I Don't Know What To Do

I washed my hair for the first time in a while. . . and it was not pretty. I officially know about shrinkage. You can see the length of my hair in my last post. It was still chin length. But now, because of shrinkage, my hair looks like it is half an inch. . . except for the 25% of my hair that is not natural. The handful of permed ends of my hair just stick out. So I will obviously have to cut that off for real. I was snipping away the permed hair like it was nothing anyway after the wash because it was full of knots. Surprisingly, my natural hair, though twisted around each other, was really easy to comb and it was just those permed ends giving me trouble.

In any case, the result is I look like a boy. I really don't know what to do. I'm starting to regret going natural. And yet, I still love my thick natural hair. Getting relaxers was making my hair thin and limp. I don't know how to braid up hair in order to stretch it though. I may try going to an all natural hair salon to see what they can do. Or try to do some bantu knots myself since I heard that keeps the hair stretched and then it will look good when you unknot it. In the meantime, I am going to co-wash my hair two or three times a week because it is definitely dry. And I will do a real BC in two weeks when I have time (in the middle of finals now).

I chickened out on the BC

Though I may have chickened out on the BC, I did do a mini BC. I went to a hair salon that lost my appointment and took more than six hours to complete my hair. While I was waiting so long and losing faith in the salon, I really did not want them doing something crazy and cutting all my hair off. In any case, I lost a few inches and the hair cut is pretty good. I have decided I am never going to a salon again, or at least for a few months, so now I am going to have to do something with my hair once it reverts.

As for the state of my hair, I did nothing at all to my hair when I had a weave for two months. So it is dry and breaking. For the next week, I am going to moisturize with Hairveda's Whipped Cream once or twice a day and seal with coconut oil. The Whipped Cream has a liquid consistency which allows me to spread it throughout my hair easily like water but without the reversion. I'll update in a week.

The New Year!

So it is a new year and so it is time for a new hair care regimen. Let me update y'all on what has been going on with my hair. I ended up putting a weave in my hair and it was then I realized that 75% of my ends have broken off to the demarcation line. It was a little crazy holding onto my ends like that. Also, my new growth has also been damaged do to me not combing it. But it is okay. I am going to take the weave out in a month and BC. I am going to rock a tiny afro and hope that I look good in it. . . might have to get skinnier to bring out my cheekbones or something lol. In order to grow back some long, healthy hair, I plan to eat healthy, drink at least six cups of water daily, moisturize twice a day, cowash every other day, DC 3x a week, and actually detangle my hair twice a week. Do not skip out on the detangling. . . even if it takes you four hours. It is very important!

The Disaster: Weekly Regimen

It was finals time for me in law school and so I literally did nothing to my hair. I did not wash it, comb it, or even moisturize it. So my hair was a disaster. It was just snapping, crackling, and popping all over the place. I was prepared for the worst though.

I slathered my hair in a coconut and olive oil mix the night before. I pulled a LOT of the broken hairs out. I made sure I could run my hands over it without picking up any loose hair.

I started out with clarifying my hair with Nexxus. I had a lot of build up because of my high use of cones. My moisturizer has the worst ones in it-- I use Silk Elements Silken Child Moisturizing Creme. It also has fabulous ingredients though. But I am going to have to stop using it because it contributed a lot to the dryness of my hair. I am still looking the perfect moisturizer. Hopefully my hairveda purchase will help me out.

In any case, I then used my Elucence shampoo and conditioner. I added some Lustrasilk Shea Butter Cholesterol on top. I sat under the dryer for about 40 minutes. I rinsed, used Porosity Control, and started the LONG process of detangling my hair. I used my Yes to Carrots conditioner but even that could not help me. I had tons of multiple strand knots and mats. I have never had mats before. It was so bad. I had to cut out a lot of my hair. But it's okay. Finals are over and so I am going to start doing a every other day co-washes until the new year. I'll post the end results and a picture.

