I NEED HELP!

 

I am multi-racial and have the craziest hair...

 

I don't know how to take care of it. I keep getting tips from everyone that say "moisture, moisture!" "leave-in conditioners!" "less heat!" But no one is really telling me how I can personally take care of my hair and what styles will work for it best.

 

My hair has a very bizarre texture. I wouldn't say it's kinky, but it is VERY poofy, VERY thick, VERY frizzy, and VERY coarse..... The reason I am so sad is because I KNOW that I am doing something very wrong to my hair.

 

All the way up into High School my hair was very long, almost down to my posterior. Now it's coming up to only shoulder length

 

My mom is mad at me because she was always proud of my hair since it has a unique copper-red color and because of its length, but now it's just all damaged from heat and much, much shorter than it used to be.

 

I used to always wear my hair in a ponytail all throughout my childhood up until about 4 years ago because it was just SOOO hard to manage. In high school, I went to a salon and I guess they just wanted to take the easy way out and put a relaxer in my hair. That's when the major damage started to happen.

 

My hair hasn't recovered since.. and I'm not making it any better because I always press it out and the heat has just been breaking my ends off to no end... I've had to go to salons and they just keep chopping the dead ends off and now my hair is tremendously shorter than it used to be.

 

Can anyone tell me what I should do??? What style should I put my hair in aside from a ponytail and that doesn't use so much heat???

 

Here are some pictures of my hair:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been using Pantene Pro-V's shampoo and conditioner for relaxed and natural hair. It does a good job, but I was wondering would there be anything better ?

What I always wanted to do was just wear my hair down naturally without having to press it out and all, but it's just too poofy and frizzy, it looks like a lion's mane

 

I remember in Elementary I tried that and I acquired the nickname "fireball"  lol

 

Once out of the shower, my hair is really curly and looks kinda nice, but as SOON as it starts to dry all hell breaks loose which tells me that my hair just needs something to hold down the poof and frizziness. But the only way that works is if it's soaking wet, which I obviously wouldn't wanna do....

 

I tried gels, I tried sprays, I tried everything (at least I think) but my hair has so many layers that the gels would make the first couple layers all crispy and then underneath would be the  POOF!  It looked hooorrrrible.

 

Even after spending hours experimenting with gels and sprays and trying to comb it through all my layers STILL there was so much hair that somehow just wouldn't stop poofing...

Another thing, it takes me on average (and on a good day) 1 hour and 47 minutes (lol) to press my hair out... and it hurts my hands to sit there and do the same motions over and over and over for each layer to press it out... and the heat not only is damaging my hair, but even as I'm pressing it out, my hands get burned, not because I'm touching the flat iron, but because the hair gets so hot to the touch.... that's what I do in order to straighten it...

 

It's getting overwhelming....

 

I asked some people at a salon once if I should get my hair layered and thinned, but they said that because my hair has a very odd way of curling and is soo wavy at the roots, that it wouldn't look too good

 

I just don't know what to do, please someone help