question for ph users

welp this is the second day of install and i have a couple more hours worth to go which ill probably finish up tommorrow, my question is the hair is feeling a little rough already and i havent even washed or really done anything with it yet, just braided it so it looked ok at work... i baby oiled it a bit today but it didnt really help with the roughness, will the fabric softener do that? ill go out and buy some tommorrow.. thanks for any help you can give!

Yeah, I'd try some diluted fabric softener in a spray bottle and/or silicone spray, and be careful not to brush too hard or anything. I'm suprised that it's rough already, given the fact that you haven't washed it yet.  :)

Yeah, mine's real silky right now, but then again, I haven't washed it yet. I also didn't DIY it, so the hair wasn't "handled" much or exposed to any heat prior to the installation or during, really--I'm sure there's more handling involved if you're doing pretipping and all of that. Mine was literally taken out of the bag, blended, and braided in; that's it. So it's very silky, and all I've been doing to it is detangling twice a day with a wide-tooth comb and the Dome spray. I sleep with it in a braid or bun.

With the last batch of PH I had, I found that it got fairly stiff after the first two washes, and after that point (when the 50mm wave had pretty much dropped out anyway) it was necessary to blow it out or steam it using a good "gripping" brush (focusing primarily on the ends) at least once a week to keep it silky. Others may have different ways of going about it, but I've found that works best for me. Then, I just "reset" the hair with flocked hot rollers.

With this new batch, I've only been washing the top (my real hair) up to now, but I'll probably do the whole thing today or tomorrow, and I'll keep you posted on my progress.

I would urge you not to use too many products. I think a light misting of diluted fabric softener after washing, the occasional misting of Dome spray when detangling, and perhaps a little silicone here and there is ample.

Also, to some extent, I do think that synth hair is a bit stiffer (and thicker) than most human hair. That said, it shouldn't be so stiff that it feels awful or looks bad.

For more suggestions, you might want to go through some of my back posts. I was having a lot of trouble with the PH/Dome at first and a lot of people gave me great advice. There's one post in particular called "What am I doing wrong..." that you may want to check out. Here's the link: http://talk.hairboutique.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TI D=20326
As well as all the synth chronicle posts:
If you go to this (a search-results page), it should bring up about 6 different "synth chronicle" pages, which will show the progression of the hair and all that great advice. I can tell you that the hair was in very good shape after 7 weeks, when I had it redone--somehow it got better over time (strange as that may seem).

(I'm sure that these links will be broken, but if you close up the extra spaces they should work.)

Good luck! :)

Cool. I'm glad it's working out better now, Luckie.

Seriously, this hair has a mind of it's own a bit, and I remember having the exact same problems at first and being really worried, but it just seems to work itself out.

I'm planning to wash my hair today (unfortunately) so I may have some of that roughness again too. In which case, I'll need to go back through all those posts again, too. I can't even remember how it rectified itself, really....

:)