Listening to Your Hair

I cowashed last night using v05 Free Me Freesia Moisturizing Conditioner. Then I deep conditioned under heat with Elucence MB Conditioner. I decided to just leave it in, take off the shower cap, and dry my hair under my bonnet dryer. My hair felt really dry and crunchy and parts were like glued together. I only used two products so now I have to ask, which one does my hair not like? I am really hoping it is not the Elucence since I got ahead of myself and bought the 33oz size. But the problem could also be that I did not use enough products. Maybe I should have added some more conditioner and sealed. For the next three days, I will just keep tweaking.

On My Way to Healthy Hair--Weekly Regimen

I decided to do a prepoo this time. I mixed up extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and Silk Elements MegaSilk Moisturizing Treatment in a bowl, warmed it for 30 seconds, and thoroughly spread it through my hair. I put on a shower cap and used heat for about ten minutes. Then I just let it sit on my head for about an hour. It was messy. The oil was running all down my face, dripping on my clothes and floor. I would wipe some and more would fall out. Oil went into my eye. . . which was not fun. And I now have some permanent oil stains on one of my favorite T-shirts. But all the mess was worth it. First, the act of spreading all that oil on my hair allowed me to remove almost all of my shed hairs. A pretty substantial amount of shed hairs after not combing my hair for six days. I can only imagine how many multiple strand knots I would have had if I had not done this prepoo. And after I rinsed it out, my hair was really soft and shiny.


I shampooed for the first time with Elucence Moisture Benefits Shampoo. It smelled like peaches, which I found out is a smell I do not particularly care for. But the shampoo worked well. It did not strip my hair and it made my hair even softer.


I then deep conditioned under heat with Elucence Moisture Balancing Conditioner. I can't review this yet without many more uses but I'll give you my first impressions. It gave me slip but not as much as I would have liked. It had a watery, thin consistency when I usually like creamy, thick conditioners. The conditioner did add moisture to my hair so I do love it for that. I'll put up a real review for it after using it for a few months though.

After I rinsed it out, I used Porosity Control Conditioner (like always) to close my cuticles. Then I used the Yes to Carrots Conditioner to detangle my hair. My hair was not knotted at all. Detangling was a breeze.

After, I sat under the dryer because I have given up on using flexi rod sets. It still takes too much time and too much manipulation. So I am now just going to tie my hair back, slap on a headband to control the thickness, and go on my merry way. After drying, I still used Paul Mitchell leave-in conditioner on my ends and sealed with olive oil.

I would just like to say that before I dried my hair, I did a wet hair assessment. I gently pulled on a few strands of hair and they actually stretched a little before breaking. You all don't know how exciting that is. I really feel like I am making progress towards healthy hair.

This Week's Regimen

I have decided to do conditioner washes every couple of days so this week I wanted to clarify. I used Nexxus Aloe Rid Gentle Clarifying Shampoo and shampooed with Ion Dandruff Solutions. I used Aphogee 2 Minute Keratin Reconstructor to keep up my hair's moisture/protein because co-washes really moisturize hair. Then I deep conditioned with Kenra MC under heat for 35 minutes and used Porosity Control for my final rinse.

The result was not good. I had five or six multiple strand knots. These knots caught about thirty strands of hair each. I now know the importance of combing out shed hairs before you wet the hair or washing your hair more so that you can detangle more. Once water hits your head, those shed hairs slide down and knot the heck up. Needless to say, I was pretty horrified. And it was painstaking work to pick each strand from the knot. I still had to cut about ten strands that were glued to the knot. The rest of my hair was very tangled and Kenra did not work at all in the detangling process. But thankfully the product junkie in me had just bought the Yes to Carrots Pampering Hair Mud Conditioner and. . .OMG, it was freakin fabulous! I never knew what people were talking about when they said their hair felt like butter. The comb slid through my new growth so easily. That one is definitely a keeper!