Finally learned how to wrap (thx to this vid)

 

I actually learned how to wrap a while ago, but I still find myself watching this vid as a guide until wrapping comes naturally to me. It is the most helpful technique I've seen on youtube. My hair is currently flat ironed and wrapping has been a great way to preserve my straight styles. 

I read that wrapping can cause thinning on one side, but honestly I'm not too concerned because I rarely wear my hair out (and therefore rarely wrap). But I'll still keep an eye out for an adverse effects.

Speaking of hair, I flat ironed my hair on Sunday night. I must say I'm really enjoying wearing my hair straight. Here are some pics I took today (as requested):

Nightly maintenance: 

1. apply a little serum/pomade (only if needed...I didn't use any tonight because my hair was already a little weighed down). 

2. Wrap like in the video

3. tie a satin scarf

that's it. This is just as simple as protective styling with halfwigs. I'm planning to wear my hair straight for the rest of the week.

Another September Wash Day

This week has been pretty hectic. I protective styled every day of the week - updo 2 days and halfwig 3 days.

I couldn't take the itchies anymore so I went ahead and washed and conditioned my hair today. here's what I did:

• Applied Amla Oil to my hair and detangled
• Shampooed with diluted sulfate shampoo (1 part shampoo to 2 parts water)
• Conditioned with Aphogee 2 Minute
• Rinsed, and applied my leave-in (Aphogee Green Tea and Keratin)
• Air dried with a scarf until my edges were dry, then blow dried

Thoughts: During the whole wash process I was losing a lot of hair. I know it's shedding because majority of the strands are long with a little white bulb at the end. At least its the lesser of the 2 evils (shedding is better than breakage). But my shedding is excessive right now so I'm going to pop a couple garlic pills and hopefully that stops the shedding.

I'm currently 9 weeks post and hair is starting to get tangled more, and harder to work with. I have a good inch of new growth so I'm glad about that. 


Plans: I'm planning to wear my hair straight this week. I haven't flat ironed since August 22 so I'm looking forward to using heat finally.

Due to the new growth and excessive shedding, it may be time to relax soon.

Things They Don't Tell You About Being Relaxed

...the good and the bad:

1. We still have to straighten it. Just because a relaxer chemically alters the strand to make it straighter, doesn't mean the job is done until the next relaxer. Still gotta use a flat iron if you want the polished look.

2. It's not easy. We always hear about how hard transitioning is. Well being relaxed is literally transitioning over and over again.

3. It's easy. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to get relaxed hair to do what you want it to do. For example, detangling is not a challenge when you're a few weeks post.

4. Kink & coil envy. Every time you see healthy, nicely styled natural hair in real life, you're intrigued. Sometimes you start thinking about what your own hair would look if you went natural. This is when braid-outs, twist-outs etc come in very handy.

5. Natural products work for us too. This emergence of the "natural" hair care market is benefiting relaxed heads too by giving everyone better alternatives and quality ingredients. The products that drench natural hair in moisture do the exact same thing for relaxed tresses.

Weekend hair plans

Here are a few random pics:

Work bun

I flat ironed at the end of August. Sorry for black on black but you can see the silkiness of my hair in this pic. I applied a little DAX Light Pomade before flat ironing. I still am loving and using this stuff. My hair also had some CHI SIlk Infusion in it. Those are the only 2 products I used after my hair was dry.

Crappy pic but you can kinda see how long my hair is after I trimmed it a little while ago

I don't think I've so much as moisturized and sealed my hair since Monday. It's been a pretty hectic week back to school and I've decided to wig for convenience. Well my hair is still feeling great and today I'm looking forward to pampering it:

Pre-poo with Queen Helene Cholesterol + Honey
Shampoo (Dove Intensive Repair Shampoo)
DC with heat (Kenra Moisturizing Conditioner)
Apply leave-in (Aphogee Provitamin Leave-in - trying this for the first time. Lets see if my hair likes it)
Air Dry w/ scarf method

What are your weekend hair plans??

Wig it or not??

I'm debating between whether I want to wig it for the rest of the year or not.

On the one hand, I can save a LOT of time every morning and it is soo convenient to just throw on a halfwig, blend a little, and go. I wont have to worry about bad hair days or anything. Also, my hair will be 100% protected for maximum length retention. If I want a change I can always just do an updo with my real hair every once in a while.


On the other hand. My hair is at a length where I feel comfortable with wearing it out. Halfwigs are pretty expensive over time.

What to do?? How are you wearing your hair this fall/winter?

Random Hair Thoughts

• So after major shedding, breakage and dryness issues this past week, my hair is back to normal for the most part. I shampooed with Queen Helene Garlic Shampoo and conditioned, that helped but I still had a lot of shedding and breakage going on. I tried deep conditioning with Kenra Moisturizing Conditioner -- that helped bring my hair's moisture level back but I still had a lot of shedding. It wasn't until I took 2 garlic softgels that my shedding literally STOPPED in it's tracks. 

• My hair has outgrown regular shower caps. It doesn't all fit in the shower cap so when I'm DCing or baggying, there's heat/steam escaping from the perimeter where the elastic isn't snug against my head. So I'm going to start applying a layer of plastic wrap first, then put on a shower cap. I did it for today's DC and it works pretty well. I got the idea from Shorty2sweet59 on youtube.

• Today is wash day. I deep conditioned on dry hair with Queen Helene Cholesterol (LOVE this stuff...When my current jar is done I'm gonna just suck it up and just get the $20 tub). I left this on for about 3 hours while working out and just doing stuff around the house. Now my plan is to wash it out with Dove Damage Therapy Shampoo and Conditioner, apply Aphogee Green Tea & Keratin Mist and air dry.
• The search for a daily moisturizer might STILL be on. I thought S-curl would be the end-all but I read http://longing4length.blogspot.com/2011/08/time-to-shelve-s-curl.html Ebony's post and come to think of it my s-curl hasn't been as moisturizing lately and it makes sense for the reasons she mentioned. I may just need to clarify my hair. But I will keep using it until I notice a major difference.