No Damage Here!

Wow, I just got done diffusing and have to share - my hair definitely did not suffer from the sulfates on Saturday. Quite the opposite in fact! I have so much shrinkage, I did a double-take when I flipped my hair over! It looks like I got a cut!

I'm going to attribute this to the batch of flax seed gel I made this morning. Here's the background:

About this time last year, I was having a love affair with my homemade FSG. I even tried BB's FSG after reading all the rave reviews, but came straight back to my stuff. This lasted most of the month of February in 2009. Since my hair's been blah lately, I decided I would go back to what worked this time last year and went back to read the posts.

Early last March, my love affair with FSG ended abruptly. I had no idea what had caused it and figured it was a cold-weather product that I should save for winter. Here's the thing; I went back and looked at the products I was using with it - all full of oils! So now I'm thinking that FSG was not the problem; it was all the other products I was using. I even stated that it worked better with GVP Conditioning Balm than any of the other oil-filled products I had used.

So yesterday afternoon I decided to make a new batch of FSG. I have some agave nectar and seamollient, so I searched around NC.com to figure out how much to use of each. Then I stumbled upon this thread. Since I wasn't in a rush, I decided to give it a try. I put 1/4 cup flax seeds in about 1 cup of distilled water and let it soak for 18 hours, adding more water every so often. This morning I made a batch, adding 1/2 tbsp agave nectar and 1/2 tsp seamollient (have never used this before!). It didn't make a lot; in fact it was way less than I usually get. And it didn't seem that much thicker either.

I did the Spritz & Condition method with GVP Conditioning Balm, co-washed with V05 Raspberry, and rinsed-out with some more GVP CB. Then I scrunched in about three tablespoon-sized puddles of FSG, blotted with a flour sack towel, scrunched in a few more blobs, and plopped. After plopping, I scrunched in some Aussie Instant Freeze, plopped again, and started diffusing. About halfway through diffusing, things were getting crunchy. I scrunched in a little more FSG (still not sure if I like this method) and diffused a little longer.

It was when I finished that I noticed how much it had shrunk! In all my days of being a curly, let alone CG, I have never experienced shrinkage like this before. I wasn't expecting much, especially after just using sulfates on Saturday. It's clipped right now. I'll try and take some pics after it dries completely.

Edit -

Just SOTC. Here's a horrible picture. I really need to find an actual camera.