Hair Rambles: This and next month

No heat: Success
I did this very easily. I do have to say I wouldn't have been able to do it without the curlformers, but with them, it was a serious breeze. I just set my hair after every wash. So basically, roller setting/wrap setting beats heat. If you already did this, you probably knew that already.
Cowash whenever necessary: Success
I did this! Every time I needed to wash or condition, I did. It's because I didn't use heat that I was able to just do whatever whenever I wanted, and it was great. I'm going to use a lot less heat in the future, and I plan on washing whenever necessary as well; however, I did cowash a lot this month, and not all of it was necessary.
Learn what hair feelings mean: Fail :(
This didn't work out too well. I had a lot of hair feelings, from good to bad, but because it took so long to correct them [and because I tried so many new things], I had a hard time.
Protein once a week: Success, but uneccesary.
I did this, but I realised it wasn't necessary. Same for the shampooing.
Finish one product: Failed
Yeah, I used a lot of products but didn't finish any of them. I'm working on it.

Next Month:
Do a hot oil treatment: I've heard lots about these and I want to try. Even if I don't get olive oil, I have plenty of coconut oil and will try that. I want to finally see the benefit of that.
Skip one week of shampooing [no more than three times next month]: Because shampooing didn't work to well for me and caused a lot of breakage, I'm going to see what happens if I shampoo less.
Comb every other day [unless an event is happening]: This is going to be the most difficult for me, but I do want to start combing less, especially now that my hair doesn't really get tangled. This doesn't include finger detangling, which I will probably utilize on the off days to make sure my hair doesn't get too tangled. I'm also going to try to headband curl more than half the days of the week, just to save time and energy over curlformers. I've been doing them for two days now and I love how simple it is considering the result, I need to see how long I can keep it up before I need to use curlformers to stretch my roots again.
DC overnight every weekend: I know I'm going to DC every weekend, but for some reason I just decide not to DC overnight even though I always get the best results from that. I'm going to DC overnight every weekend, and hopefully decimate [or more] needing to DC during the week.

#6?-Wash Day: No shampoo, 09:00→17:40 DC

Yup, for people who don't know; I'm a huge fan of military time.
Anyway, I washed my hair today. I cowashed with V05 Strawberries and Cream Moisture Milks. My hair felt just as bad as has it has these few weeks, not fun. Then, I applied Hair One Olive Oil, because it has been known to DC even when some of my other things couldn't. If this doesn't work, I'll bust out my Keracare for serious DC action. I did this at 9:00, then went to classes and everything with the DC on my head, like a crazy person [after my first class, I t-shirt dried some of the excess water out, then reapplied my Hair One, with a little bit of aloe vera gel], and then went to a club meeting [Anime club] and when I got back at 17:30ish, I washed out the conditioner, and t-shirt dried for 30 minutes before applying Coconut oil, Grape seed oil, and sealing with the Frizz Ease I've mentioned. I'd forgotten how great it was at sealing, so I figured I'd try.
I was able to keep my hair detangled for the whole thing in most sections. The lower right was the most difficult [it's the least texlaxed section.] and I didn't get it detangled until I was applying leave - ins. I think my hair just didn't have enough moisture, somehow. In the end, the piece of hair I accidentally left out feels GREAT and is dry, so hopefully using the Hair One worked as expected.

On a side note: my hair has been breaking more [one of my good friends, Kevin, who has natural hair, says it probably is the shampooing, so I'm really going to try not doing it for a while. Maybe I'll wait another week after this one...]; however, in terms of staying detangled and being easy to style, having movement and shine, and overall behaving like hair that has been well maintained, it's great. It's just so dry that I don't understand how everything else is working.

Basically, if my hair is dryish and I have already done the LOC method, I'll simply apply some coconut oil to keep it mosturized, instead of waiting. I've heard the secret to healthy hair is making sure it never actually gets dry, so I'm going to try to keep infusing it with moisture. Plus, my best hair days came from doing DCs even when my hair still felt great.

