Wash day : My dilemmas, my problem areas, Length check :D

Happy new week lovely ladies :D

So as i promised that I'd be taking you through my next wash day, here goes. I went to see boo and my sister this weekend, they go to the same school about 100km away I'd say. The road is being fixed so it is very dusty as such I had no choice but to wash my hair as soon as I got back.

I pre-pood using a mixture of dark and lovely and anti-breakage healing treatment, amla gold and revlon aquamarine nourishing conditioner for 30minutes.

Finger-detangled, then shampooed using bramley's conditioning shampoo

Deep conditioned using a mixture of dark and lovely ultra cholesterol conditioning mask, glycerin, honey, olive oil and coconut oil for 30minutes

Rinsed and put my hair into four sections, then detangled using my Hercules comb

Applied ORS heat protection serum and blow-dried using the tension method on low heat for the roots and cool air at the end. 

Applied about a quarter size amount of Vatika coconut oil to each section after blow-drying and then i pulled my hair into a loose bun

As you can see it was a very brief washday. To be honest, it is getting easier. I am currently 2 months post but my washdays are not even hectic. My hair is a little puffy and hard to pull up into a sleek ponytail, but i expect that will be getting easier as my hair gets longer.

So my biggest problem area are my edges in the front. They just seem to always break off. I trimmed off about an inch in March but I just wasn't impressed. I then cut the whole front section of my hair from thin chin length into bangs last month just slightly over my eyebrows. I love bangs anyway so I wasnt complaining. I planned to baby my edges. I pulled at a section after washing and it's growing back :D woop woop. 

As for my dilemma, I have wanted to color my hair since like forever. I want a nice auburn red or blonde colour just on my ends, sort of like an ombre effect but I just don't know. I am aware of the damage colour causes to your hair, but it just isn't seeming to stop me. As much as I want long healthy hair, I also wanna have some fun with my hair. It is just hair after all, right? I just don't wanna risk a setback. So for now, my main focus is fixing my ends and maintaining the health of my hair. I have now challenged myself that I will dye my hair blonde when i reach bra-strap length. Yes it might take a while, enough time to get my ends in order too. 

Now I mentioned my texlaxed hair just shrinks like crazy, notice the first picture on the top left above. Yes if i stretched the left side it would have been chin length too. Four months later, it's still the same shrunken mess. If i didnt have those thin ugly ends i'd sure pass for a natural.  

Here's a faux length check i did after washing. My hair is jut blowdried. I think I am grazing APL *happy dance*. I will be doing the real length check with my next texlax in october.

 I am considering doing a sew in soon on my hair, and that will mean relaxing my edges and middle leave out or i just might get heat damage. I'm still on the line though, I already stated I easily get bored, I might just make a u-part wig or two, depending on how i like the first one. 

My next post will be an idea of my regimen, reviews of the products I use, what I'm missing, and what I wish I had.

Other than that, Happy HHJ honeys :* :)

Know your hair: Protective styling

Hey ladies :D,

I know i haven't updated a post in a while, school has had me up to my neck. This might be a long post. Please forgive me. Here goes. Protective styling; what is it? Why do it? Well, protective styling is simply just putting your hair in a style that keeps your ends tucked away. Why, you ask? So that you can retain some length. Keeping our ends tucked away ensures less breakage from 'hands-in-my-hair' syndrome if you're like me, manipulation in general, wind and heat drying out your hair, and anything that would otherwise make you lose your length. This can range from braids to buns or any super-cute up-dos. As i stated earlier, all i knew before was braids braids braids, with some weaves from time to time.

Lately I've found myself easily getting bored with protective styles. before my hhj, i would stay in my braids for 2-4 months and just enjoy my braids. But since my setback, I just can't keep a style for longer than a month and a half. I thought this was me just hating the braids after my experience, so I decided to try weaves. I cannot keep a weave on my head for longer than 3 weeks. lol

It took me a while to accept that fact since braids were all i knew, but now i would like to give knowing my hair a chance. I took down my weave about 2 weeks ago and have been in my hair since. I have washed twice since. For the first week i was just having fun trying out different styles.

 I did buns, sock-buns with side braids, sock-buns with flats twists, up-dos i learnt on YouTube, but after a while i got bored and purchased a wig. i tried to fit the wig onto my head to no success because my hair was so thick. I ended up having to braid down my hair and wore the wig for the rest of the weekend. I spent the weekend with boo so I had no time to think about my hair anyway. lol.

Sunday was wash day. I planned to air-dry but just got so tired and fell asleep, literally. needless to say my hair was a huge mess the next day. I sprayed some glycerin-water mixture on it and detangled all-over again. I managed to pull off a puff turned into a bun i learnt on YouTube as well. I really liked the fullness that came from my using no heat on my hair. Everyone kept pressing down on my bun to see if i had anything under. Honey I just felt like I had arrived. lol. A few of my friends were confused and asked me if I was going natural, and honestly i hate explaining the whole 'texlaxing' thing so i simply said I was stretching my relaxer, not that they understood that either but at least saved me time. haha.

Night time came, I moisturized, sealed, and braided my hair down getting ready for my wig. I wore my wig for two days, then i just missed my hair and took down the cornrows today. I wasn't ready for a wash-day since I have an exam tomorrow and just sprayed a lot of glycerin water mix and detangled. I then used the tension method of blow-drying for the first time and I must tell you, my hair was stretched, still thick, and shiny. Flat iron get away from me. lol. I pulled my hair into a bun, without a sock for the first time and i was amazed at the thickness i had gained since march. I'd explain but you can see for yourself

Yes I was quite surprised too. But it makes sense since my hair was straightened on the first picture, and just blow-dried on the second.I would also like to think I have a few more inches of texlaxed hair now. Yaay me. I plan to just rock the buns until my wash-day on Sunday, which may be postponed till Tuesday since I have an exam on Monday. Will take you through that one.

