Fall Into Your Autumn Routine...

Do you change over your routines and hair products for the cooler, dryer weather? If you haven't in the past, here is your chance to make some changes for this year.

Autumn leaves

1. This may be a good time to check your ends to see how they survived the summer. Since there is a lot of washing and going, swimming, sun exposure, and carefree summertime days, it might be time for a good trim so you don't carry the dead weight of split ends into the winter.

2. Do you need to change your conditioner for the colder weather? It might be a good time to use a richer conditioner, or even consider the addition of oils to some of your favorites. Some olive, almond, jojoba or even coconut oil may boost your conditioner's oomph in the fall.

3. Now might be the time to add (or increase) your use of deep conditioners and homemade hair treatments. Your hair might be crying out for some extra protection against the elements. Imagine yourself bundled up in a warm robe, some hot tea, and a good book while your hair gets wrapped up with some deep nourishment.

4. Does your hair need a different oil mix or sealing products in the colder months? When it is humid, our hair is constantly drawing in moisture from the outside air, but when it's cold the story changes. It is all about retaining moisture. Now is the time to seal with heavier products and be more consistent with applying your oils.

5. Clothing will become thicker and possibly more coarse, so while you protect your neck, now might be the time to step up your protective styling. During this time of year you may have to be more mindful about your hair rubbing against your higher collars, hats, wools, and tweeds. Protective styling - updos, twists, braids, etc. all work.Check out One Hairstyle, Thirty-one Ways if you need style inspiration!

6. And remember that eating healthy foods and drinking lots of water help all year round!

I try to remember that I put on an extra layer of clothing, so I should at least give my hair an extra level of protection. I checked my ends the other day, and yeah, they need a trim. For now, I'm just cutting out bad ends as I see them, but I need to get a cold weather-trim soon. I also have to be particularly vigilant about keeping my hair moisturized in the colder months. I put in some leave in and oil every morning instead of every few days. And I TRY to deep condition more often. I also change my hair oil mix. I use coconut oil all summer, but in the fall I start to add Castor oil. How does your routine change?

Source: nopoojillipoo

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Unknown maintenance, trim, updos

New Plans for the New Year

I've decided on my personal hair goals for 2012. For the short term, I am going to:

1. Start deep conditioning every 10 days or so. I generally recommend that others deep condition, but I have not been doing it with any consistency myself;



January 3rd

2. Try henna at least once before I dye my hair. If I can cover my grays "naturally", and condition my hair at the same time - why not?
3. Trim my ends more often. I realized recently that I have been letting quite a bit of time pass between trims. That also reminds me that I have to buy new scissors. No point in cutting my hair if I'm not going to use proper tools;
4.  DRINK MORE WATER - it is good for my overall health (and that of my hair)...
5. Take my vitamins - see #4 above;
6. Do more research into the science of haircare;
7. Do more length checks. Let's see if making these changes will make a difference; and 
8. Take more pictures!!!! (And post them on the blog, not just on FB and Twitter)...

Do you have any hair goals? Changes in routine? Any suggestions? I'll do another post on goals for the blog, e-book: One Hairstyle, Thirty-one Ways; Twitter; and world domination very soon.

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Unknown book, maintenance, trim

I was scared....

After 15 months of being heat free, I straightened my hair! I decided that I wanted to: 1) do a length check; 2) trim my ends, and; 3) see how bad my ends would look with pressed hair.  After my last experience with heat, my hair responded with breakage, stripped ends, and by just being plain old damaged. This time around I wanted to see if staying away from heat, fairly regular trims and my commitment to natural products have made a difference. I was scared, so I tried to do as little as possible.....

Supplies

1. Shampoo, conditioner, deep conditioner
2. Jojoba and Coconut Oils
3. 15 large rollers
4. Hooded dryer
5. Clipping shears
6. Ceramic flat iron

Steps

1. I took out my twists. I did not comb through my hair, but I did try to finger detangle as I took them out. I then put my hair in 10 large twists.

