Best Wash Session EVER!!!!

OMG! As disappointed as I was with my last wash session (with the Hair Mayo deep condish) I was equally or even more pleased with this wash session. Here's the lineup:
Pre-poo with Hot Six Oil and Cantu Shea Butter Leave In for 2.5 hours; Hop in shower and rinse out pre-poo concoction - hair felt soft and manageable already; shampoo with ORS Olive Oil Creamy Shampoo-not too drying; Deep condish and detangle with Pantene's R&N Hair Mask - let it marinate while I shower and shave; detangle in 4-6 sections - AWESOME slip and barely any shedding at all! The comb and the Denman Brush practically slipped through my hair from roots to ends with the greatest of ease; rinse detangled clipped and twisted sections (clips in the back where the hair is shorter, twist front two longer sections). Get out of shower and apply Hello Hydration to each section. Wait a few minutes and then begin styling: Blot each section with a towel to rid hair of excess moisture, apply shea butter to each section to seal in moisture and then apply ORS Smoothing and Hold Pudding. Seal ends with more shea butter, twist and curl. My hair is soft, manageable and no tangles, knots or problems at all. Can't wait to do the take down tomorrow. Hope it's not still wet in the morning! LOVE IT! Next time I'll use the same routine but probably just co-wash instead of using the shampoo. Don't want to over shampoo. We'll see how that works!

This was the most incredible washing experience. No fighting with my hair, tugging pulling or problems at all. I actually enjoyed this wash session. It brought a smile to my face ;)

Ciao for now! (Note to self, remember these products in this particular rotation. Your hair loves it! Also, probably should blot hair with the towel before applying the HH condish as a leave in. I felt like I was blotting out alot of the condish along with the water. Just reverse this process next time - lol!)

Hey, I'm on Curlynikki.com!

I submitted my picture to Curlynikki.com's Fierce Friday" post and she posted it! It's kinda cool (see pic above).

I'm currently pre-pooing with Cantu Shea Butter Leave In condish and Hot Six Oil. I warmed the oil, made a mixture of the oil and about 2 tablespoons of the leave in condish and applied to my curls. Put a plastic baggy on my head with a scarf on top of that and I've been doing house work and waiting for the towels to dry with this concoction on my head for about an hour. As soon as the towels are dry, I'm going to jump in the shower and shampoo with ORS Creamy shampoo. It's about the mildest shampoo I've tried so far. I'm going to go ahead and shampoo because it's got a little bit of SLS in it to clean my hair of some of the cones from my diff products. After I shampoo I'm going to use R&N Hair mask to condish and detangle, and then use Hello Hydration as my leave in (or maybe I'll give the DevaCare One another try). Then I'll do my tnc with ORS Smooth and Hold Pudding and seal with shea butter. I'll post the results when I take it down tomorrow ;)

Still loving my fro. The thicher my natural hair grows, the easier it is to take down and hide the part lines. My curls last for several days if I don't disturb it too much after the take down.

Ciao for now!

Hair Mistakes and BIG Disappointment!

Well, it's back to what works for me. ORS Hair Mayonnaise...my hair HATED it. My hair was crispy, matted, tangled and not even close to being soft after I pre-pooed with oil, co-washed with HH Totally Twisted, DC'd with the Mayonnaise, baggied it for 20 mins. went to wash out the mayo, and ugghhh!!! My hair was so tangled I couldn't even finger detangle!!!! I proceeded to rinse that crap out, and put in the Cantu Shea Leave In condish. Nothing. No slip, no detangling. Nothing. Rinsed that out and tried to use my beloved Hello Hydration to get some slip so I could DT. Even that didn't work at this point, my hair was so rough and crunchy! The permed ends were so tangled and knotted I almost got the scissors and thought about just doing the BC right then and there. I had to get back in the shower and slather my hair with my Pantene R&N Hair Mask Condish. Finally, some slip. Detangled, rinsed and sectioned, and, in my attempt to at least give the Cantu Shea leave in another try, (because at least it smells REALLY good), applied that to my damp hair. I then applied my ORS Olive Oil Holding Pudding and sealed the ends with shea butter and then two-strand twisted and curled. We'll see how it turns out in the morning when I take it down but I was so upset I wanted to cry!

