Co-Wash Day: Battling Dry Hair

After I took my Senagalese twists/crochet braids out, my hair became unhappy. It seemed fine at first, but by the end of the day, it was just SO thirsty!! It didn't matter what moisturizer I put in it either. The dryness was unreal. So I decided to co-wash just a few days after washing to try to infuse some moisture into my strands. I went straight for my moisturizing staples that never let me down, too.

{1} Divided my hair into 8 sections.

{2} Applied Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose & Island Naturals Replenishing conditioners to my hair and braided each section. I also applied some Umberto Deep Treatment Masque to the last few inches of my braids. I want to start trying the protein layering technique on my ends.

{3} Put on a plastic cap, scarf, and deep conditioned overnight.

{4} Rinsed with cool water (still in braids), squeezed the excess water out and followed with an ACV and aloe vera juice rinse. I don't rinse this out.

{5} Towel wrapped my hair to soak up the excess. I could already tell how much better my hair was feeling at this point.

{6} Doing one section at a time, I detangled, applied my leave-ins (Elasta QP H2, It's A 10 Miracle Leave in & Organix Coconut Milk Serum), and blew my hair dry on low. Didn't take very long at all and my hair felt great!

{7} Set my hair using my new Caruso steam rollers! I got these to replace the terrible Con-air ones I was gifted awhile ago.

Honeysuckle rose to the rescue! That plus the ACV and Aloe vera juice rinse left my hair pillowy soft and moisturized. For days ya'll! Why I stray from my tried and true I'll never know. I promise next time my aloe vera juice runs low, I'll re-up before it empties. I can't go without it anymore. I love when my hair turns out so soft I can't stop touching it!! 



For my first time using the Caruso rollers, I really like them! I didn't try to blow dry my hair straight so, of course, it ended up HUGE as the day went on! Lol I should be used to that by now, huh? But I still liked it! At first, I thought the process of steaming the rollers one at a time would take forever, but it definitely is an easy process. These are keepers for me! 

Oh, and my MacBook is finally back up and running! Yaaay!! So, I'm glad to be officially back and linking up with the #washdayexperience this week. Be sure to check out other wash day experiences over at SavingOurStrands and JustGrowAlready! How was your most recent wash day?

Wash Day: Twist Take Down

New growth after 4 weeks
By the time I took my twists down, I was 12 weeks post relaxer. Because of the fact that I was so lazy about taking care of them while I had them in, I really didn't know what to expect from my hair. Yet, I didn't experience a lot of breakage or anything along those lines so I was pleased.

{1} After removing all of the twists, I coated my braids with PM Tea Tree Moisturizing conditioner and my garlic oil mix. I put on a plastic cap, scarf and left it on overnight.

{2} When I took the braids out my hair felt great. I finger detangled, but some how forgot to fully detangle before shampooing. Always a mistake after protective styling!

{3} Sectioned my hair into 4 and shampooed with ORS Creamy Aloe three times. My hair wasn't feeling the best at this point. I could tell detangling was not going to be good.

{4} Towel wrapped my hair to soak up excess water.

{5} Applied L'oreal Damage Erasing Balm and Aubrey Organics Replenishing conditioner for several hours under a plastic cap.

{6}Rinsed with cool water followed by an ACV rinse. I did not rinse this out of my hair. I let it sit for a few minutes before squeezing out the excess. My hair was back to feeling pretty good, but still tangled.

{7}Towel wrapped my hair to soak up the excess liquid.


{8} Section by section, I detangled and applied my leave-ins (Elasta QP H2, Shea Moisture Reconstructing conditioner and safflower oil). Detangling took about 45 minutes. It was definitely due to not thoroughly removing my shed hair in the beginning. A lesson I shouldn't have had to repeat. It could have been a lot worse though.

{9}Put some Eco-styler gel on my edges, brushed them smooth and put on a scarf. Let my hair continue to air dry.



So, initially my hair felt great. But the more my hair dried, the more the moisturized feeling disappeared, which left my hair feeling so dry and crunchy. Ugh. I knew I was going to be co-washing pretty quickly. I moisturized it again to give myself a day before I had to wash it. I think protective styling spoiled me because I really was not thinking this wash day. I didn't detangle properly. I didn't think about how far into my stretch I was and how that changes things, i.e. I should've washed in braids and used more moisturizing products. Thankfully, my mistakes didn't leave me with any damage and I already know how to fix my dry hair issue.


Hair {& Blog} Update

First things first: I hit my 4 week goal for my protective styling!! *cheers!* It wasn't even as hard as I thought it was going to be. I wanted to take them out at after about two weeks because I had so much new growth, but it was easy once I got over that. I probably could have kept them in for a couple more weeks if it weren't for all the new growth. New growth is (almost) always the reason I want to take these styles out early. That, plus the fact that I get bored with my hair quickly. I think I had half an inch after two weeks. No exaggeration. Check the pic! The thing I always worry about with a lot of new growth is too much shed hair causing issues. So, I re-twisted the perimeter to make myself feel better.

I have to admit... I was a complete slacker when it came to my hair this past month or so. I feel like I didn't moisturize as often as I should have. And... I did not wash my hair at all for the whole time I had in my twists ya'll! Lol I should be ashamed huh?! I didn't even use my dry shampoo! I am such a champion of keeping your scalp clean, but umm... yea it just didn't work out this time. Surprisingly, my scalp did not protest AT ALL so I dont actually feel too bad about it. Last week was the first time it started bothering me and itching. By then, it was time to take them out anyway. 

Even though I didn't do the best job taking care of my hair in the twists, I am happy to report that my ends are still in good shape. My current goal is to keep my ends up by protective styling. I joined the 30 days without Split Ends challenge with Jeni of JustGrowAlready and Divachyk of Relaxed Thairapy and am so glad it was a success despite my bad behavior :)

Because my hair seems to grow like weeds when I'm protective styling, I'm really motivated to try to keep it up for the rest of this year. I still find it unbelievable how much my cornrows grow out in such short periods of time when I have in crochet braids. In the picture below, it is hard to see where the braids even begin! You can check here for what they looked like originally. This personal protective styling challenge is working out well because I currently do not feel like being patient or devoting the time it takes to do my hair like I usually enjoy. Next up is box braids. They will probably be done crochet style as well just because it's so much faster and easier for me. I'm going to wait about a week before installing them just to give my hair a little rest.

New growth after a couple weeks
Last, but certainly not least, my beloved Macbook Pro shut down on me!! I literally turned it off one day and it refused to boot back up. Major sadface. I still don't know if it can be revived, but the blog was way too quiet last month. I don't know how much longer I'll be without it at this point so, I guess for now I need to try to master blogging from my iPad?  If any of you ladies know of some great apps for this, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

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