Hair Diary || Braids and 6-Month Protective Style Challenge

So I found a protective style (a second old faithful from the past).  It is not twists, but it does meet my needs in an interesting way.  The protective style is braid extensions, which I self installed ten days ago.  In the mean time, I can give my hair a serious break from manipulation and get it back to the length I had.  (My hair is now BSB.  My goal is to get it back to WSL.) I hope to keep this set of braids for 3-4 months.  Until next time, here are more hair pics (from the past few months):

Old braid out.

Twists (only wore them for a few days).

Fresh wash-n-go.

Old wash-n-go.

Hair Diary || Back to Protective Styling ... But With Heat and Jumbo Twists?

So, after another summer of going wild (hair-wise, that is), it is time to get back into protective style mode.  However, there will be some changes from my usual small/medium twists on air dried hair.  Why?

1. I want to see my length more.  My twists shrink a lot, if you haven't noticed already.
2. I want to be able to switch from a protective style to a loose style and back in one day.  After spending hours to twist my hair, undo-ing those babies prior to 3-4 weeks is seemingly wasteful.
3. I want shorter detangling sessions.  Long-term protective styles equate to hours of detangling while short-term protective styles can mean 45 minutes or less.  However, the trade-off is more manipulation (re-styling) per month.

More details on these changes will be posted once I finalize them.  In the mean time, here are some hair pics:

From "purple haze" back to ...

Copper.  Semi-flat ironed hair.

Old braid out.

Twist out and pinkish (accidentally via "purple haze"
mixed with conditioner as a toner) hair.

Hair Diary || Working on a Non-Protective Style Regimen

If you've been following my hair diary, then you probably already saw this coming.  After years of protective styling in twists and a couple summers of experimenting with loose hair styles, the day has come.  I'm ready for a drastic regimen change.  The details are still being worked out, but for the last couple of months I've successfully been doing the following:

WEEKLY:

- Wash (As I Am Cleansing Conditioner or homemade honey shampoo) and condition (Tresemme Naturals followed by Aphogee 2-Minute Keratin Reconstructor or ORS Replenishing Conditioner) hair

- Finger detangle conditioner-soaked hair (~30-40 minutes)

- Rinse then seal 

- Plop hair for 20-45 minutes

- Braid hair into 8-10 sections for a braid-out the following day

DAILY:

- Wear satin bonnet or loose satin scarf to protect braid-out

- Fluff the next morning

MONTHLY:

- Switch finger detangling for comb detangling

- Deep cleanse my hair (Shea Moisture African Purification Masque or Dessert Essence Shampoo)

Stay tuned ... 

Hair Diary || From Copper-Blonde to Purple Haze

After my fun with copper-blonde highlights (see this previous post), I have gone to purple haze.  All I did was apply a color (from Manic Panic) on top of my previous highlights, and voila!  As for my hair routine?  It has basically consisted of weekly washes with twist outs and braid outs over the past month.  For now, I've returned to big twists.

And now for more hair pics:

After depositing the color.

After depositing the color. (Before twisting.)

After depositing the color.

Chunky twist out.

I believe this was a braid out.

Hair Diary || Wash and Going It + Finding a Use for Gel

My hair boredom is officially cured! I guess all that I needed was to "play in my strands" for a month AND get more highlights.  So, now it's time for me to return to my usual twists, right?  ... Eh, not quite.  Because the summer heat is forcing me to wash my hair 1-2x a week, I would have to re-do my twists more frequently.  Given my schedule, that is NOT happening.  So what to do with my hair?  Wash and going it for now!

Oh, and gel is coming in handy at the moment ... but not for attempting to bring curl definition my undefined coils and kinks.  Rather, the gel is for "freezing" my coils and kinks in place so that they do not tangle as easily.  This then allows me to extend my wash and go to day two or day three (if I'm lucky).

And now for more hair pics:

Flat-ironed hair getting frizzy.

Let the wash and go begin.

After raking it through with some gel (for hold NOT definition).

The front.  I don't bother attempting to make my puff look
neater than this since I don't want to cause tangles.

Hair Diary || Curing My Hair Boredom ...

In my last entry, I mentioned that I’ve literally become bored with my natural hair.  After thinking about it more, it could be because it's that time of year -- spring/summer.  It's that time of year when I crave a change from my usual twists.  The craving this year has extended to changing more than my twists ... to actually changing my hair (e.g., via a cut, color, etc.).

Well, over the past few weeks, I've been taking measures to cure my boredom.  I was in my usual set of two-strand twists (that I usually wear for 3-4 weeks) when I got this severe itch to undo them AND put in more highlights.  I then wore a twist-out for a few days (loose and in updos) until the definition was almost gone.  I then finger-detangled on dry hair and wore the resulting stretch in a couple of updos.  After that, I toyed with a wash-n-go for a bit.  And now?  Well, I'm rocking it straight.  My plan after this is to somehow come up with a summer regimen that balances "playtime with my hair" with retaining length.  I know I have a difficult task ahead of me ...

And now for more hair pics:

My usual twists.  Got a severe itch to undo them after only two weeks.

The resulting twist-out ... oh, and some halfway highlights.
(They had to grow on me.)

Top view of wash-n-go.  