And to finalize this post, a few shots of my texlaxed texture against my bone straight ends;

Happy HHJ sweethearts :)

Texlaxing: the highs, the amazing, the lows

I had my first official texlax on the 7th of February 2014. After my failed transition to natural, i started researching on how to get healthy relaxed hair. Since the beginning of my trying to grow out my relaxed hair, i had one major dilemma. My hair just wouldn't get bone straight. I have a very sensitive scalp and I just can't stay with a relaxer in my head for longer than 15 minutes. I used to apply my relaxer from root to tip, as such I had so many different textures in my hair from thick texlaxed hair at the roots to bone straight at the very ends. I knew that was one of my major causes of breakage in my hair and was on of my goals to fix that. I tried so many different brands but to no avail. After a good roller set, i would come out of the salon with my hair looking sleek, full and beautiful. However after my first wash it would all just revert back to some curls which made my hair really dry, hard to maintain and comb. Back then i had not discovered moisturizers and i did not know much except for my Sunsilk petrolatum based hair oil that i just loved because of the smell. I did not know much about hair. Researching about why my hair wasn't getting silky straight, I stumbled upon a few blogs and YouTube channels that were talking about texlaxing.

Texlaxing is relaxing your hair partially while leaving some texture in the hair. The amount of texture you leave in your hair is absolutely up to you. You can achieve texlaxed results by: 

• using a mild relax 
• leaving the relaxer in your hair for a short time instead of the usual recommended 15-18 minutes
• Not smoothing your hair out after applying your relaxer
• Mixing your relaxer with some natural oils or conditioner
• Basing your new texture with oils, conditioner or petrolatum before getting a relaxer

You can use any of the methods above, or combine two, three or even all depending on how much texture you want in your hair. How long you keep the relaxer in your head is also entirely up to you. For my first texlax, i used the first, second and third methods with Sunsilk mild relaxer. I left it it my hair for 11-12 minute without smoothing and rinsed it out. There was just too damn much texture left in my hair. 

I tried to do a corrective relaxer with the same relaxer, left in on for the full 18 minutes and smoothed it out so much but i just wasn't getting the results i wanted. For my second texlax on the 27th of April, i went ahead and purchased Dark and Lovely precise Super relaxer. This is a very strong relaxer. I applied it in my hair and smoothed it lightly for 11 minutes as well. I rinsed it out, deep conditioned, and voila, perfect texture :-D. My edges were a little bit straighter than I preferred however, and i will keep that in mind next on my texlax which will be hopefully on the 7th of October. I will also hopefully be using the same relaxer.

Now to the pros and cons of texlaxing;

Pros:

• My hair is so much thicker and healthier now that it is in one or two curl patterns
• It can withstand manipulation
• It is growing longer and faster than it ever has before
• The breakage at the demarcation lines is not as bad as before as it is more of a smoother transition in terms of the curl pattern from my natural new growth to my bone straight ends.
• Goodbye relaxer hurt and burns on my scalp! I can not express enough how happy I am not to have one more burn on my scalp cause of a relaxer y'all :-D. lol

Cons:

• Detangling takes so much longer. In the past I never really had to worry about detangling as my hair was mostly bone straight
• My hair is now prone to breakage at two demarcation lines; the point where my natural hair meets my texlaxed hair; and where my texlaxed hair meets my relaxed hair
• I can never see the true length of my hair unless i use heat to stretch it out. My hair just loves to shrink up and with my big head, lol, most styles become hard to achieve

Overall, I love texlaxing. I finally found something that works well with my hair. It is so much fuller, so much thicker, and so much healthier. Looking for a way to have full, healthy and long relaxed hair but you are just not ready for the work that comes with being natural? consider texlaxing.

Happy HHJ ladies. Stay blessed :-)

My first Post :D

Hey y'all,

Soo, thanks for stumbling upon my blog. This is my first post and i will try to make it as short as possible. My name is Nthanda, from Malawi, Africa. I developed the blog to share with you my hair journey and all the other things I'm passionate about.

I started my hair journey on the 7th of February earlier this year after suffering a major setback. my current short term goal is to be full APL by my one year anniversary next year. I have thin ends that i'm aware of and still trimming. I was starting my first year of college in October 2012 and i just couldn't be bothered to think about my hair. I do braid my own hair, so i installed my first ever Senegalese twist, and i loved them. Now i had just started growing out my hair after four years of being in short, almost bald hair. why you ask? i went to an all girls boarding school in secondary, what some of you call high school and we weren't allowed to keep long hair. before that my mom had always done my hair. for the previous year i had been trying to grow out my hair.

I had always know my hair to be thick and resistant. however my growth rate was not impressing me. i noticed some of my friends' hair was growing much faster than mine and I wasn't happy about it. all i knew were braids braids braids! i would get my braids installed, stay in them for three months, get a relaxer, and re-braid. For 2 years i went on with that cycle until things went south for my hair. Being in college i just didn't have the time or money to do my hair. i ended up keep my braids in for 4 months. Damn. i know. when i took them down, it was just a huge mess. i tried everything to get the mats out of my hair to no success. my hair just kept falling out in huge chunks. Getting home, my mom took me to the salon to get a relaxer. the mats were dissolved, together with about half of my hair.

I went home with my hair the thinnest it has ever been and I was depressed. I stumbled upon some African ladies with long relaxed hair transitioning to natural. I decided to join the band wagon but lets just say I failed. after 8 months transitioning, I went ahead and got a relaxer. I would love to tell you how I started texlaxing, but let's save that for another post shall we?


My current hair state:

Stay blessed sweethearts. Happy HHJ :-)