2. I washed my hair with a hydrating shampoo, then conditioned with the anti-breakage conditioner that I've been using to co-wash, then mixed a cholesterol based deep conditioner with some hair mayonnaise, covered my hair with a plastic bag, and deep conditioned for several hours.  I think that you could get the same results from deep conditioning under a hooded dryer, but I wanted to use as little heat as possible.

Generally when I wash my loose hair, I put my hair in four sections and wash each section of hair separately, and may even comb through my hair in those sections. This time I was trying something new, and I didn't take my hair out of the twists as I washed and conditioned.

3. After I rinsed out the deep conditioner, I took out each twist and combed through each one and oiled it with jojoba oil.

4. When my hair was loose and oiled, I added a small amount of coconut oil to each section of hair as it was rolled on to the 15 large magnetic rollers. I then sat under the dryer until my roots were nearly dry. I tried to make sure that I kept my roots as stretched as possible while rolling my hair. (It took an hour for my roots to begin to dry - but that was probably because I took such a long time to roll my hair that it had begun to air dry).

Taking out the rollers

5. If I were just trying to straighten my hair, I would have spent more time under the dryer and tried to dry it completely in the rollers, then used my small ceramic flat iron to run over each section of curls. Since I did want to trim my ends, I combed through the curls, then took small sections of hair (about half the amount of hair on each roller) and on medium heat, did 1-2 passes with my flat iron.

Combed out the roller set

6. I trimmed about half an inch of straight hair from each section as I pressed it.   

After the press and trim

Oh and yes - my hair is continuing to grow, but I have been keeping it about the same length as I grow out my heat damage. I could feel the difference between the virgin hair and the heat damaged section, but my ends didn't end up looking as bad as I feared. Please share your tricks for straightening your hair.

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Unknown hairstyles, heat, heat damage, straight, trim

Heat damage and two-strand twists

About a year ago I had my hair straightened.  I've had my hair professionally braided a few times but this was the first time in about five years that I'd let someone else DO my hair.  Prior to that point, I've washed, cut, permed, trimmed, pressed, braided, twisted, etc. my hair myself.  I had been two-strand twisting my hair for about six weeks when I decided that since I hadn't had anyone else do my hair in a long time, and since I was going to attend a special event, that I would get it "professionally" straightened....mistake! 

The mistake wasn't letting someone else do it, the mistake was letting a person who seemed surprised that I liked my hair in its natural state be the one that I trusted with the supposed temporary straightening of my happily kinky hair. I got a few suggestions for who to go to, but I waited until the last minute - and I went with the woman that was physically closest and that could do my hair in the middle of the day.  The process consisted of a wash, a deep condition, then a blow dryer being blast at my scalp until my strands succumbed.

I will say that my hair was STRAIGHT.  So straight that its been a year and I still haven't gotten rid of all of the ill effects.  After washing my hair and recognizing that it wasn't snapping back to its previous glory, I washed, conditioned and deep conditioned my hair (several times). The deep conditioning helped, and I started to see my curls come back.  I continued to deep condition, and I went back to my twists, but over the next several weeks my hair began to shred and shed.  I then cut between 1.5 and 2 inches off of the ends of my twists, which got rid of the worst of the heat damage. Then I kicked myself for having done that to my hair.   

To this day, the ends of my hair are still thinner in the middle and front sections of my hair (see above), and I also have 4-5 inches of hair in the middle of some of my twists which is straighter than it should be. (It is residual damage at what was the root of my hair at the time it was pressed.)  My ends have recovered, but I will have to do a series of mini chops in the future.

After I had my hair straightened, I promised myself that I wouldn't use heat on my hair for a year.  My year is up.  I've learned how to trim my hair while it is still in twists instead of from straight as I've done in the past, and I've decided that if I ever go get my hair straightened again, I will go somewhere with a different hair philosophy.  Anyway it was a lesson learned....

Another lesson learned is that two -strand twists are a fantastic protective style. Even if I hadn't suffered the heat damage, I'm glad that I turned to the twists. I've been able to protect my strands from too much manipulation and from any heat during the last year, and I've been able to style my hair in so many ways that I was able to create a book of styles. As you can see from the photo, I've experienced a good amount of growth during the year that I've been doing the twists. I'll continue until the damage is all gone.

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Unknown heat damage, maintenance, straight, trim