I was talking to a friend recently who said that she had a sudden breakout on the side of her face and it was caused by the weave she had just installed. So she took the weave out and her acne started healing. This made me wonder if synthetic hair can cause breakouts, so I went investigating.
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A lot of us black ladies wear wigs or weaves as protective styles. Our hair is dry naturally & will be drier as winter approaches and protective styles like braids, cornrows, wigs & weaves will become more popular.
Most braids are braided using synthetic hair but weave bundles & wigs do come in human hair & synthetic hair.
Human hair is from actual people donating or selling their hair & is more expensive compared to synthetic hair. Synthetic hair is made from acrylic, plastic & nylon fibres that are chemically processed to behave like real hair.
It’s becoming more & more difficult to distinguish between synthetic & human hair as synthetic hair manufacturers are becoming more advanced
Before synthetic hair is packaged, it is coated with an alkaline formula that helps to prevent any mould from growing on the synthetic hair. This alkaline base is what causes itching, dry, flaky scalp once you have your braids or weave installed.
If your braids or weave are long, this can also cause contact dermatitis or acne on your skin. It could be the sides of your face if the hair is long or your forehead if you have a fringe.
How does this Alkaline base cause acne?
The PH of our skin is naturally acidic, this maintains our protective barrier making sure that irritants can’t enter the skin and that water doesn’t evaporate easily from the skin. This alkaline base touching your skin can cause irritation, rashes or contact dermatitis as you have an alkaline touching your skin.
The alkaline solution breaks down the skin’s protective barrier and irritants can easily enter your skin causing havoc. If you are prone to acne, the p.acnes bacteria that causes acne LOVES an alkaline environment and will easily multiply leading to acne.
Your impaired barrier will allow for trans epidermal water loss causing your skin to dehydrate. The skin will produce excess oil in an attempt to moisturise itself and the p.acnes bacteria will easily feed off the excess oil, irritating as it produces waste products. This leads to inflammation and acne.
If you are not prone to acne you could still end up with itching, sensitivity, dryness or contact dermatitis.
Synthetic hair: What is the solution?
The solution to this is to wash the synthetic hair in warm water mixed with apple cider vinegar before installing the braids or weave. Mix half a cup of apple cider vinegar with warm water in a basin. Soak the synthetic hair for 30 minutes to an hour. Then rinse with clean water
You can shampoo and condition the hair the get rid of the strong apple cider vinegar smell. Then hang it outside to dry.
This should prevent any skin or scalp reactions from the synthetic hair, if not then stop wearing synthetic hair
I hope you found value in this post & please share this with everyone as I feel we can all benefit from this knowledge.