Lastly: I have an Aloe plant! It's fun. I'm probably not going to use it for hair stuff, but who knows :D
Have healthy hair everyone.

Update: Alrighty, my hair dried last night and felt amazing! It was great, and every time I wash my hair [while I still have it left] I'm going to use Frizz Ease to seal in the moisture. This morning I moisturized and sealed (LOC with raw shea butter as the C, L and O are my normal mix and coconut oil),  [I decided to start doing this in the morning since my curls are gone by the next morning if I do it at night]. My hair feels nice: thick and very full with moisture! I do think I used a bit too much shea butter. I just really wanted to seal, but in the future I'm going to use less than that, because my hands have a slight shine when I touch my hair.

UPUPDATE:
I might actually keep buying Hair One. I said the grape seed oil would work, but HO works even when I can't get anything else to, as evident in this past two weeks. Right now, my hair has the most movement it has ever had, and feels so full of delicious moisture that I don't think anything else can come close to it. It's literally my healthiest hair day ever, and it's wonderful even if it doesn't look perfect [the curls are mostly gone from this morning, otherwise it would literally be my best hair day ever in my life. O_o] Sigh. I tried to get off the product wagon, but a backup HO Olive/Avocado might be in order. At least I can use this as shampoo instead of buying a real one: combined with clay / ACV, it should be strong enough that I don't need a real shampoo. Otherwise, I would need to buy shampoo [I don't think ACV quite works on its own for me... and I haven't actually tried my clay yet, though it does work wonders on my face.]

#4-5 Wash Day: Hair Breakage sucks.

You skipped so many posts this week, why?
School and summer break. Loads of plans :P

I've washed my hair twice since my last post, but it's been breaking a bit more and it's definitely extremely dry [but only when wet...:S It feels great when it's dry...]. It's *completely* failing the stretch test. It's not good at all. I've DC'd twice and it's not working out too well. I've tried protein and moisture. I'm going to DC overnight next. I think it's all the recent shampooing. I've been shampooing more often because I've been using products with cones more often [to get rid of them], and they build up, but I think I'm being paranoid. I have no real reason to believe there is any build up, so I'm going to stop using shampoo for at least the next week. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, both times I did a black tea rinse, the second time, I actually steeped the tea with hot water [I don't have much access to hot water here, so...] and it was much darker. Honestly, I don't think it was all that necessary. My hair did the whole 'feel dry when wet' thing a few people have mentioned,  but it was already feeling kind of iffy. Either way, I'm going to go back to overnight steeping instead of hot steeping.

Whatd'ya use?:
I clarified with Ion the first time, ApHogee shampoo the second time, Silk Elements Megasilk to DC the first time, ORS Replenishing the second. The first time, I applied my normal, home made leave ins. The second time, I used coconut oil, then followed it with the ORS Moisturizing Hair Lotion [in the bottle] as my cream. [I don't usually do the L of the LOC if my hair has just been washed. I just count water as my L.] Afterward, the second time I did an ACV rinse [left it on for the length of my shower].

My hair feels great when it dries, but it feels strange when wet before I've done anything to it [even before shampooing!]. and I'm skipping a week of black tea because of that. I think I can do it every other week anyway. The additional breakage is my biggest issue. It's might related to the fact that I have had the black tea under the conditioner: it might be preventing the conditioner from absorbing, combined with the stripping of shampooing more than once a week, not a good combo. So....yup, my plans are → Black Tea rinse goes with ACV rinse, and will be the last step before LOC&airdrying. Shampoo once a week again, but give hair a break from it this week.

Side note: Man these Curlformers really get at my roots. I have 20 of them, and when I use them, my texlaxed and ng hair gets smooth enough to run my fingers through it, what!? Never thought that could happen. So...yeah...I've had no reason at all to want to use heat. I've even thought 'I could flat iron my hair, I haven't done it this month' and then 'Why? What would be the point of flat ironing? Why would I need to do that? Uniformity? Smoothness? Shine? Movement?' I have all of that already!' Wonderful.

