Preemptive fail?

I took my twist down yesterday because I was tired of them and my scalp was super itchy.  But as I'm home alone for a bit there was no need to rush through the process of washing them out and what not.  Instead I lathered in some oils and leave ins so I could do a long term deep condition.  When I do that it loosens up more of the dirt and makes the detangling easier later.  I planned on washing my hair before bed and then doing an overnight deep condition before styling but that didn't happen. I'm home alone because I got up at 2:30 to make sure my mother was ready to get on plane at 6:30 so she could make it to Dallas in time for the family roll out to a funeral in another state.  So we're clear that is AM.  I still had to run to work, have a meeting and eat some food and then take down said twists.  By the time I was done with that and putting in the leave ins I was hanging on by a thread.  At 9PM I gave it up and slept all the way through till the next morning. 

I took my time today and watched more YouTube videos about what to do with my hair.  I was fully prepared to attempt a horse shoe method twist out.  I went through my routine, all was good, and my hair was like ma'am stop it.  I tried it with a few different lengths and thicknesses of flexi-rods but it was still like give up the ghost ma'am.  Now I didn't really have a plan B so I got frustrated and was about to say eff it let it just dry and I'll put in something to make it curly on Monday and we'll rock the fro with my new wraps.  But instead I went back to my old short flex-rods, hard to find them that length anymore which is neither here nor there, and did a normal flexi set using one rod per pull of hair.  I used Curl Manetenance from Aunt Jackie's and Wrap and Roll lotion from Jane Carter Solution and then set my hair.  I rolled it from the root for a change and I can't say it took longer than normal but I was taking my time.  Everything is rolled now and I don't have to take this down for over 24 hours so if it's not dry then my hair is just being evil.  I will try to take a photo when it's all loose and see if we have achieved cute curls or if I really need to learn hot to braid my own hair.

Curly Girl Back From Hiatus

Hey Folks,

I just realized it's been over a month since I posted.  Right after my last post I went to a conference, taught a week long intensive course, wrapped up my other summer class, had to prep for fall classes, and had about 18 meetings all before classes started.  My twists were meh and I can't say that I was doing the best job taking care of them but I'll get to that in a bit.  I took them down Friday after work and was having a moment of regression.  I was back to mini afro puff status lol.  I left them in puffs for the rest of the night and yesterday as well cause.......lazy.  Much more on that later.  I've been watching videos on hair care and checking out products and adding a few products to my rotation to try out so I'll try to get to all of that now.

Tell you all about it....

.....when I see you again.


See I'm back to being corny.  So I mentioned last post that it's been a full year being natural with lots of protective styling I've gone from tiny fro to larger fro and loving it.  I spent the last week natural and tried my first for real wash and go that didn't to hell immediately.  There was some shrinkage of course but not as much as normal thanks to Jane Carter's products, which I did have to order from the site directly and Amazon.  Now I could have gotten it all from the site but I assumed my local Sally's had some products I wanted and they were running a 2 for 1 deal so yeah gotta take advantage of that but locally they have no love for me and my hair texture.  I'm better off at Kroger of all places.  Anyway I got all of my stuff by Wednesday but really just slept in a baggy all the days that I was teaching and then Friday afternoon came home and  planned to wash my hair again because it was almost time for a new twist install PLUS I had plans and wanted my hair to be shiny since it was going to be out.  I didn't actually get to my hair unitl Saturday morning.  Wednesday was the 13th Anniversary of when I became a Delta.  We met up yesterday to hang out and catch up.  Love my sands, I'm down front if you are looking for me.

Apparently I can't count

So I was coming over to check something on the blog and realized the weeks post relaxer looked super wrong since I last got my hair relaxed June 15th of last year.  Yeah I was seven weeks off.  After an unintentional transitioning point and some random breakage prior to my big chop, it doesn't really seem like it's been that fast.  I'm glad my hair is growing, fuller and healthier than it has been in years.  It's not as long as it used to be when I was letting chemicals release the curl but that will come.  The twists are helping my lazy to be sure but I haven't totally done my part to keep it well protected and moisturized.  Since I got them reinstalled I have been trying to hit my scalp and length of my hair with either jane carter solutions re*store or Infusium 23 Olive oil leave in conditioner.  I've been doing it daily but I think it may be too much.  I'll see after this week how the buildup feels and if it's too much I'll cut back and wash my hair with the bottles again.