Flat-ironed and cut by my beautiful sis.  You can find her a these sites:
http://minimalassembly.tumblr.com
and
http://theleste.tumblr.com.

Check out the curls on the ends.

Hair Diary || A Month of Chunky Twists to Hair Boredom

Throwback pic (Dec. 2013).

Okay, it has been a while since I've posted in the "Hair Diary" ... largely because I've been bored with my hair as of late and do not want to think about it.  My thoughts have gone from cutting my hair down to neck-length to putting in some highlights to loc-ing to relaxing it ...

*Gasps from the readers*

Yep, for the first time in years I've thought about relaxing.  Why?  For ease of care.  The detangling process on my natural hair really gets on my nerves sometimes, and I start to reminisce on the relaxer days when fingers and combs would glide effortlessly through my hair.

At the end of the day, though, I do not miss the regular application of relaxer just to keep those roots straight, the breakage, the scalp burns, the relaxer smell, and the permanent straightness.  After all, if I want straight hair, I can always pull out the flat iron (which I eventually did do recently) on my natural hair.  What's so funny is that the "straight" phase always passes within a couple of weeks because flat-ironed hair is so boring to me after a while.

Agh, anyway, as I figure out how to spice up my hair boredom without doing something drastic, here are some more hair pics from last month:

First set of chunky twists.  Overall, I had to re-twist my hair weekly (as expected) which is too much manipulation for me. Back to my usual smaller twists.

The front of that set.

This was more of a big/medium size set of twists.  In the following week, I did some actual chunky twists.  (No pics for that unfortunately.)

Other angles of the above look.

Hair Diary || Moving On From Small Twists

Wore this fresh set for 3 weeks.  This was day 1.

So, the month of February was one of super small (and "strongly twisted") twists.  I really enjoyed the versatility; I also enjoyed that they lasted long.  I have done small twists over the past months, but this was probably my smallest (?).

Anyway, after a little over three weeks in these twists, I wore the resulting twist-out for a couple days and then finger detangled prior to washing.  My hair, more or less, still looks like the last photo (scroll all the way to the bottom) with the exception that it is clean now.  I tried a set of jumbo flat twists but felt I looked like a little kid, so right now, I'm thinking I'll try jumbo twists over the weekend.  Until next time ...

And now for more hair pics:

Day 1.  Finished twisting.

Day 1: Finished twisting.

3 weeks later after 2 washes and much shrinkage.

The resulting twist-out, which was only worn for a couple of days.

Finger detangled and ready to wash for the next set of twists.

Hair Diary || Jumbo Twists and Then What?

Wore small twists for 3 weeks.

Right now I am wearing jumbo twists (not pictured) in an flat-twist updo after about three weeks in small twists.  After that, I'm not quite sure what I want to do with my hair yet.  I have been craving braid extensions -- as I always tend to do during the winter season -- but I don't know that I have to patience to do them myself nor the courage to let someone else do them for me.  I have also been toying with doing back-to-back weekly jumbo twists in February, but that may be too much manipulations.  What is a gal to do?  I have some things to consider ...

... in the meantime, here are a few more hair pics:

Back shot of the small twists.

Side shot.  Circa week #2.
I undid a few twists in the front to create bangs ... and jazz things up a bit.

Better shot of the front bangs.

The new batch of whipped shea butter (the multi-oil one) that I mentioned in an earlier post.
Definitely loving it.

And it melts instantly.

'Til next time!

Hair Diary || Loose Twists Undone + New Products?

It feels like a long time since I've posted in this series.  Well, here we go:

I wore my loose twists on flat-ironed hair for three weeks, and that was initially fun. I primarily did braid-outs (I love texture) on the loose twists and did a range of styles from pinned updos to buns.  After the the three weeks (which was perfect timing because I was tired of the hairstyle at that point), I switched to my usual twists for the month.  Lately, I've been itching to hide my hair under some braid/twist extensions.  We'll see if that itch needs to be scratched come February ...

Other than that, my PJ-ism (product junkism) came back momentarily due to product sales and coupons.  Stay tuned for future product reviews ...

And now for more hair pics!

Day 1 of loose twists on flat-ironed hair.  You can barely see them.

Day 1 of loose twists on flat-ironed hair.  You can barely see them.

Week #2.  Braid-out on loose twists.  The separate sections you see are actually loose twists. 

Going "red" for the day (via temporary red hair spray).  Deja vu from a few years ago?

Detangled (with fingers) and conditioning.

From roller set to twisting, and on the same day!  I didn't let the set dry all the way because of time, but again, it did a WAY better job than my other air drying + stretching techniques.  In the pic, my hair is about 70-80% dry.

Okay, I can explain.  My current Lemon Desert Essence is becoming more of a "warm" weather shampoo, so I bought this Coconut Desert Essence to be using during the cold season.

The Brazilian Keratin Conditioner was the only reasonable protein conditioner I could find while on vacation.  (I didn't pack my conditioners with me.)  I actually like it though!

The ApHogee was bought prior to all of these (and also happened to be the one I left at home while on vacay).  It is my go-to when I need a slightly stronger protein fix than ORS.

And, lastly, the avocado oil is for moisturizing my face at night.  I like it so much that I added a bit to my shea butter mixture.

Stay tuned for the remaining four products I purchased, thanks to a BUY ONE GET ONE FREE deal ...