Braid-out Success

So this past weekend I had a party to go to. I normally will curl my hair with a curling iron and wear it down for special occasions, but in my quest to use less heat and maintain my ends, I decided to do a braid-out instead. I really was not sure how this braid-out was going to turn out because the last one I did (around Christmas/New Year’s) was an epic fail. My hair was frizzy and the waves from the braid were not smooth and shiny like I am used to. Looking back, I know this was because of the many split ends I had at the time. Split ends can devastate any style.

Well, this past Friday and washed and deep conditioned my hair. I rinsed and put my leave-in conditioner throughout my hair. While my hair was still wet, I braided it in three sections -- top left, top right, and back. My hair in the back of my head has always been less dense then the rest of my head so I can get away with doing only one braid in the back. I have done braid-outs with two braids with great results as well. I put sponge rollers covered in satin on the ends of each braid so once the braid is released, the waves would have a slight curl at the ends. I slept in the braids and did not take them down until approximately 1pm the next day and my hair was still damp. Lesson learned, I won’t braid my hair soaking wet again. I will air dry my hair loose and once it is approximately 60% dry, then I will braid it and let it finish drying completely in the braid.

Nevertheless, the braid-out turned out beautifully. Sorry, I don’t have pictures. I was able to wear the braid out for three days without rebraiding or doing anything at all to it. I will say on Day 2, it looked the best. I am glad I was able to create a no heat style that looked awesome. I had my phony pony on standby just in case things did not turn out well, lol.

Maxi Hair Vitamins

I just ordered the Maxi Hair vitamins that have been on my wish list. I really hope I can remember to take them consistently everyday so that if there is improvement to be made to my hair from the vitamins, I give myself a fair chance at seeing those results. I am also interested as to how these vitamins will help my nails. I wear my nails short, square, and polished in various colors. My wish is not for the vitamins to make my nails grow long, but rather to strengthen them because for some reason they always seem to chip off on the corners so my nice square nail looks some kind funky shape and it’s too short to file back down into a nice square shape like I like it. I will do an update after a couple of months to let you know how they are working for me (or not working, lol).

 

 

Air Drying with Healthy Ends

When I had damaged hair with tons of split ends, air drying my hair was horrible. My hair always dried rough, slightly tangled at the ends, and a bit frizzy. Because of this, I would blow dry my hair most of the time, which is just a cycle of damage because although blow-drying would give my hair a smooth appearance, doing it every wash was just adding to the existing damage.

Last night, I deep conditioned on dry hair for about 45 minutes with ORS Replenishing Conditioner and a heating cap. I got in the shower and rinsed out the deep conditioner and did a co-wash with Giovanni Deeper Moisture Conditioner, and afterwards, I detangled my hair under cold running water. When I got out of the shower, I put a leave-in conditioner (Bee Mine Deja’s Hair Milk) in my hair, sealed it with Chi Silk Infusion, and tied it up with a satin scarf letting the back hang out of the scarf to air dry while I am sleep. I went to bed and woke up the next day to soft, slightly curly/wavy hair, that felt moisturized and conditioned. I normally never have this type of result when I air dry but I contribute that to the fact that my ends are now healthy.

This morning, I just clipped my hair up and went to work….no styling, combing or brushing, just a little added moisturizer to ensure my hair stays moisturized all day. By November/December time frame, my hair will have grown back to the length it was previously before the cuts and hopefully it will still be as healthy as it is now. Wish me luck on this never ending hair journey, lol.  

Diet, Exercising and Hair Growth

A fresh cut can make you fall in love with your hair all over again. Although I have not been doing anything special to my hair, the cut really brings out the beauty of my hair. It looks healthy and healthy hair has some special kind of beauty to it if you know what I mean.

I have been doing some major dieting and exercising and I wonder if it is negatively or positively impacting my hair growth. I cannot tell at this point. I know exercising is supposed to be good for hair growth because it gets your blood circulating and improves your overall health, but I am not sure how this dieting is affecting my hair. I have reduced my daily caloric intake and though I am very cautious of trying to get all the vitamins and minerals my body needs, I know that reducing the amount of food I consume reduces the about of vitamins and minerals I get and between my vital organs and nursing my daughter, my hair is not high on the list of where those vitamins and minerals go first. Yes, I take a multi-vitamin but I must admit that I am not always the best at remembering to take it. I got to do better there. Here goes another stretch, 2 weeks in and at least 10 weeks to go.

Why I Blog About Hair

Some people have asked why is it that I dedicate a whole blog to hair and beauty (mainly hair) when there are so much more meaningful topics to blog about, ones that add more value to people’s lives like religion, motherhood, education, etc. Well I do it for several reasons:

1. Because I have learned so much from other afro-textured hair bloggers and I would love to be a to share my experiences and pass on the knowledge.
2. It is a way for me to keep track of progress, setbacks, products that work well and not so well, and how particular hair routines have affected my hair.
3. It is just a hobby.

