down.

Heat

Another technique for stretching out tightly wound natural hair is to use heat by way of blow-drying, hot combing or flat-ironing the hair. These tools can be used to get the hair stick-straight if you're so inclined - although blow-drying can be used to just loosen up the curl.

I've made it a rule to only pull out my blow-dryer and flat-iron once or twice a year max, in order to keep my hair healthy. Yet I still managed to damage my hair from flat-ironing it once. A small front section is limp and stick-straight, it won't revert back to curly at all.

So if you want to loosen up your curls I'd recommend using heat (and a powerful heat protectant spray) sparingly or else you could wind up permanently straightening (frying) your hair.

But Do Know...

That shrinkage is always going to happen with curly hair - whether it's loosely or tightly curled.

So if your hair is on the kinkier, more tightly wound side and you're wearing it natural it's best to learn to accept it as a given. If not you're going to always be spending more time and money fighting against your hair, wanting it to be something that it's not.