I'm going back to what I know works. No new products for me for a while: Co-wash with Suave Tropical Coconut Condish, Deep condish with my Pantene Hair Mask, let that sit on my hair for a little while, detangle, rinse, apply my Hello Hydration as my leave-in and then apply my ORS pudding and then TnC. At least then, I know I won't be yanking and pulling at my hair to detangle and I know the results come out well. Guess you live, experiment and learn!

Ciao for Now~

6 months into my Transition...Thoughts

Well, I've been taking 1000 mcg (micrograms) of Biotin for the past 3 weeks, and I really can see some difference in my hair health and even my nails are growing, it seems, a little faster and stronger. My hair isn't shedding like it was and it's really thickening up, especially in the back where it is mostly natural now. I may up the dosage to 2000 mcg and see how that works. I've read that some people take up to 5000 mcg and I've seen bottles of 5000 dosage in the drug stores. Biotin has no side effects so I can't hurt. Its water soluable so what your body doesn't absorb just comes out through your urine. My hair does seem to be much healthier, though.

It's funny because I look at pics of me when I first started transitioning 6 months ago and I started getting a little discouraged because my hair was longer, my twist-out looked more "lush" for a lack of better term. But then I realized, that wasn't my natural hair, that was mostly the permed hair. My natural hair is growing like crazy now, while my permed hair is phasing out, either shedding or from my trimming it away periodically. So, my twist outs look shorter and pouffier because they are! It's my natural hair taking over. But, it seems to really be growing thick!

I've been using the "Worlds of Curls" activator on mostly the back of my hair where it's almost completely natural for a couple of days now. It doesn't do much in terms of curl definition (although I have yet to apply it as a styling gel for my twist out), but it definitely moisturizes (the first two ingredients are water and glycerin) the dry hair in the back and keeps my hair looser and softer. I think I'll continue to use it. Especially after I BC because my natural hair seems to like it. I don't use a whole lot because I don't like for my hair to feel greasy, but it feels soft and I like touching it. It doesn't feel crunchy in the back anymore and it's not shedding at all. I'm going to have to do a re-styling session tonight, though, because when I took down my TnC yesterday, it was still wet and now I've got a lot of frizz! I may just TnC the back. I don't know. We'll see how I feel when I get home from work this evening. ;)

This weekend I'm going to try "Kinky Curly Coily's" routine: I'll apply olive oil to my hair (my Hot Six Oil) and co-wash, apply Organic Root Stimulators Hair Mayonnaise, comb through and let it sit with a plastic baggy for about 15 minutes, detangle, rinse and then apply Cantu Leave in Condish (if I can ever find any!). After that I'll probably use the ORS curly pudding that I have and flat twist probably seal my ends with shea butter. See how that turns out ;) I want to try the Hair Mayo because I want to see if it will be a good replacement for my Pantene R&N hair mask when it all runs out ;(

I think I'll continue to co-wash and skip shampooing altogether, my hair seems to act better when I don't use shampoo. I haven't really found one that doesn't make my hair feel stripped of all moisture! Maybe I'll just shampoo once a month with a shampoo that has some "sls" (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) in it just to get rid of build up and the "cones" in my conditioner and other products. I'll probably use the Organic Root Olive Oil Cream shampoo. It seem to have been the gentlest on my hair so far of all the shampoos I've tried and it does have some sls in it, but I'll wait another couple of weeks before I do that.

Ciao for now!