I have other things in my life that are priorities and my hair is not even in the top 10. Sometimes I will go weeks without blogging just because other more important things have occupied my time. I would love to blog about other topics, but I don’t feel like I could do them justice. I am still learning and evolving in other areas of my life and I am not at a point where I can contribute at a level where I feel proud to do so. But with that being said, I have just embarked on a weight loss journey and I would love to blog about that for the same reasons as why I blog about hair, to share my experiences and to track my progress and setbacks. That blog should be coming soon. I will post that link when it is up and running for anyone who is interested.

Talk to you again soon!

Ebonee

I Cut It...Again

So I relaxed my hair on April 28 at 12 weeks and 2 days post. I am satisfied with my stretch and I was satisfied with the amount of growth I received. It was not anything extraordinary, just my normal growth rate. My ends were tangly and coarse feeling which I knew was due to split ends, residual damage remaining from when I colored my hair a while back.  So I decided not to worry about them because you all know I cut off 2 inches the last time I relaxed and more cutting would just be taking my length shorter and shorter and shorter.

So a week went by and this past Saturday, May 5^th, my fiancé and I were going out and I decided to wear my hair down and curl it. Not really the best idea since it is now very hot in Texas and if I am feeling hot for any short period of time I will begin to sweat which causes my hair to stick to my face, neck, and any exposed skin that has sweat on it. Also, as I curled my hair, I noticed I wasn’t really getting that “look” I am used to….black, shiny, bouncy healthy looking curls. I knew it was due to the split ends. Well, I completed my style and we went out. The combination of the heat and my split ends caused me to get thoughts about cutting my hair...again. I mean cutting shorter than it has been for years.  So when I came home that evening, I went in the bathroom, grabbed my cutting shears and cut a little more than 3 inches off from the length of my hair.

Yay! Freedom from ugly tangly crunchy split ends! I really think I have cut off all the damage now. Examining my hair I believe I have a fresh start to begin growing my hair back out. My hair feels light and airy and healthy! The real test that convinced me that all the split ends are gone was washing my hair. My hair felt so silky and I had so much slip as I washed and conditioned my hair last night. My hair has not felt like this in a loonnnggg time and I thought it was due to hard water and mineral deposits building up on the shaft of my hair but I have now concluded that it was due to split ends. Split ends are the devil, lol.

So it’s back to the basics. Back to following my simple hair goals:

• Relax every 12 weeks or longer.
• Moisturize and seal hair nightly.
• Sleep with satin scarf every night.
• Scalp massages 3 times a week.
• Reach full BSL.
• Repair and maintain damaged hair in nape of neck.
• Take multi-vitamin daily and drink lots of water.
• Air dry after every wash and use heat very sparingly.

I no longer have the goal of repairing the hair in the nape of my neck because during the series of cuts over the past couple of relaxers, my hair is now even and healthy all around and there is not a short spot in the nape of my neck. I had begun to slack on moisturizing, sealing, and sleeping with a scarf as of late so I will really focus on making those things a priority because I don’t want this cut to be in vain. I don’t want to end up back in the same situation with tons of split ends due lack of care and maintenance. I also added one more goal related to heat usage. I used to not care about blow drying my hair and would do it anytime I felt like it after a wash because it gave me better results when stretching than air drying but that is a counterproductive practice that I will no longer do. I already use heat sparingly as far as curling irons, flat irons, etc. I use those kinds of styling tools maybe once every two months. Now I will cut down and hopefully completely cut out my usage of the blow dryer.

Healthy hair is sooo important, long or short, because healthy hair is beautiful hair at any length.

Happy Hair Growing y’all!

This Stretch is Almost Over!

I have not blogged in a while. Well, longer than a while….since my last relaxer and this Thursday makes 12 weeks post so it’s almost time for my next relaxer. My hair has been uneventful except for some greater than normal shedding I experienced for about 3-4 weeks during this stretch. I could not pinpoint the culprit. It was not stress, it was not diet or illness….everything is the same as it has always been. It was not due to using new hair products, I have been using the same products as I usually do. So I concluded that it may be due to one or two things.

First, it may be seasonal shedding. Everyone sheds more during certain times of the year than during others. I thought maybe since the weather was getting warmer (transitioning from winter into spring and summer) that it may be the cause of the increased shedding. The second possible reason is due to hard water. I have very hard water where I live. My hair never feels incredibly soft when I wash and condition it as it has in the past, even after I use a chelating shampoo. I know it is due to the hard water but I also read on the internet that hard water can cause shedding so I thought that hard water may have been a reason, too. Who knows?