Honestly I'm super exhausted right now.  If I hadn't been in the mood to braid and roller set the twists I'd probably be drooling on the pillow right now.  I had a busy weekend with my sorority sisters at a conference and it was good be with them.  However, I'm so tired now it's out of control.  At least one of my classes ends on Thursday so I have a tiny bit of reprieve to sleep in and watch the start of Wimbledon in peace.  I didn't take any photos of my hair immediately after it was done but they are smaller than they have been without feeling super heavy.  Here's a photo from the weekend.  Not super close up but you can see my smiling and somewhat dressed up lol.

I need to go eat dinner but revisit that super lazy.  Hope you had a good week.

Six Weeks Natural

I was reading another blog and realized I hadn't really been going wooo one more week natural.  Granted that could be because my hair has been in this fabulous twists the entire time but I'm super enjoying being called everything from Storm well now that I think about it's really just been Storm but as kick ass female superheroes go she's nothing to shake a stick at.  Plus, I am enjoying looking a bit younger than I somehow was with the jet black twists.  The one thing I have noticed, and that could be a total fallacy at this point, is that my hair seems to have grown out more in the last six weeks than it did when I was relaxed or when I was consciously not relaxing it.  I really don't want the twists to be tighter when I go in next time but yeah that was something that caught my attention.  And my hair really really likes moisture as much as humanly possible.  The best combination for my twists is Jane Carter Solution re*store moisture mist (which I was super irritated to see marked off to half price after I had bought a few bottles the month before) and Infusium23 Repair and Renew Leave In conditioner with Avocado and Olive Oil.  I think my Ulta is getting ready to phase out Jane Carter because all of the products that I might have been interested in were in the sale section.  I bought way more than I should have but I have Ulta, Sally's and one random beauty supply store that doesn't have as much for the wanting to be natural collective.  They do have a ton of braiding hair but not the Xpression in any kind of gray mix.  And even if other folks can't embrace it I appreciate all of this gray hair still willing to grow out of my scalp.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had planned on having enough braiding hair to get through the rest of the year but my brain hadn't calculated hair growth, varying the size of the braids, and maybe just touch ups if I had something special going on.  That sent me on another panicked hair spree because ebonyline still hadn't put the hair back up for sale on their website.  None of the other sites recommended by Sensationnel had the hair in M51 and a few places that did seemed a bit sketchy.  I stumbled on a brick and mortar store on the east coast that had the hair today and after a brief conversation with them I bought a crap ton more (that's an legitimate measurement somewhere I'm sure).  Because of a mix up with their website the owner must have felt like they had to ship immediately because within an hour of placing the order I had a shipping notice.  Yeah for that.  And if you want to check them out they are at BSW Hair Store and have a pretty wide stock of things and an actual store you can go into which helps if you live in that area.  I know my hair won't be in twists the entire next year but it will be up more than it's not until I can rock a giant afro.  Gotta be prepared for whatever random mood swings my hair opts to go through until we hit that point.

Tomorrow I'm going to wash my twists using the spray bottle method I've seen a few folks try because I really was dreading putting water and thus increased weight on my hair.  I'll try to take photos and updates after I get home from the gym and work tomorrow.  The gym was going well until I tweaked my shoulder and finally had to see a doctor cause the pain wasn't going away.  Turns out you shouldn't keep doing upper body workouts when you've tweaked a major muscle group.  But to my rationale it was loose in the gym and after I came home so there was no pain until I went to sleep and it was like yeah naw kid.  I'm better now and while I may let tomorrow just be a cardio day since we're on break I may make an appearance every day for the rest of the week.

How's life with you ladies (and gents maybe)?