Dissappointment - again

Well, I tried using just the DeVa Curl line of products for my washing this week and I was very dissappointed with the results. Everyone raves about this line but I don't think my hair really likes it and you have to listen to your hair. Maybe my hair just likes some of the products, but I was very dissappointed in the "No Poo" - I thought it was a bit harsh and left my hair kinda rough. I used DevaCurl One Conditioner as a detangler and was expecting great results, instead I got a lot of tangle and knots at the ends. Maybe it's my permed ends that didn't like it. Maybe it was because I used the No Poo first, but for $17.95 a bottle, I expected the tangles and knots to melt away like they do with my Pantene R&N Hair mask. No such luck. I don't think it did as good a job as my $3.00 HH Hello Hydration. I will go back to co-washing with Suave Coconut Condish and detangling/leave in with HH. When I run out of the Pantene, I'm going to try Organics Hair Mayonnaise as a replacement for my Deep Condish. I may go to Trader Joe's and get the their Nourish Spa Condish - I've hear good things about it but we'll see. I still like the DevaCurl "Set it Free" to set my curls, but, I'm just not happy (for the price) with all the products combined. My hair feels soft but it looks very dry and dull. Maybe I used too much. I don't know. Well, I tried it but it's back to what I know works. Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's the best ;) Also, I have to go with what I know my hair likes. It didn't like this stuff very much. Also, I realize that I need to trim my ends more often. Especially when the they start knotting and tangling alot. Gotta get rid of these permed ends. I did a "twist n trim" after my washing. Probably shou'dve trimmed more than I did but I'm not quite ready for the BC yet. These stringy ends are getting on my nerves, though.

Ciao for now!

Lovin' the new routine

Soooo....last week I did a hot oil "pre-poo" with my Hot Six Oil. Warmed the oil and saturated my hair with it, put a plastic baggy on and let it soak in for about 25 mins. ( I would've left it on longer, but I couldn't stand the oil dripping down my neck and face...I don't know how people sleep with oil and a baggy on their heads at night. Maybe they drap a towel over their pillows. Seems to me you'd get oil all over your face and eyes. Maybe I'll try it sometime because I've heard the benefits are great, just not use so much oil ???)

Anyway, after the pre-poo, I co-washed with Coconut condish and then detangled with HH Hello Hydration. I don't know what it is but the HH didn't give me the slip that I really was looking for so I had a hard time detangling and my hair was knotted pretty bad at the ends. But, after my styling session, which consisted of blotting my hair after the washing and conditioning and then adding Totally Twisted as my leave-in, I added shea butter, did my TnC and then spritzed each section with Deva Curl Set it Free. It turned out pretty nice.

So, I decided to do some protective styling later on in the week instead of re-twisting so I did the pompador updo and put a satin scarf on it at night to protect. Wore it like that for two days with minimal manipulation. I liked the low-maintenance of it. On this Sunday, I cowashed again but this time I used my beloved Pantene Relaxed and Natural Hair mask (which I'm down to my last jar and a half and after it's gone I don't know what I'm going to do because I can't find it anywhere. I think it's been discontinued!!!) Detangled beautifully in the shower with the R&N, hardly any shedding at all. After that, I used shea butter to seal and instead of doing a TnC, this time I did the "Cinnabun" hairstyle. (see above and left. Pics are NOT me, my cinnabun had a pomp in the front - lol) I loved it! It might be a little too "different" for work (well, maybe without the pomp in the front) but I really liked it. Wore it like that for two days (scarved it at night), no manipulation at all and it looked great!

Decided to go back to my TnC for work on Tuesday so I took down the cinnabun, spritzed each section with my olive oil, water and condish mixture, sealed the ends with shea and spritzed a little "Set it Free" on each section. Woke up this morning, curls were soft, defined. Just finger separated and fluffed a bit at the roots. I'm loving this new routine and letting my TnC be a fro instead of trying to pull it down. I'll try to get some more pics up soon!

Oh, I also got a compliment from my cousin Glenna on my cinnabun style and even from my sister who is the hair guru extrodinaire! She can do some hair, y'all, so I always feel good when she compliments me. She said I did a good job and it looked like one of those "african" hairstyles, lol. My cousin Tonya said it was "interesting" but I have the face to pull it off - LOL! Not sure if that was exactly a compliment but I'll take it as one ;)

Ciao for now!