Back to Braids

I made a rash decision about 3 weeks ago to get my hair braided again. I relaxed at the end of August and planned to start exercising again, 2 weeks after my relaxer. Well I stuck to the plan and after one week decided that I didn't have it in me to go back into my wig, which is my normal routine when exercising.

I wore my hair in a braid and curl, which always started out cute, but would look a bit wild and crazy by the end of the week after exercising for 6 days and sweating heavily. After the first week of this, I made an appointment to get box braids. The month of October is going to be really crazy for me with traveling, working, and a few other events, so my hair is the LAST thing I want to be bothered with. 

Also, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm over wearing wigs. That's not to say that I'll never wear one again, but I think taking the 3 month break over the summer to actually enjoy my hair made me not want to "hide" my hair again. This has created quite the dilemma because I probably won't get braids again after this (side note: just when I was about to get my braids done, I decided I am too old to have braids and will not be getting them done anymore), but I don't want to wear a wig. What will my protective style be?

Fortunately I'm planning to keep my braids for 8 weeks, so I have some time to devise a plan. I believe I'll go back to wearing a wig, but it sure has been nice not to wear one.

Aside from buns, what other protective styles do you guys wear? I'm all about keeping my ends hidden.

Relaxer Results

Hi Friends! I hope everyone is well and staying cool during this heat wave (I'm in Philadelphia).

I texturized at 14 weeks over the weekend and had a pretty uneventful experience, which is a good thing. I hope I don't jinx myself, but I think I've finally mastered the best way to care for my hair leading up to my texturizer to ensure that it's a good experience. I was especially nervous this time because I took my braids out last week and texturized 2 weeks later than my normal 12 week period. I didn't have amazing growth results (not that I normally do), but in tracking my results through pictures, I've noticed that every other texturizer I see length progress in the back, and the alternating texturizers show length progress on the sides. What I mean is when I compare these results to March, the back of my hair is touching line #2, which is just about where it was in March. But now the sides are longer and closer to lines #1 & 2. Basically it looks like my hair grows in a U shape. I'm not sure if it's because it was cut like this at one point and now my stylist maintains the shape, or if it's natural. Makes me no difference either way, just an observation. I had my normal trim as well and am satisfied with my hair!

Left: 2.24.13; Right: 6.1.13

Top: 6.1.13; Bottom: 2.24.13 (this is to show the side comparison)

You may remember me mentioning this before, but since I've worn wigs 99% of the time over the last year plus, I've decided to try to wear my hair out this summer. I told myself that after my June relaxer, I would wear my hair out (i.e. no wigs) until my September relaxer. This is a HUGE deal for me. For my new readers, the main reason why I wear wigs is because I work out daily in the AM, sweat heavily, and have to go to work. With that, I have yet to find a style that allows me to look presentable while maintaining my active lifestyle.

In the beginning of my hair journey (in the summer of 2011), I wore my hair out before I discovered wigs, but I just don't know how things will be now. Nonetheless, I think wearing wigs has made me lazy and a bit scared that once I stop wearing them, I won't retain length as well, which is probably not true. While I haven't tried it yet, I feel like most women on hair journey's have been successful using primarily buns, and other protective styles to retain length. If they can do it, why can't I?

So wish me luck ladies. I'm going to try to post pictures weekly to help keep me accountable. Until next time!

2 Year Hairversary!!!

3/31/13 marked 2 years ago that I started my long, hair journey. Boy how quickly time flies! Looking back, I've realized that the first year was a year of hiccups and lots of experimentation while this last year I truly got the hang of things.

I was natural for the first 5 months of my hair journey (I had been natural for a little less than 2 years before beginning my hair journey) and then realized that I love straight hair and straight hair styles, but I couldn't achieve and maintain them with natural hair. This was the case primarily because I work out daily. Natural hair + a desire to wear straight hair styles + daily sweat sessions do not work well. Three months after beginning my journey I got a brazilian keratin treatment (June 2011), and then two months later I decided to get a texturizer (August 2011). This was the perfect solution for my hair, but it took a few months and some trial and error to get there.

