July-September (unhappy about 3-3.5 inches trim on 9/25)

For the month of July, I struggled immensely with my hair to keep it moisturized..I just can't seem to get it right. I think I may have had too much build-up/protein overload which I believe contributed to the severe dryness. Because of the very course feel of my hair, I find myself deep conditioning more-unfortunately, all the products while they did not have heavy-duty protein, the cumaltive effect may have been too much over time.

What I've learned this month:
- Sometimes it's better to just clarify from start and then properly moisturizing afterwards esp. when your hair is not responding to products the way it should.
-My mixture of african pride and infusium works wonderfully when my hair's in braids- not so much, in my hair's natural twist. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I think my hair just gets too tangly when sprayed on in twists period. Then again, maybe it just didn't like the protein.
-To avoid severe matting, I HAVE to properly detangle fron tips to ends because the roots get very, very tangly at times esp. in the sections in the back/lower mid-back where my coil pattern is tightest...the roots are seriously no joke.
-When applying products, I have to break apart/part my hair in smaller sections so products could be distributed accordingly.
-Paul Mitchell detangler is my best friend for major detangling, suave coconut couldn't even come close. This is the BEST detangler I've used so far-a little really goes a long way, all I had to do was wet my hair on the small section I was working on, apply the product and detangle. I'm so glad I bought this as I knew I would need some heavy-duty stuff before even attempting to touch my hair which was sooo brittle, dry, and hard. very few products work on my texture, so I'm always glad when I could recommend one :)



8/3

What did help because my hair was feeling very plasticy (too much build-up) and I knew I needed to have a good detangling session : shampooing my hair with a sulfate shampoo (Tresemme) to remove build-up after detangling first w/ Paul Mitchell . This shampoo left my hair incredibly hard-works just like a clarifier to me. I just might have to stick with my Global Balance sulfate-free shampoo which doesn't leave my nowhere near as stripped. Then, I made my own conditioner mix when I think went well considering how HARD my hair was after shampooing.

The mix: About 1 TBS ea of castor oil, 11/2 TBS of shea butter-maybe more, glycerine, molasses, 1 Hass Avocado, coconut cream (will not be using that particular brand again, left some tiny white grains on my hair. But overall, I was please with the softness of my hair after my conditioner.

I'm going to try using less products because I seriously need to increase the moisture level to limit severe hair dryness, breakage, knotty ends, matted hair, ect. I think my hair is somewhat healthy, but after paying careful attention to my hair, I did notice some breakage in some areas (don't know how):( I just really need to find a good balance between protein/moisture, but I think moisture for me is key and I've always suffered with keeping it in that condition. So, the saga continues with keeping my hair moisturized. However, because I have an idea what has worked/working, I anticipate my next deep conditioning session w/ moisture products only will be much better *sighs*.

9/25

I knew for some time I wanted to get a good trim and was even considering getting my hair flat-ironed for that purpose simply because I felt as though some ends needed to go and was thinking maybe a trim of 2 inches would suffice, but not 3.5 inches in most areas as I have now. Also, I was always apprehensive of a stylist who needed to use heat for a trim and/or didn't have a proper technique to trim or cut my hair esp. when dealing with my hair texture. This is exactly why I've avoided "professional" salons for a good 1.5 yrs of so- I really should have stayed with my gut feeling.

But, after getting a referral from another natural haired lady from a group I'm part of, I figured I found the perfect stylist who supposedly could trim w/o heat, had worked mainly on natural heads and was a natural herself, so I thought all would be good right, WRONG. To my surprise, I thought I knew more about general natural haircare than she did esp.in handling/conditioning/combing my texture hair. I'm really not trying to sound like a hair expert, but even with all the "experience this stylist had" she was doing my hair all wrong... I even had to ask her a couple of times how to comb my hair properly as she would start combing from top to bottom instead of Bottom-up, can we say major breakage on my then shrunken hair, WTF. I knew I should have run before she got to the scissors-improperly combing my hair should have been a sign. I could go on an on as to what went wrong with this service esp. with the mishandling/improper conditioning of my hair, but I will spare you the tale. So, I conclude the only thing this stylist was good at was cutting too much hair which wasn't even close to being somewhat even-I was finding sections where there was an inch cut difference, such as in the back, arrghh. Now I'm glad a lot of the nasty ends are gone, I just know too much was chopped off. Also, I had spoke with this stylist a couple of times before we met and went over what I was looking for before our meeting and prior to her working on my hair so I thought we were on the same page-again WRONG. The stylist had also mentioned my ends were not as bad as I thought and would need about 1/2 an inch off or so off, then please explain why 3-5.5 inches of hair has been cut off???

So, now I'm no where a little past BSL-just slightly pass APL, but I think I'm measuring wrong cause it looks alot shorter, more around SL if you ask me. Oh well, lesson learned, just because one is natural/have "experience with natural hair" doesn't mean they know more than me/ or YOU when dealing with MY or YOUR hair. Length-wise, I'l just wait for the hair to grow back. Maybe I should be more upset, but I'm like whatever (another bump in my hair journey/ setback). I'm at least glad the split/damaged ends are gone for the most part, so I guess I'm starting afresh and back to square one.