At any rate, I've stopped the 3 Comb method for the most part. I don't seem to need it so much with the curlformers, but I do it on whatever sections need it [usually one or two out of the twenty]. Overall, my hair is still much much healthier than last year, it's just...more breakage than it had been when I was really doing well the last few months. Protip: if you don't have a way to set your hair, I'd recommend the 3 Comb Smooth method, otherwise, you probably don't need to start it.

Wash #3: Black Tea II and Before + After

I really needed to shampoo a bit better than I did last time, so I did this time. I might need to clarify, honestly. Anyway, I did the same as the black tea one from before, but I used ORS Replenishing Conditioner. I actually put the black tea in a spray bottle. It went a lot better!
I DC'd for about an hour, detangled with the conditioner in my hair [this is pretty new for me. I wasn't sectioning, so my hair would just get tangled again, so I didn't understand why people did it this way until recently.] then rinsed it and put it in curlformers. It took a very long time to dry and is still a bit wet at the root over 8 hours later. Meh. Anyway, a pic before the black tea:

This is what my curls look like when they're not separated. It's got much more shine than last month, when I was still having some issues. Here is the result on separated curls after my second black tea rinse. Here is a pic from after the black tea:

Result: black tea is awesome! I only applied coconut oil and grape seed oil while the hair was wet. I'm really trying to figure out if I need to clarify, so that's why I only used those two. If my hair is still oily tomorrow, I'm clarifying.

Black tea: So, I used two to four [smallish] bags of incredibly cheap [about $1 for 100] black tea in a cup and a half of water. I put the water into a spray bottle and left it on for thirty minutes, then applied ORS Replenishing conditioner over that because I felt like I need a bit of protein. I know black tea makes other people's hair hard, but really protein has never made my hair hard, and black tea is the same. It just stays moisturized longer. I think it's because I've always followed it with something moisturizing, or perhaps my hair just needs all of the protein in the world.  I set it, and this is the result. My hair is only this shiny when it's flat ironed and I think the colour has improved.

Benefits of black tea: makes hair stronger, promotes growth and drastically reduces shedding. Adds a lot of shine and darkens hair.

BTW: These are two different forts!

John Frieda Frizz-East Extra Strength Formula Review

This serum is one of the three total serums I have used at the time of this posting. It claims to reduce frizz...obviously.

Short and sweet:
Bad: it in no way reduces frizz.  Good: it does work as a top grade sealant. Stars as frizz stopper: 0. Not even a half. Stars for sealing: 4.5/5
Overall: I don't know what to give it. I mean...it doesn't do what it says, but it's awesome at something else? Just refer back to previous scores.
Comment: it loses a half for being more oily than any other serum I've used, but even though it made me deal with an oily issue that I almost never have, it works so well as a sealant that it would be a staple if I wasn't going all home-made.
Thing I'd replace it with: Shea Butter

Long and succulent:
A sealant is a product you apply at the very end of your hair moisturizing, to keep in all the moisture in your hair. It always goes at the very end because it seals everything else you put into your hair. If you apply a liquid, oil and cream in the LOC method, it's the C / last step. If you just moisturize and seal, it's the last step, if you apply several different products to do a bunch of individual things, it's the last step, and if you mix a bunch of things together, you should probably not mix this and just apply it as the last step. Pattern!

If I use this after a wash, I don't even have to use a moisturizer or an oil. My hair just holds onto that moisture.

 >> Very few products make my hair stay oily. Most oil does not, in fact. Usually, even if my hair is oily, it's perfectly fine the next morning. With this product, my hair has gotten so bad that it stuck together. I didn't even recognize the issue until I remembered someone else mentioning that oily hair clumps even when dry. I'm not used to dealing with oily hair because my hair always needs more moisture [I've put several tablespoons of coconut oil on my hair, on two occasions, and my hair just ate it. It was completely dry the next morning.] >> so make sure that you remember for serums that less is more, especially in this case. I would start with the smallest amount you can and work your way up.
Grain of salt: No product has ever made my hair not get frizzy, aside from the salon products that probably need to work in conjunction with heat [and I've pretty much sworn off heat, even indirect heat is a bad idea to me].