After I got the texturizer, I committed to washing and doing my hair myself weekly, but this was definitely new for me. Then life took over and I ended up back in my stylist's chair every week, getting my hair corn rowed because I had started wearing wigs. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but I didn't feel like I was making much progress in terms of length. Nonetheless, I stuck with this routine and figured I needed to be patient.

Fast forward to March of 2012 when I had a bad texturizer experience and that was it. I decided that I needed to make time to care for my hair myself because I hated the last experience I had and I thought after one year into my journey, I should be able to do my hair myself. Thank God for that experience because between March 2012 and my next texturizer in June 2012, I retained the most length since beginning my hair journey. It was almost like a growth spurt, but I know better, it was just good ol' length retention!

Since March 2012, I've been doing my hair myself with the exception of my quarterly texturizer and trim. I have no desire to be a DIYer with chemicals, or scissors...that's where I draw the line, lol! With the exception of my recent almost set back, I have retained length and feel like I FINALLY understand what my hair needs and how to maximize length retention. It took 2 years, which seems like a long time, but I'm glad I was forced to truly understand how my hair thrives.

Following are a few things that I've learned:

• Patience, patience, patience! 
• When experimenting with products, try to change only one product at a time and take note of when you introduce the new product. For example, I have my staples, and I only introduce new products or experiment with changing things after a relaxer. This helps me track/ monitor the effects on my hair.
• Focus on learning your hair and the length will follow!

Finally, this post wouldn't be complete without progress photos! 

Left: 3/31/11; Middle: 3/31/12; Right: 3/31/13

Relaxer Weekend

Hi friends! I will be texturizing my hair this weekend at 11 weeks post. I typically texturize every 12 weeks at minimum, but I decided to do so one week early because my stylist couldn't fit me in next week, so my options were to texturize one week early or one week late. My hair seems to have grown a bit faster, or thicker since my last texturizer, and I'm over dealing with it right now, so I'm more than happy to get it done this weekend. As I mentioned in my last post, I anticipate having to get a deeper trim than normal due to my breakage issue, so we'll see how that goes. At this point though, I just want my old hair back that was breakage free and thriving, so length is not much of a concern.

In other news, I decided that I want to start to enjoy my hair a bit more. For those of you who don't know, I wear wigs 100% of the time because I exercise daily and like to wear my hair straight. This has worked well for me over the last two years, but it has made me SUPER lazy and not interested in doing much with my hair. When I was in South Africa (I know I'm lame and still need to fill you guys in on the trip), I wore my hair out for the first 10 days or so and LOVED every minute of it! It was so nice/ fun to have my hair blowing in the wind, and brushing on my shoulders....

But on the flip side, I started to freak out and think that damage would ensue because I'm not used to wearing my hair out and didn't want my ends to be compromised. I think I'm a little off and just need to find a balance. So I'm going to force myself to wear my hair out after my June relaxer. At that point the weather should be consistently warm again and I won't have to worry as much about my hair rubbing on different materials.

Leading up to my June relaxer, I want to get my hair braided. My stylist did beautiful box braids on a young lady who I saw the last time I was at the hairdresser. I haven't had braids in probably 6+ years and want to bring them back! I would like to get them half way through my next stretch, so that's about 6 weeks from now. After that, I'm going to step away from the wigs...or a least try to ;-)

WOW! It has been so long

Hi friends! It has been so long since I posted that I don't know where to begin. I hope you all have had a fabulous summer and are ready for the quickly approaching fall (I can't believe how quickly the summer passed).

Although I haven't been blogging, I have been taking pictures of new hair products and other "stuff" that I want to share. I will post these random items and share my thoughts when I have a chance.

Just a quick hair update - I have been really busy with personal things, hence the long blog hiatus, and quite honestly this is going to continue through the end of the year. With that, I have been keeping it extremely simple with my hair. After my last relaxer, I enjoyed my hair for about 2 days and then it was  chaos. As most of you know, I exercise daily in the morning, so once I sweat my hair is done. As a result, I wore my hair in random creative, big styles (like the twist and curl in my profile pic) for about one month before I returned to braids and my wig. I have been wigging since and plan to do so until my relaxer on 9/9 @ 11 weeks.

