I Tried it Again...And it Worked!

The Greenhouse Effect that is! So I didn't even intend to do the Greenhouse Effect, but what had happened was (lol), I M&S'd my hair on Tuesday night and I used a good amount of product (I have a heavy hand). So after I M&S, I like to put on my scarf so that I keep my hands out of my hair (you know I have a problem with that based on an earlier post). I got a new pack of plastic caps last week when I went wig shopping that was sitting on my counter, so I decided to use the plastic cap, followed by my other scarves.

I did not add any type of water or anything, but the next morning the cap definitely had little beads of water and there was visible steam! When I removed the plastic cap, my hair was barely damp, but it was nice and soft and moisturized. On Wednesday night I followed the same process as the night before, only this time I didn't M&S (I M&S every other day) and I had the same results this morning...small beads of water in the plastic cap along with slightly damp, moisturized hair. I think I may continue this method especially as I start to wear my wig because the wig accessories can be drying (I wear a satin scarf over my braids and then the wig cap and wig).

Just thought I would share that I accidentally stumbled upon making the Greenhouse effect work for me since I had such a traumatic experience before! Until next time...

Greenhouse Effect Update

The last time we met, I had just taken an oil bath in EVOO. Well I tried the Greenhouse Effect again on Saturday night and I woke up with better results. My hair felt a bit more moisturized and I didn't have oil dripping from my curls, but I knew I would have to bite the bullet and wash my hair on Sunday evening.

I have been experiencing breakage and haven't been able to get it under control so I decided to try a homemade protein treatment. Traycee from KISS posted this on her blog and I decided to give it a go. 1 egg, beaten until frothy, mixed with 1 c of water and 1 tsp of oil of your choice. I made the protein mix and it seemed like a lot (I later learned that the 1 c of water was way too much). I added the mixture to a spray bottle because it was watery and I wanted to ensure that I covered all of my strands from root to tip. I covered my hair with a plastic cap for 15 minutes and then rinsed. After I rinsed, I deep conditioned for 30 minutes to restore the moisture and then went through my normal wash day routine.

I did 1 clarifying shampoo just in case my hair had some build up, did a regular shampoo, added my conditioner and then detangled in sections. As I shampooed my hair, it didn't feel any different after the protein treatment so I don't think the treatment worked. I think it was too watery. Not to mention that as I was detangling my hair, I found pieces of cooked egg in the back. After I detangled, I twisted my hair, rinsed with cold water and then added my protein leave-in and regular leave-in.

All in all, last weekend was NOT a good weekend for my hair and various bright ideas/ experiments! Hopefully I'll have better luck moving forward. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude because I'm still learning my hair and what works well, but this stuff is for the birds!

I Don't Know What to do With This Hair...

As you know, I've been having a little issue recently with figuring out how to keep my hair moisturized. After wash days, my hair always feels moisturized for a few days, but by the end of the week, it starts to feel dry and brittle. I M&S daily or every other day with my moisturizer (see regimen page) and EVCO.

Don't ask me why I thought this would be a good idea, but yesterday I was surfing hair blogs and random You Tubers and got the bright idea to try the Real Queen's Regimen. I figured since the goal is to get your hair to a "greenhouse" state over night, this would be perfect because I would wake up with moisturized, soft hair. Sounds great, right? So I kicked off my attempt at the Real Queen's Regimen by DOUSING my hair in EVOO mixed with EVCO.

Just to add some color to how this whole thing went down - I went into the kitchen, grabbed the EVOO and poured about 3/4 cup into a container. My BF looks at me perplexed and says "What are you doing?" I smile and slyly run to the bathroom to begin mixing some EVCO in the EVOO. I return to the kitchen to melt the EVCO in the EVOO and he's like "Babe! OMG - You can't put all of that in your hair...you'r going to clog your pores!!! I don't know much about hair, but that's too much oil!!!!" I laugh and return to the bathroom. My BF is very curious and intrigued by my hair experiments, so while I'm literally making the largest mess possible, pouring all of this oil on my hair, getting it on my neck, in the sink, etc. he comes in and is like "you cannot be serious right now!" So I put him to work, told him to grab the cup, and pour some oil on the back of my hair where I couldn't reach very well, LOL! Long story short, when all of the oil in the cup was on my hair, I had A TON of oil on my hair, neck, etc. You're supposed to put your hair in the style you plan to wear it before covering it so that the next morning you can just remove your head wrap and go. So I placed my hair in my normal pineapple position for sleeping (this helps keep my curls for my twist n curl), slapped on a plastic cap, and added my normal scarves on my hair. Technically I should have put a hat, or some other covering on my head to create the "greenhouse effect," but I wanted to try it my way first. I placed a towel on my pillow to catch any extra oil and called it a night.

This morning when I woke up, I went to the bathroom for my normal routine and while I'm brushing my teeth, my BF looks at me and says "what is that?" I'm like what...I look in the mirror and there are literally streams of EVOO RUNNING DOWN MY NECK, LOL!!!! Gravity clearly took over since I was no longer lying down. I took off the scarves and plastic cap and my hair looked as dry as normal, but with beads of oil sitting on top. I would call this an HUGE FAIL! Overall my hair did not feel moisturized and I was really sad.

As I went throughout the day today, I literally had oil collecting on the bottom of my curls that I would have to remove with my hand so that it didn't drip on my shirt. AND the headrest in the car looked like the couch on Coming to America when the Soul Glo family stood up!

I think where I went wrong is that I used too much oil (as I'm sure you guessed) and I used EVOO, which I know my hair doesn't love. I tried EVOO before and didn't think it worked well, but figured I would give it another shot. Welp - that's one oil that gets crossed off of my list for good!

So now I have all of this oil in my hair and a normal person would wash their hair, but I don't have time to wash and I'm a sucker for punishment, so I'm planning to put on a plastic cap, place a hat on, and try to get this greenhouse thing going again to absorb some of this oil.

So sorry for the long post, but I had to share my adventure! I'll let you know how it turns out.