Shea Butter: Raw Shea Butter gives me a lot of shine, and seals better than anything else I've used. It also doesn't get oily. While it doesn't give me as much slip as this, I have plenty of other things to give me slip, and it's the last step anyway.

Have Healthy Hair~

Hair Rambles: How DIY can change your hair colours:

My hair is about four different colours [they all blend in if light isn't being shined on them, so whatever]
Dark brown [basically black when you shine a light on it]: This is the shade my hair grows out of my head.
Light brown [very dark, much lighter in the light, though]: This is the colour of my hair that I've used honey on a few times, and during the summer sun. It's fine, I don't really want brown hair, though.
VERY light brown [lighter than the previous, and almost blonde in the light]: This is clearly a different colour from my hair, especially in direct light, and caused by my ex-stylists' bad hair practices. I don't like it. Too light.
Red‽ [very dark, darker than the previous two, red in light]: Well, all the previous hair turned into this when I started making my own products...
Black Tea rinse: it makes my hair a little darker and gives it some shine. I like the fact that it makes my hair colour [in light] look more natural. The relaxer burned hair was kinda fake looking on my head, tbh.
Protip: most people can't tell these things, because the light has to be directly on my head, and that doesn't happen to often. I haven't ever really shown anyone, mostly because it's not that big of a deal, just a little annoying to know what kind of damage things can cause.
Why did my hair change to reddish?:
The things I use that people have said might cause this: honey/ACV/Aloe vera. I've read about people who mix these products, or use them layered, and had their hair turn red. It made no sense to me, but...well...now...heh. I think it's the combination because of things I've red: ACV can turn some people's hair red. Honey lightens hair. Now, I've heard that the more pure the aloe vera is [that is, straight from the leave], the more cases where people have had their hair or skin turn slightly red. Mine isn't 100% AVG, but in combination with something else people say can do it [ACV] and something that lightens hair [honey] plus the relaxer burns, it made my hair go from dark dark brown, to a more red, slightly lighter brown. That, plus the black tea, means slightly darker brown. It's cool though, because I can tell what my hair is going  to look like when I use henna [I'm doing it for the conditioning, not the colour], so I won't be too alarmed. I like it better than the lighter-brown colour I was getting before. That made me feel like my hair was fading, while this feels more like I have naturally dark red hair, with some highlighting. When I use henna, it should stop other things from being able to lighten my hair as much, so I'll look even more like this. As a teenager, I always wanted red hair, now I just want dark hair [well, I also really want a job in the future :P].
How things change.

Wash Day #2: Tea rinses and Whoa, red hair‽

This went perfectly, which is good because I'm really sick and wouldn't been up to doing much correcting.
I did a black tea rinse, and I steeped the tea overnight, which is why I felt obligated to wash my hair today even though I'm sick. I shampooed, because my hair was seriously coated by that John Frieda Extra-Strength Frizz-Ease, to the point where it was sticking together. I've never had that happen before with any product. I think part of the problem was that I do my hair in sections of 12 [because I have twelve Curlformers, :P] so I accidentally used too much even though I tried to only use a small part of a pump for each section. Anyway, that's going into the review [whenever I write it] because my other products don't do that even if I have 12 sections.
So, I parted my hair into four sections like I always do when I'm washing it, then I did each step on the hair [one after the other, so Shampoo/tea/switch/repeat not shampoo/switch/repeat/tea/switch/repeat]
Shampoo: ApHogee Shampoo for Damaged Hair. I love this stuff, I've started following it with PM SS DS, but I didn't today. Wanted to get out ASAP, plus, I just shampooed earlier this week.
Black Tea Rinse: I dipped my hair into the bowl, then put some in my shower-cup-thing [it's really just a plastic cup, but I only use it for hair stuff] and rinsed it down the section to get at my scalp. Black tea stains everything, so I made sure that all excess was rinsed immediately.
Then, I got out and waited 20 minutes, before putting on my DC--Silk Elements [something]. Not the one with Olive Oil in it. I've used it a few times. It isn't bad, but it's not great either. I would buy it again if I was buying products, but not if Hair One or Keracare Humecto were on sale. So, there's the list. I topped it with Grape seed oil.

