The Importance of Deep Conditioning

As I mentioned in the last post, lately my hair had been a mission to take care of. Therefore, last night I decided to try overnight deep conditioning. The real reason I did it is because its really cold and I couldn’t imagine myself washing my hair then staying with cold hair for an hour while I deep condition. I thought it would be better if I just put conditioner on dry hair then slept with it (with a plastic cap and stocking on) and then washed my hair in the morning.

I used my conditioner and oil mix on my hair before going to bed (on dry hair as its cold) and then wore a plastic cap and stocking (to avoid getting the product on my pillowcase). In the morning, I woke up and the first thing I did was rinse my hair. After rinsing the conditioner out, I used my sulfate free shampoo only on my scalp. I then rinsed it out, then used a small amount of moisturising conditioner (very small) and rinsed it out too; this time I did not leave the conditioner in my hair for long at all.

I then dried my hair in a towel and when it was 60% dry I used my hair placenta, leave in conditioner and moisturiser, combed it with a wide toothed comb, tied it in a bun and wore my silk scarf. OMG…you do not understand what a difference doing an overnight DC and only applying shampoo on my scalp made. My hair is baby soft.

I just moisturised it now and before going to bed, I will wear my silk scarf and see what the results will be like in the morning. I oiled my scalp using olive oil and coconut oil and now I fear that they may wear my hair down, to be honest I don’t know why I didn’t use my carrot oil from ORG, its more like hair food than oil. Oh well, I won’t make that mistake next time.

If your hair is dry and looks unhealthy, try doing a overnight DC or DC for about 3 hours, you will LOVE the results.

Hair maintenance could/SHOULD be a second job

Okay, so I haven’t update my blog in a really long time, however, it’s not noticeable because a while back I typed a few things (on MS Word) and I am uploading everything at the same time.

My one and only follower/supporter (my boyfriend) noticed the other day and asked me why I hadn’t been blogging. LOL!! (isn’t that sweet of him?) So so CUTE!!!!

Okay, so a few weeks back I decided to relax my hair with the little relaxer that I had left and it came out looking nice. I then decided to roller set but that didn’t come out looking good. I can never get a good roller set. I am going to try and roller set a week after a fresh (salon) relaxer and see how that works. Anyways, 2 weeks later my hair looked terrible and I decided to braid it…that also didn’t turn out great…YES I guess hair styling is not a talent of mine.

I took the braids out 2 days ago but I still haven’t washed my hair or done anything to it. To be honest I have been lazy! I was starting to give up on the hair growth thing, but today something snapped and I decided to get back on track.

Tomorrow I will be doing a deep condition (on dry hair) my first time ever and then shampooing and drying. I am doing the process backwards because its winter and sitting with wet hair (while waiting for the DC to work itself into my hair will not be such a great idea). Will see how that works. I’ll be using my sulphate free shampoo. Then I am going to air dry it and when its 80% dry, I will do 2 braids so that I can rock a braid out on Thursday. Hoping to have a nice shiny braid out.

My hair is starting to frustrate me

I have to admit that trying to come up with solutions to keep my hair looking pretty fabulous is starting to become somewhat of a chore. I think this is why as black women we end up either keeping it short, in braids or wear wigs and weaves. Honestly, keeping black hair looking pretty fabulous is a job. The only thing that’s keeping me going is this blog and the fact that I would like to challenge the notion that black hair is “bad hair”.

I know that I shouldn’t be looking at it as a job however at times it’s pretty hard not to. Anyways, I have decided to start relaxing my hair every 8-10 weeks. I was originally gonna go for 12 weeks and I have done so, however, with my hair texture I think its best to stick to 8-10. I have also decided not to hold it in a pony tail for the first 4 weeks after relaxing. In this way I can avoid my current hair line situation permanently. I will then resort to corn rows and ponytails between week 5 and 10. This should work perfectly (fingers crossed). I also want to start going to the salon for each and every relaxer. This will save me the stress of dealing with hair that becomes fra a week after self relaxing. I will see how this works and will document the changes on the blog. Do you have any secrets on keeping your relaxer looking fresh for longer?

Using conditioner as a moisturiser

While researching hair maintenance I came across a number of ladies who use conditioner as moisturiser. Now I don’t know how great an idea that is, however, yesterday I tried it. I must admit, I was pretty desperate. I had no clue as to what I was going to do to my hair and it just looked dry and lifeless. I thus decided to use my moisturising conditioner as moisturiser. Guess what, it did the job. My hair looked lovely afterwards, but I don’t think its something that I will be doing very often. I think that I would try it about once a week if it was a leave in conditioner, but it wasn’t, so I am afraid that it may make my hair fall out if used too often. I'll do it again some time (when I have a camera) and post the pictures.

Hairstyle of the day

I want to start taking photos of my hairstyle of the day. I think that it will motivate me to take better care of my hair and be more creative with my hair. On Sunday I took my braids out and used an old belt as a hair band. Okay, just in case you are thinking “a belt, has she lost her mind” it wasn’t a leather belt…Okay I can’t explain it, but you’ll see a picture in another post. I wrapped it around my head 3 times and made it look like I had used 3 hair bands. I thought it looked very nice and it’s a style that I can wear out and to work (only when I don’t have meetings though – I prefer to “power dress” when I have meetings i.e. hold my hair back)

Eyebrows and hair

Believe it or not, there is something that I obsess about more than my hair, and it’s my eyebrows. I recently noticed that as fra as my hair may be, I always look a bit better when my eyebrows are groomed. Then while I was looking for hairstyles that can be done on fra hair, I found one picture of a lady with fra hair and groomed eyebrows. Her brows made her look better. Look, yes there was no way that one could miss the hair, but the eyebrows “opened” her face. She didn’t look as bad as she would have if her eyebrows were all over the place. Therefore ladies if you have never considered grooming your eyebrows, you may want to give it a try. If it doesn’t work for you then at least you would have tried it…but I have a feeling that you’ll be as hooked as I am.