Here is my most recent wig - I got her in June. I like the way she looks, but she sheds A TON and I don't like that at all.

I have been experimenting quite a bit with how to care for my hair...ok, not that much, but it feels like it since I've been changing things up. To start, since I sweat daily and my hair is already super dry, I actually started rinsing my hair in the shower daily. Since my hair is braided, I just let the water run over my braids, if I feel like it I'll add a little conditioner and let it sit while I do my thang, and then I'll rinse at the end (I guess you can say I co-wash). I wrap my head in a t-shirt to soak up the excess water while I get dressed and by the time I'm finished, my hair is just damp. At that point I'll seal with my oil mixture because I'm basically using the water in my hair as a moisturizer (not sure if that makes sense to you guys). I've been doing this for about 2 weeks and I could definitely tell the difference in my last wash day - it was waaay easier to manage my hair! 

I decided to give this method a try because I haven't had much success finding a moisturizer that I like and that actually works, and I've read about a lot of naturals using good ol' water to moisturize their hair! Again, for my new readers, I was natural up until my texturizer 1 year ago, but my hair is still very similar to how it was when it was natural.

Ok - this update turned out waaay longer than planned, so I'm going to wrap it up and plan to come back soon!

Roller Set #FAIL

After I relaxed my hair the last time and had such a traumatic experience with tangling as a result of wearing corn rows and not detangling regularly, I decided to start experimenting with different options to replace the corn rows under my wig.

My goal was to experiment with different ways of straightening my hair so that I could regularly remove the normal shedding and reduce the potential for tangling on wash days. I had the bright idea to try a roller set, not with the intention of wearing it out, but with the logic that it would be a nice way to get my hair "straight" without having to blow my hair dry. I washed and conditioned my hair myself and then hightailed it to the Dominican Salon to have them roller set it. 

Welp - here are the results of that idea: a hot mess!

Here's the thing, as I mentioned, my honest intention was not to wear this out as a style, but in my mind, I imagined that my hair would come out a bit straighter than this, but that just didn't materialize. The main issue is that because my hair has a lot of texture, it's too curly to actually straighten out on the rollers, so the ends were sort of clumped and confused when the rollers came out. The girl who roller set my hair told me from the gate that this wasn't a good idea, but I needed to try it to be comfortable with checking this option off of the list. This wasn't the worse experiment, but I definitely won't be trying this again because I still ended up putting two cornrows in my hair to wear under my wig. 

Mission unaccomplished!

To Wash, or Not to Wash?

So I've been debating recently whether or not I should be shampooing my hair, with my cornrows between salon visits?

When I first started wearing cornrows, I went to the salon bi-weekly to get my hair shampooed, treated, and re-braided. I figured I could save a few dollars if I cut down my visits to every four weeks and just care for my hair myself in between. My stylist told me that it's not a good idea to shampoo my hair while in cornrows because this causes tangling. However, I decided I would shampoo my hair anyway because I thought she was wrong. In my mind, I don't understand the difference between wearing a sew-in weave and shampooing your hair with the sew-in, and wearing cornrows and shampooing your hair? When I asked her, she responded that the braids are smaller for the sew-in, so that helps reduce the tangling. I'm not sure that I completely buy that rational.

Long story short, I have been paying close attention to my hair when I remove my cornrows because if I'm going to torture myself go hard with protective styling, then I want to reap some rewards. I have noticed that my hair is a bit tangled when removing the braids, so perhaps there is some truth to what my stylist said. The dilemma then becomes, do I go back to my bi-weekly visits so that I can keep a clean scalp and my hair in decent shape? Or do I seek alternative options such as using a dry shampoo?

I was browsing through Sharday's blog, The Awkward Stage and reading about how she cared for her hair in 2010 when I believe she was wearing cornrows under a wig. I noticed that she used ORS Herbal Cleanse, which is a dry shampoo designed to clean the scalp and hair without water. I am considering using something like this because I know I must keep my scalp clean while wearing my braids, but it seems as though shampooing weekly isn't the best solution.

Have any of you ever used dry shampoo? If so, how did it work and what did you think? Should I try this? Decisions, decisions...