Time to rinse: [Sink instead of shower. Already put on clean clothes.]
Uh...holy crap, why did I stop putting grape seed oil in conditioners? My hair was so smooth and all the tangles had melted before I even started de-tangling; even the new growth and the texlaxed hair. My hair was smooth and silky, like I used Hair One. Right. Grape seed oil goes in everything, once again, I never should have stopped. O_o.
It felt stronger, I had a little less shedding [it's more noticeable after the first rinse is what I've heard], and even my nape feels deliciously nourished. Grape seed oil is officially the base for my home made DCs, when I run out of these products. Anyway, the hair felt as moisture as it usually does with the Silk Elements: more than some of my other DCs, but less than Keracare / Hair One. Next I'm going to try the ApHogee moisturiser, I bought it a long time ago and it did NOTHING. We'll see if adding grape seed oil will really bring out the sexy! I need to get rid of that conditioner. It probably works better right after the 2-step, but I don't own that. :S
I split each section into 3 and put in curlformers, I would take a pic, but I look...very sick.
They all went in extremely easily, and I only lost a few hairs, most of which to shedding and not breakage. I'll update this post when it's done drying, if I feel up to posting. Hopefully, I'll get better and not worse in that time!
Healthy hair and body, everyone!

ETA: It's 15:20 and my hair still isn't dry, I took one Curlformer down and it's wet where the rubber meets the hair, unsurprisingly. Anyway, I have a ton of shine and my hair appears slightly darker and dare I say more...red[‽] than usual. Actually, I think my hair might already be turning red: I heard that a combination of the products I use have turned other people's hair slightly red and mine looks reddish in the light [where it used to be a light brown from relaxer burns. This is why I'm not going to another stylist again.] I know it's from the relaxer  because I didn't use honey when I first noticed it. I was looking at the bald spot I had [two relaxers ago] from their mistreatment, and I realized the broken hairs around it were VERY light. Then, I held my ends up to my crown and they're much lighter than the rest of my hair, but in weird streaks. It's probably from the fact that they love to overlap relaxers. It's not noticeable outside of having light shown on it, so I didn't care, but it made me wary about using honey because I like my dark hair shade. In the end, honey is far too awesome to quit just because of lighter hair! Plus, I got tea.

Hair Rambles: Stretch Test for Hair Elasticity

For a long time, I've been wondering about how to properly check elasticity. I've heard you take a strand and wet it, then stretch it. If it stretches to a number that seems to differ by blog, (30%, 50%) and snaps back, holding the curl, it has a good elasticity. If it breaks instead, it has none and your hair doesn't have enough moisture, if it stretches and stretches until breaking, or plops without retaining its original state, you have too much moisture and not bough protein.
Why did I mention moisture and protein? Because they affect hair elasticity. The more moisturized your hair is, the stretchier, and the more protein, the more it holds its shape. You need to balance the two to maximize elasticity. This does not mean 50/50. Everyone's hair is different.
Before now, I had checked but I still didn't understand, now that I have texlaxed hair, I tried again.
Before:
I took a strand and stretched. It stretched and snapped back, curling into a ball. Didn't help. I mean, I didn't have anything else to go by, is it good? Average? Bad?
How I figured it out:
Then I streched only the relaxed section; I grabbed it, made it straight, and then began stretching. It stretched and snapped back. Then just the texlaxed/ng; pulled it straight and started stretching. It didn't stretch at all.
This isn't how it's normally done, but it makes more sense to my mind. Anyway, I now know that my texlaxed hair needs much more moisture than my relaxed hair. I knew that, but now I have proof. This is my way, find yours. As a hugely intellectual individual (culturally speaking) I know that everyone learns differently. Being able to see two distinctly different responses gave me insight on elasticity. If you don't have two textures, try doing it fresh after a protein dc, and fresh after a moisture dc, the difference should help!
I wrote this for everyone else who is confused by elasticity, I hope it's more enlightening and can help you understand your results.
Healthy hair, everyone!

