Natural Year 2: Blow out, Flat Iron, Length Check & Reflections

 I broke the videos down into 3 parts so it wouldn't be one super long video, but I guess I'll let the videos (or me) do all the talking for themselves :) ... but wait? Why is Debbie in the background tryna steal my shine? lol
 #pleaseexcusemycreepyoldcosmetologyschoolmannequinhead

Yet Another Tragedy Has Befallen My Head!!!

But thank goodness it wasn't that bad!!!
Uhg... another story... here goes...

So ever since the end of last week, the weave hair I had decided it didn't like me anymore... one of the reasons I resorted to a high bun the other day. The sad part is, I was actually loving this weave and was uber excited about the prospect of wearing this weave for at least a month and I was going to too! Everything was working in the beginning, I didn't need to add any heat, my hair was blending so easily and beautifully, my hair I left out all around worked for a ponytail/bun and was still flourishing... no reason to take it out except for the dreadlocks it started to form.

I usually never buy pack hair for reasons like this, but with it working so well for my cousin I really wanted to try it. She bought the 8" which was a little different, and didn't have any issues. I watched two reviews for this hair on YouTube, two on the opposite extreme of good and bad, so with the good review and the raves from my cousin, the good outweighed the bad so I purchased it, until the bad outweighed the good when I wore it. All in all it was beautiful and easy hair while it lasted, and I still plan to try the 8" when I have a chance...

On to the real tragedy:

Upon the take down of my weave, I accidentally cut off the last 2 inches of my braid!!!! WAAAA!!!!!!

I was totally flipping out! My original intention upon taking down the matted weave was to blow out my hair and do extension braids, but as soon as this incident happened, I wanted to straighten my hair to see what everything was really looking like.

 I felt a sense of relief that it happened in the very back of my head for sure, but I was also dreading having to cut the whole back of my hair off because it felt like a pretty huge chunk, and it kinda is... but since there's hair all around it, I can kinda camouflage it. It really sucks because my hair was finally getting longer, and with the fine, low density hair I have, I need every strand I can get! So now in about a 2" x 2"box in the back of my head, my hair is 2" to 3" shorter than the rest of my hair... but I'm hoping by some miracle, and a little shaping back there it'll catch up.

The hair that was cut just reaches the top of my shoulder

My hair that wasn't cut is about an inch or 2 past my
shoulder

You can see the difference in the two lengths side by side here

 So I guess these are a bit of an unofficial 2 year mark photos, even though I still have about 2 weeks to go. I do need to trim my ends, so maybe I'll just take an inch off in the back and dust every where else, just to start evening things up a bit and still stay within my goal to get rid of some layers and have a more blunt cut. Once I trim at the end of this month I'll do an official 2 year update with all the comparison pics and all that jazz, lol...until then... buns it is..

Have you gone through a hair crisis? What have you done to combat the issues?

My Last Straightening Before Summer Concluded

Here is what my hair looks like straightened after being unwrapped, without having any real bump to it. These pictures may be kind of horrible, but they've been great with helping me track my progress.




As you can probably see, my left side is my faster growing side, and my right side is my fuller growing side, so my hair is a little asymmetrical but I'm okay with that for now. I've been growing out my layers a little before focusing on length, trimming more in the back and less in the front or I would have definitely had an afro mullet by now -___- Not happening. Seeing as how I "big chopped" twice, I would definitely say my goals were readjusted from growing length first, to shaping my hair first. I'm really looking forward to this summer coming and the length I can retain, since last year I dealt with a setback and basically had no summer retention, plus needed to trim a good 1/2 inch of split ends. This year I'm really on my game so nothing of the sort will be happening under my watch. I'm definitely looking forward to those 2 inches I should gain from now until September.
I've gauged that my hair doesn't grow that fast, and I think it definitely misses Hairfinity. I can't lie, I feel like my hair was growing like weeds when I used to take these vitamins religiously back in 2010... My birthday is coming up, I think I'm about to make myself an order...
I've been fully natural for the past 2 years now, so I have more than enough mistakes and set backs to have taught me a thing or two so I can now avoid those issues. I know certain things are unavoidable (Yeah, I mean You SSK's! #ikillyou! You too split ends!) but I'm so happy I've learned different techniques and theories to keep these issues at bay. Aside from any setbacks, I'm also really happy just to have learned my hair, what it likes and needs, the fact that I have like 7 different textures and all of my beautiful hair is in a mohawked section on my head, and my sides and edges will be the death of me. The fact that my hair doesn't seem to grow the average 1/2 inch a month but instead a little slower. Understanding is a beautiful thing.