Meet Bling

Mina served me well, but I wore her until her strands fell off! I purchased Mina at the end of October, so I got a solid three months out of her and that was with daily use. I'm pretty happy about that especially considering she is synthetic.

Bling is my most recent wig purchase. She is a Vivica Fox wig. She is synthetic, but what I like most about her is that she looks a bit more natural and believable compared to Mina AND she can be flat ironed!!!! That's huge because the thing I liked least about Mina was the lack of versatility. She's a bit longer than Mina (I really liked Mina's length), but the curls help disguise the additional length. I debuted Bling at my birthday dinner with my girlfriends on Friday night and she was a big hit!

I really want to try a U-Part wig, but I don't have a fresh relaxer, so I'm not really interested in working to blend my hair. I'm planning to wear Bling until my relaxer in June and then I'll wear my hair out again until October. Hopefully by October I'll be ready to wear a U-Part wig and have it blend well. Until next time...

Mid Week Wash

I decided to wash my hair on Wednesday because it just felt icky. I know that probably sounds really gross, but I think in my quest for maximum moisture, I had been going a bit too heavy on the oils and moisturizers. As a result, my wig was greasy, the scarf & wig cap that I wear under my wig was greasy, and it just wasn't good. So I washed everything - wig, scarf, cap, and hair.

I decided to do a clarifying shampoo with my Phytopanama + Intelligent Shampoo because I am out of the Phytolium Energizing Shampoo. After clarifying, I intended to shampoo with a sample that I received, but I grabbed a sample conditioner instead of shampoo. I ended up conditioning with Phytodensium Anti-Aging Mask. I realized while I was using this that my stylist uses this on my hair every now and again (I recognized the smell which is yummy!), so fortunately I wasn't using anything that my hair wasn't accustomed to.


All in all, I'm glad I washed my hair because it felt A LOT better afterward. It was more moisturized, softer, and just better. I always love the way my hair feels after washing, conditioning, etc., but I'm too lazy to do it more than 1X per week. However, since I'm washing in corn rows, it's a lot easier and quicker, so I think I may start washing my hair 2X per week on a regular basis. 

Lesson Learned!

I guess it's not called a hair journey for nothing.

I went to my hairdresser to get my oil + steam treatment, shampoo, etc. and hair re-braided. In preparation for the visit I decided to take my cornrows out myself so that I could do a little detangling and release the shed hairs since my hair has been braided for 4 weeks.

I wanted to take my braids out myself as an experiment to see if it would reduce the amount of tangling that I have when I get my hair braided at the salon (I don't have a lot of tangling, but I don't want any!). The long and short of the story is, when I go to the salon, my stylist does not comb my hair, at all. Which is a good thing for the most part, but by not combing my hair and depending on the shampoo and finger combing to get the shed hairs out, I wonder if she's getting them all? Any shed hair left in my head hangs onto the "good" hair and creates knots. So that's why I'm trying to experiment on what the best approach is - me detangling at home first, or going to the salon and following her process.

I'm glad I decided to do my hair myself because I learned a few lessons:

1. My hair is DRY! Don't ask my how/ why because this was baffling to me. I did not M&S before taking out my hair, but I would think the fact that I do heavy M&Sing on a daily basis would mean something? Not so much. The only part of my hair that wasn't dry were the end of my braids and back of my hair where the oil collects (gravity at work), and the part closest to the root because I oil my scalp daily. I mentioned in an earlier post that I didn't love the moisturizer that I was using and this just confirmed that I need to find a new one because it's not moisturizing anything!
2. Aloe Vera Juice (AVJ) did not save the day for me. I have heard so many great things about AVJ so I was really excited to use it during this process. I have been mixing AVJ with African Braid Spray and using this as my daily moisturizer. When I started using this mix, I assumed it was the African Braid Spray that was throwing the moisture off, but after using AVJ by itself yesterday to try to detangle, I noticed that this is what's making my hair feel weird and dry after I use the moisturizer. I will give the AVJ another try just to make sure that I'm correct, but I think I may have to write this off once I finish using what I have.
3. My hair NEEDS to be damp when detangling. I NEVER detangle my hair when it's dry, so why did I think it was a good idea this time? Instead of a light bulb going off in my head to empty the spray bottle of AVJ and add water instead to help detangle my hair, I decided to try the AVJ for two braids, slap on some Amla & Olive Heavy Cream, spray some grapeseed oil and hope that somewhere along the way my hair would soften up enough to successfully comb out - EPIC FAIL! By the time I got to the last two braids, I sprayed my hair with water to dampen it and the comb just glided through. 
4. I think I may have caused some breakage by combing my hair while dry. Initially I was only seeing shed hair which is to be expected. But by the last few braids, I started seeing breakage, but I think that's because my hair was bone dry and I was trying to comb it out. After I dampened my hair, there were no more small pieces. I hope I don't pay for this mishap by having to get a deeper trim in April when I relax again.
5. When I actually got my hair done, the proof was in the pudding...my stylist has such a hard time braiding my hair because it was so tangled! She had to work A LOT harder than usual to braid my hair. 

So the key takeaways are that I MUST find a better moisturizer to use with my braids and I will not be "detangling" my hair again at home before getting it done. The most I will do is unbraid my hair, but no combing. I caused more harm than good in the end. I wouldn't have known the outcome had I not tried it, but lesson learned!

Quick Update

Hi friends! I hope you all had a great holiday and happy new year!

I've been away for a while due to some personal matters, but I hope to get back to posting at least once a week soon.

Things have been quiet with my hair - I've had my cornrows in for the last 4 weeks and will go to my stylist on Saturday to get a steam + oil treatment, and new braids. I have been shampooing my hair weekly in the cornrows as well as M&S'ing daily with a spray mix of African Braid spray + Aloe Vera Juice (got this from Ms. Kibibi) and sealing with grapeseed oil. I actually don't think I love this mix, but I'm going to finish what I have and then experiment with other liquid moisturizers while I'm in my cornrows.

I've also been using my MN mix daily and haven't seen any negative side effects (thankfully)! I'm just coming to the end of the 6oz mix that I posted about earlier, so it looks like 6oz lasts me about 4 weeks. I'm not sure that I want to have MN sitting for that long since there are active ingredients, so I think I may change up the mix this weekend when I get some more. I may do a 3oz mix with less oil to make it a little more potent, but I'll see.

That's it for now!

Meet Mina

As planned, I got my hair done on Friday (including corn rows) in order to start protective styling for the fall/ winter! I took a risk and got my hair braided without actually having a wig yet. So first thing Saturday morning, I was at the hair store!

I didn't want anything long because let's face it - my hair is shoulder length now and I want the wig to look somewhat natural. I came across Mina and decided to go with her because she was about as close as I was going to get to what I wanted and the price wasn't bad. Mina is made by Outre and she is synthetic. I was a little leery about purchasing a synthetic wig because I need it to last for a while and not get tangled, etc. But after speaking to the ladies at the hair store and reading a nice wig maintenance post by The Awkward Stage, I decided to go for it. I like how Mina looks on me, but she's a bit shiny right now and I need that to go away (i.e. she looks very fake). Whatever - I guess you have to take the good with the bad with wigs. I'll be traveling from Thursday through the weekend, so I'm glad I got this straightened out.

Now I have to work on keeping my hair moisturized - for some reason that has been a challenge since I got my hair braided on Friday. Till next time...

OMG - Wig Shopping!

So it's getting cooler in Philadelphia, which means that it's time to cover this hair! Time is also of the essence so wearing a wig will be easier than trying to style my hair.

I went online to do a little research BEFORE going to the store so that I could try on the styles that I had pre-selected and save time. I got to the store and clearly today was national buy a new wig day (at least in Philly) because it was soooo busy! I was so overwhelmed AND annoyed with all of the people and lack of sales associates able to answer my questions that I ended up leaving (I also had to get to my much needed mani & pedi appointment).

Long story short - I didn't buy a wig today and I really needed to because I'm planning to start wearing it next weekend. I'll likely go visit a different store when I have a chance and hopefully get something good. Wish me luck!