Hair Rambles: Wash day! [No DC]

I didn't wash this weekend because I'd just used the Curlformers, but my scalp was having dandruff problems, so when the curls were gone today, I decided to shampoo. I was originally going to clarify, but decided that since I didn't have the time to DC, I wouldn't clarify.
I washed with ApHogee Shampoo for Damaged Hair for the first lather, and PM SS Shampoo for the second lather. Then, I used Hair One Olive Oil for the remainder of the wash, which was pretty much a steam treatment. I did all of this, of course, in four sections. I did it in clips, but I've heard braids are better, and my clips are breaking. When I got out, I put in coconut oil and then used John Frieda Anti-Frizz Extra Strength Serum as a sealant instead of Shea butter [still trying to get rid of products]. I think it was actually better, because it gave me a lot more slip, and I don't have frizz...yet. I de-tangled, then put in the Curlformers for the next few hours until it dried [took about 3 and a half hours]. Once again, they went in easily. I'm hoping they last longer because I did a wet set. Anyway, when it dried I took them out and had a lot of moisture still in my hair. I don't know if it's because I shampooed more thoroughly than usual [two lathers instead of one, and I made sure to really get my scalp clean], or the JF, but my hair feels awesome. I've been told dry hair should feel and behave like wet / damp hair, and that's how you know it's moisturized. I think I've gotten a step closer to that, finally. If it is the JF, I'm going to buy more PM SSS whenever I can buy more. That's probably bad--buying a different product because it worked--but PM SSS works better, and on dry hair [JF does not work on my dry hair] and my hair dries faster, plus, I had amazing slip and that made the Curlformers go in quickly.
Next time I wash, [probably this weekend], I'm going to use ORS Replenishing Conditioner [speaking of which, I went into the shop and the packaging is different and says formerly known as Organic Root Stimulator. That's odd. I wonder if they changed any formulas? It's making me wonder about buying their relaxer. Relaxers were the last thing I wanted to keep buying, since I'll be making all my own products in the future...hmm.]
Have a healthy hair day!

Hair Rambles: Learning and Curlformers

I washed my hair Thursday night [been really stressed out and washing my hair / taking hot showers relaxes me]. I cowashed with VO5 Moisture Milks Strawberries and Cream, then steamed [the shower here gets extremely hot, so much that the shower was full of steam in about 20 seconds.] with PM SS DT and Hair One Olive Oil lightly covering my hair. Then, I mosturised / sealed with aloe vera [from the fridge, so cold! It probably sealed my cuticles, so that's good.] coconut and grapeseed oil mixed, and then shea butter. I'm airdrying in twists. I didn't detangle / comb my hair.
I noticed something: when my hair has the correct amount of protein, it noticeably clumps together when wet, and gets less puffy when I comb it out. It stays straight, but clumps into these great, easy to manage pieces. I had forgotten that, but I have offically made the connection!

Saturday, I exchanged my curlformers [extra long and wide] for long and extra wide [even though my hair is a little to long] so I de-tangled my hair and it was more difficult than I would have liked. In the future, I will at least detangle with a wide tooth comb. I did the three comb method and put the curlformers in, then took them out this morning.
Firstly:
They went in so easily, even though I have the same amout [I bought one more pack, so I had 12 extra long and wide, and now 12 extra wide and long], and there was only one section that got caught, and I redid it easily and with no suffering or lost hair. It was so much easier, that now I can say with utmost  confidence, if your hair gets tangled, it's because your piece is too big and you either need more curlformers, or bigger curlformers depending on the style you want. I still want more than twelve of these, maybe another pack or two, but it's more of a style option and less of a 'this will pull out my hair if I don't do something' option! Anyway, it looked awesome, but the top was a bit puffy so I put a scarf on it until work. I haven't had work yet, but here are pictures. The light is accenting my tired!face.

I'm going out with friends tonight, so hopefully it'll hold up to Chicago winter! Talk to you all soon and hope you have  a nice weekend!