Looking back at the different goals I've set and readjusted on this blog over time, I wasn't doing too bad with staying on track until my setback last summer. With a quick goal readjustment, I'm hoping to claim full shoulder length by the end of the summer, Collarbone length even, and full arm pit length by Valentine's Day 2013. By this point, hopefully most of my layers will be grown out, so all of my hair can reach these lengths, not just a tail in the back. My hair is really fine, so it also adds to the reason why I don't want too many layers, I want my hair to look as full as possible. My goal is actually to achieve all one length (with probably just like an inch of layering from the bottom for shape), full, hip length hair that is full all the way down to the ends. It might sound crazy, but since I'll be wearing my hair curly 97% of the time, it'll probably still be shrinking up to shoulder length in Wash n Gos if I let it... Plus with my short torso, hip length is jsut about 20-22 inches of hair on me... 6 down, 16 more inches to go! lol

And lastly, I will say I'm uber excited to see my ponytail, as with relaxed hair I never had a ponytail even half as full as it is now (sad. I know). The even better thing  about that is, my hair still has a lot of growing to do so my ponytail will be even fuller soon! =D

I can't wait to see what my hair will look like straightened come September!!! Who out there is Growing with me?! 

VERY Happy Hair as of lately!

 You all know I'm impatient, so it's no wonder I took my weave out in a week! lol I guess what it is more so though, is that I really enjoy my own hair, especially now that it's getting longer. And though I enjoy wearing weaves and extensions, I still end up feeling fake. I know I will enjoy weave more when my hair is long enough to fully and easily blend... right now it's just a little more work and leaves me with limited styling that makes me just rather my own hair...

So, I took my hair out 2 nights ago, and since I had washed my hair about 3 days before that and moisturized it, It left me with a beautiful, soft, and defined braid out.. In love!!!

Randomly, I bought this Aloe Body Lotion at the hair show that I did not love for my body, but upon reading the ingredients further, decided to try it in my hair, and so far it's amazing!!!

I don't want to jump the gun, seeing as how i've only been using it for a day or two, so I won't give any reviews or names of anything until I've used it for a while... especially since it's initially intended to moisturize the skin... Review in let's say...a week?  

Anyhoo... I moisturized my hair yesterday using the Aloe Cream and decided to wear the braid out in my fave 2 buns, and was so happy to see how much my hair had grown, as my buns were bigger, fuller, and longer! I even had to squish them down quite a bit to get scrunchies over 'em.

I definitely loved the protective styling benefits of wearing the weave for a week, and I am thinking of wearing my usual large, long extention braids for the first 2 weeks of May... just to  get some protective styling in (especially for my front edges) without missing my hair like crazy. Also, though I love those braids, they're damned heavy! lol

 I bought some new products at the hair show I wanted to try and my scalp was a little itchy so I decided to wash my hair last night. Again, I won't be reviewing anything until I use it for a little while so I can give a full and thorough review...

Before washing however, I decided to do a few length checks, just to see how this growth process is going and I'm happy to say I'm pleased. My hair doesn't grow super fast, and it can break, tangle, get split ends and single strand knots pretty easily, so growth around here is a joyus occasion, lol. My edges are still basically the shortest of my hair, my hair at my crown and upper head in general being the longest. 

Sorry Protective Styling...

It's just not for me
I feel like I've been having a private battle with protective styling, saying I'm going to do it but not really doing it. I keep trying to fit into the natural community's ideas of protective styling, wearing braids and twists, sometimes weaves over extended days, weeks, months... I just can't do it! Every single time I've tried to protective style since I've been natural has been an epic fail time wise, taking out my braids and weaves all at the two week point or before.
I love wearing my hair out. I love being able to wash it, run my fingers through it, feel it blow in the wind... I feel like those Bosley hair commercials "You can play tennis with it, swim with it.." lol.
But seriously, It's just funny to think that I've been on this natural journey for almost 2 years now, this being my first year that I've made it through without melting down and chopping all my hair off again. Now that I understand my hair and myself more, I do have to readjust my goals a little...
At this point I see where my true problem areas are and what routine/regimen I need to use in order to retain length: Roller sets & Twist Outs. I also see that with the issues I do have, my long term goal of growing my layers out has now become a short term goal. I basically have a Mohawk of medium textured looser waves & curls, and fine textured, thin, sometimes dry, porous curly edges. My Mohawk is beautiful, thrives, doesn't break, hardly splits... My edges on the other hand :::wipes away forming tears::: So fine they get tangled easily, split like every second, SSK's sometimes two per strand or 1/4 way up the strand... it can be a damned horrid nightmare sometimes, especially if I've been a naughty girl, forgetting to sleep with my bonnet on. My Mohawk continues to flourish and barely needs trimming, while my edges continue to break or need constant trimming... So since I'm trying to maintain healthy hair, the hair in my Mohawk sections are growing down and will soon be meeting up with the length of my edges, meaning I won't have these layers anymore, I'm so excited!!! Then come winter I can focus on growing out my length more without all the annoying layers.
I loved my relaxed short hair cuts. I never wanted short natural hair (except for wanting a Cesar). I don't really feel comfortable wearing all of the TWA styles, little braids and twists... it's just not me. I grew hair out to have a beautiful ponytail and long Pocahontas braids... so in the meantime, even if it takes me a little longer to get to my length goals, I'm okay with that...
I'm hoping to be full arm pit length by New years 2013, without all the layers because I want to grow my hair out to a blunt cut with about an inch of layering at the bottom. Since I cut all my hair down to a little less than 2 inches in October of 2010, my longest lengths in my Mohawk are now about 7 inches and my shorter lengths (the edges) are about 5-6 inches long.... I'd say that's not terrible length retaining considering I wear my hair out practically everyday and I do trim/dust my ends about every 2 months and I did cut considerably more off the back to avoid having an Afro mullet.

