One Month Natural w/ Length Check (Video)

Experiement for Hair Growth

Since I cut my hair down to the natural curls, I have been surprised by how much new growth I got since my last relaxer in May ’09.  When my hair is compacted down, it is a TWA (Teenie Weenie Afro), but when I stretch some of the curls, they are about 3-3/4 inches long.  The longest part in the back is already almost to my shoulder and the front area just touches my eyebrows.

I have been using MT/OCT/MSM and just added Bee Mine to the rotation of growth aids I am using.  I would like to see full shoulder length by December of this year.   What has been working for me so far is the regimen I am going to follow for the time being.

• Co-wash 3-4 times a week
• Use shikakai bar once a month
• Deep condition after each co-wash/shikakai wash (mixture of protein and moisture)
• Trim every 2 months
• Scritch my scalp at least once a day
• Apply growth aid after scritching (i.e. MT/OCT/MSM one night, Bee Mine the next night and so forth)
• Drink hot green tea with stinging nettle powder and honey at night in the winter and spring, iced in the summer
• 5Grams Biotin each night before bed
• be-Beautiful vitamin powder with MSM during the day
• Baggy as needed

It may seem like a lot, but I have become accustomed to this regimen, and it appears to be working for me, so I’ll keep on keeping on =)  I’ll be checking in about every six weeks to see what’s up.

Big Chop Completed!!

Well my wonderful readers, I have finally made the leap to natural!  On December 27, 2009 I did a live broadcast of myself cutting the rest of my relaxed ends off.  It was such a freeing feeling to not have to deal with damaged chemically treated hair any longer.  As I write this, I am uploading an abridged version of the live broadcast to YouTube.  I was so nervous (with excitement) while I was snip snip snipping away!  Because of my nervousness, the original broadcast was longer than I planned, and I jabbered non-stop.

I just love playing with my curls and coils without the limp straightened hair in the way.  I went to Vegas the day after the chop, but I wore a wig to protect my hair from the elements (it was cold in Vegas last week—brrrr!)  Since it’s been pretty warm here back home in Palm Springs, my hair has been allowed to be free and wild.  I gave it a really nice, deep conditioning treatment yesterday, and my hair is thanking me non-stop LOL.  Right now my hair is just to the bottom of my neck.  My plan is to have my hair be at least shoulder length by December 2010.  I think that if I make sure that I don’t do too much my hair will flourish and continue to be healthy and gorgeous for years to come.

Shrinkage is a…

One of the amazing things about curly hair is something called “shrinkage”.  In my own words, shrinkage is the difference in length of hair at different times.  When my hair is wet, it looks much longer than when it has air dried.  At times this can be frustrating because I don’t like to flat iron my hair all that often, and I’m not really one to rollerset, so most of the time when my hair is dry it looks like it falls to my shoulders.  Case in point:

Even though shrinkage can be a bit of a pain, I am still overall glad to have such versatile hair, and  I wouldn’t trade that for anything =)