Unfortunately, I have not have the time or energy to focus on my hair problems. I have too much other stuff going on that takes priority in my life right now so I just have not been worrying about the shedding. Instead, I cornrowed the front of my hair then placed a half wig on my head where the cornrows stopped. It looks beautiful. I have gotten more compliments on this hairstyle than I have ever gotten in my life, literally. I think in one day at work, 15 different people complimented my hair. I have been wearing it like this for 1 week. I will probably take it down this Thursday, wash and deep condition my hair, and prepare to relax it a few days after my hair has had time to rest. Talk to you all soon!

Current Hair Thoughts

So it’s been about a week since relaxing my hair. This week I have slacked on my moisturizing and sealing but I am about to get back on track. I have to maintain my ends so I won’t have to continue to trim, trim, trim. I will probably wash my hair tomorrow. Since this is the first wash after my relaxer I will be using a chelating shampoo to rid my hair of some of the minerals that the no-lye relaxer leaves on the hair shaft. The minerals can impede moisture from properly penetrating the hair shaft leading to dryness and breakage so it’s important for those who use a no-lye relaxer (like I do) to using a chelating shampoo. I will also do a protein deep conditioning because we all know relaxed hair needs protein.

For some reason, I do not like the first few weeks of my stretch. I feel like I am back at square one, like I have been stretching week after week after week, just to be back at the beginning of another stretch with months to go until I can relax again. Also, during the first two or three weeks of my stretch my hair feels very flat to my scalp. Obviously, it is because my previously curly, kinky new growth is now straight, but I don’t like it. It takes away the volume at my roots that can make almost any style look better. Anyway, those are just my current thoughts. I’ll check-in with you all again later.

Relaxer Day!

Well, I decided to relax yesterday so I ended my stretch at 13 weeks. The stretch was good and I am glad that I stretched more than the minimum 12 week goal I set for myself in my HAIR GOALS.  This time I used a different relaxer. I normally use the Optimum in the red box, but because I have heard so many rave reviews about the ORS Olive Oil relaxer (green box) I wanted to try it so I did. 

I must say that did not like the ORS relaxer. It left my hair texlaxed in a few areas although I relaxed my hair in the same manner I normally do (see pic below). I have been relaxing my own hair since age 14 so I have a good idea of how to use a relaxer to get my hair to the desired texture. Yes, all relaxers are different but I still prefer the Optimum and will be using that next time. I don’t know why I decided to change it because it was working just fine.

 

So I washed, deep conditioned, and blow dried my hair and these are the results below:

Looks pretty nice in the photo, but overall, my ends were reflecting a lot of damage and were very uneven in the back. So I decided to cut about two inches off all around my head which evened up the back on my hair (about what you see under the white line).

I couldn’t take a picture of the end result in the back because I was home alone with no one to take the picture while I turned around, but trust me, it is blunt and even. The goal for now is to continue with my regimen and maintain my ends so that I won’t have to trim on my next relaxer. It is very possible that I will have to trim a least once more because the last four inches of my hair were in pretty bad shape, and the two inches I took off just evened up everything but it did not address all the damage. I will evaluate my hair on my next relaxer and will make the decision from there to trim or not. And the stretch begins again...

Happy Hair Growing Y’all!

Should I or Should I Not? That is the Question...

Tomorrow I am off work and I hear a little voice saying use that day while the kids are away to relax my hair. I wanted to stretch at least 16 weeks. Right now I am 13 weeks post relaxer so I’m not even close if I were to relax tomorrow. My stretch is still going fine. I am not experiencing any breakage or shedding. I just feel a little tired of not looking “polished.” I hope no one takes offense to that word because it is coming from someone who has worn my hair both natural and relaxed in my adult years and I have loved both. The unpolished feeling comes from having nearly 2 inches of natural hair and the rest being relaxed, and the combination of the two don’t always agree or look the best.

If you see a relaxer update post here in the next few days, or possibly tomorrow, you know what decision I made. LOL.

Happy Hair Growing!

Praise God!

I am going through some things in my life, non-hair related of course. Things that make hair seem like a tiny ant on the surface of this huge world. It makes hair seem like something that should not even be taking up my time, energy and mental space. I’m not saying that I am going to close my blog and focus on these “more important things” but I am saying that we need to make sure our priorities are in order and our hair should definitely not be at the top of the list. It can be on the list, just not at the top.

Anyway this post is to say “God is good!” I don’t understand what he is doing in my life, I don’t particularly like some of the situations I have found myself in right now, but I am trusting that He will lead me to where I need to be. I trust that He knows what is best for me and my children. I praise Him because He has blessed me so, and even during this time of frustration and confusion I will continue to praise Him because He is worthy!

Talk to you all again soon,

Ebonee