End of October 2010 - Second Big Chop

That being said... I do need to do a little protective styling for this month because I'm going to Cali next month and I want to try to go with as much hair as possible! Lol So my goal is to just try and keep the back, the edges, and my ends up and protected by any means necessary, the top can stay out in twist outs..
So the end of October  2010 to March 2012 - so basically about 16 going on 17 months... not bad huh? Sometimes this hair journey can get discouraging so these comparison pics are sooo helpful.

Today:

Whenever I get discouraged, I just try to keep growing!

Does Hair Length Matter?

The other day I was admiring my younger sister's hair and commenting on how well she's taking care of it while busy with college. She keeps her hair in box braids with the occasional braid-out or flat-ironed style. Her hair stretched is probably shoulder length, and she mentioned to me that she's going to cut it again to keep it at her desired length in braids, which hang at neck-length. She insists on keeping it short because long hair is "a lot to deal with." Even though her and I do not have the same curl pattern or texture, she still has massive amounts of it like I do, and while in college I too didn't like my hair past shoulder length because of how time-consuming it seemed.

I then thought about my older cousin who insists on having a TWA because she enjoys the fact that she can rinse her hair everyday, comb it and keep it moving. As my hair is approaching bra-strap length, I'm continuing to face the fact that besides the length, I have a massive amount of fiber on my head. I'm trying to grow my hair at least until the end of summer 2012 (where I have something huge planned) and SP and I have concluded that my hair stretched would be about mid-back length - which scares the crap out of me. I know a lot of naturals have length goals, but there are also some who are happy enough to rock shorter hair.

So, we've set up another poll about hair length goals on the upper corner of our blog. Tell us, does length matter to you? Is there a goal you have in mind? What is your ideal length? Let us know!

Experiment, Test, Conclusion: My Straightened TWA

Straightened Hair on 09.26.11

 In this first winter of having a little length with my natural hair, I've tried straightening my hair a few times in the last couple of months, just to see what my hair would be like and if wearing it straight would be a possibility. I've learned that I definitely can wear my hair straight, but at this short length with my hair being so light and fine, I need some type of product to weigh it down a little so it's not so light and fluffy/puffy.                                        Being that I have been trimming and shaping my hair for the past year as it's been growing out, I have my longest lengths at the top of my head where I've been trimming less to let the layers grow out, and the shortest lengths around my edges where my textures are finer, tighter, and drier, therefore succeptible to more rapidly occuring split ends and single strand knots.

I also cut the back a little more blunty to avoid the afro-mullet affect I had going on. My longest lengths show my maximum length potential at 6.75", my shortest at 4". So far I haven't worn my hair down and out when straight, only in updo's or a bun; Whenever I've straightened I've gone back to curly fast because I miss my curls and my hair isn't at my ideal length, especially after trimming any split ends so my straight hair can look good. I do plan to protective style sometime soon with a weave when I figure out what kind of hair I want and allocate the money to buy it. In the meantime, I'm going to stick to twist outs and save my next straightening experience for December 24th, since I'll have time off and I can trim with the New Moon. I am just going to see how much length I can retain between now and X-mas Eve with twist outs, moisturizing and massaging, and taking my vitamins and drinking water. 

I haven't been on any special regimen or anything, I've actually been a little neglectful if anything  but my hair is still thriving and I've been making sure to overload on Jamaican Black Castor Oil which is super moisturizing and deep conditioning. With my next straightening I will make a video of the process and products I use when straightening hair if any are interested :)

Length checks 5/13

I blew out my hair 2 days ago and decided to dust my ends because it is definitely about that time and my ends were letting me know so. I trimmed very litttle in most areas and a  little more in others if i felt it needed it but nothing drastic. I know i could stand to trim a little more but im being length greedy right now since my birthday is in about a month and i think i will be protective styling very soon. I decided to take before and after my trim pictures so here goes.

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

I would say that i'm doing pretty good with length retention so i hope to hit my goals on time or even earlier!