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30.10.12

Two Years and Counting!

Although I should have posted this on Friday there is no time like the present!

This past Friday, October 26th, 2012 was my 2 year hair journiversary (how I refer to the anniversary of the beginning of my hair journey).

Two years ago from Friday I decided that I wanted healthy, long, and thick hair and I wanted to do it by myself. I am so excited that I have stayed committed for this long and that I am seeing great results! I have had some problems along the way (some breakage here, some dry ends there), but overall I have learned so much about my hair and hair in general.

There is so much more to learn and so much more to do. I am on a 4 year plan to mid back length hair and I definitely plan on continuing on with my healthy hair habits after the 4 years is up. Taking care of my hair has become a habit now. Its a necessary process, almost like brushing my teeth or taking a shower. Below I have listed some goals that I want to meet in the next two years:
  • Minimal to no split ends
  • Master 4 month stretches
  • Combat my dry and itchy scalp
  • Improve my roller setting skills
  • Full BSL by October 2013 (hopefully with very little relaxed ends left)
  • Full MBL by October 2014 
For my hair journiversary my wonderful boyfriend made me a new banner for my blog. I love it! He's is the best! Not only for the perfect banner but also for his support. I know he gets tired of hearing me talk about hair but he is still one of my biggest supporters <3. Do you like the new banner?


24.10.12

Bantu Knot Out


I didn't want to look at my ends for too long while my hair was straight (referencing previous post) so the next night I put bantu knots in my hair. I moisturized my hair with Elasta QP Olive Oil and Mango Butter Moisturizer and then sealed with jojoba oil. 


I put in 5 bantu knots, secured them with a pin and then the next morning here are the results I got. 


Loved it! I enjoy bantu knot outs, but only when they are done on straight and dry hair. Under any other condition it is always a fail for me.

Don't Rush Perfection

This past weekend I had a formal event to go to so I decided to straighten my hair. I hadn't straightened my hair since my last texlax so I was excited for it. I also wanted to try a black rinse...If you go a couple of posts back you will see that I tried the Jazzing Clear Rinse and it worked so well for me! This time around I wanted to try a color rinse so I did my research and decided on the Clairol Professional Beautiful Collection in Jet Black Base Ash. My hair day plan was as follows:
  • Prepoo with Coconut Oil
  • Shampoo with Kera Minerals Smoothing Shampoo
  • Deep Condition with some concoction (it ended up being Shea Butter and Almond Suave Professionals with a bunch of oils) because I was out of deep conditioner.
  • Color Rinse
  • T-Shirt dry
  • Add leave ins and heat protectant
  • Blow dry
  • Straighten and Curl
Here's the thing... every time I have an event to go to as opposed to a regular outing, I am all over the place. I never set aside enough time and I always forget to do things until the last minute. Since I know myself so well, I purposely set aside 6 hours to do my hair but of course I forgot to get jewelry and I needed to go and help my boyfriend pick out a tie so I ended up only having 4 hours to do my hair. Sounds like a lot of time but it most definitely wasn't. I went through with my plan listed above but notice I didn't put how long I did each thing. I only deep conditioned for about 15 mins under a dryer which is the shortest time i have ever deep conditioned so my hair wasn't moisturized enough. I forgot to detangle my hair after washing the deep conditioner out in the shower so after I applied the black rinse my hair was super tangled. My carelessness made detangling very unpleasant...to say the least. I lost more hair than I am used to and it just put me in a horrible mood. I went on to blow dry (which I have to take out of my hair habits because my hair rebels when it comes into contact with a blow dryer) and then straighten and curl.

As I was straightening I noticed that my hair was very dry. I didn't get the silky and flowy results that I usually get when I straighten. At first I didn't know what to blame: my almost nonexistent deep conditioning or the black rinse. I decided to chuck it up to the deep conditioning partially because I loved how the black rinse came out. However, there are some people who had some bad reviews on the Clairol line of color rinse saying that it was very drying. I don't think i will give a review until i try it again in the future with proper deep conditioning.

After straightening I put in big curls with my 2 inch Hot Tools curling iron and i pinned up the curls while I got ready for the event. I didn't have any hairspray and the curls fell no more than an hour after I took them down (i'm not really a fan of this curling iron). I don't have any pictures of how my hair looked right after I did it, but I do  have pictures of my hair taken during the event. It got frizzy really quick..but it's ok.
Something I noticed while my hair was straight is my ends are just unacceptable.  I am trying to ease into cutting off my bone straight ends but I don't know if I can live with the appearance of scraggly ends. I am either going to cut a good amount of my relaxed ends off soon, or I am not going to wear my hair straight for a while. What do you all think?

The picture on bottom right corner was taken toward the end of the night. You can see the unacceptable ends I am talking about. :-/

All in all, I should have taken my time doing my hair and I would've gotten the results that I was going for...you can't rush perfection you know. I also would not have had the tangling and hair loss problems. Next time the boyfriend can go find his tie on his own. Lol. I don't mind how thick my hair looks though..don't mind at all. I also really like the black hair..I feel like my natural hair color can blend in with my skin tone sometimes lol. Some people can't even tell I did a rinse.. but I know the difference.