Weird Day

So I have some things to blog about, but I realized I haven't posted hair cut pictures yet. So I guess this will be extra long.

Here is my hair after the cut. Shampoo and [most likely] silicone-laden conditioner touched my head, and there is NO product in my hair (scary!):

Is it weird how much these look like my pre-CG pics? If you ever needed incentive to stay away from sulfates, this is it.

Here's the first wash after:

I got about four inches off (I think?). It's very different from long hair. It feels weird when applying product and diffusing. Not sure I have a sleeping routine down yet. It would really suck if I have to give that up and wash in the morning. She also cut with my side part, if I didn't mention that in my last post. I was worried but it turned out well.

* And now to our regularly scheduled blog entry *

I woke up this morning (well, it technically was morning), proceeded to make lunch and start the laundry, and then got called in for emergency babysitting (that sounds so exciting and dangerous, but not a good situation). No time to wash my hair. It was up in a bun for the majority of the day until I finally got a chance after dinner.

For whatever reason, I decided to experiment a bit. I used: Suave Green Apple for co-wash, LVPNG for rinse-out, KCKT for leave-in, KCCC, and Aussie Sculpting gel. Adding protein probably wasn't a good idea, but it's been so long since I've had anything, and it's almost the last ingredient. I did the icequeen method for clumping. I did a cold water rinse at the end, and then scrunched in some KCKT.

Then I had a DUH! moment. During the summer, I used to use two t-shirts in my routine. One for plopping and the other for scrunching water out of my hair before adding gel. I'm not sure why I stopped, other than because everyone was recommending adding products to extremely wet hair. Then I moved into a dorm, where it's easier to plop before walking five steps back to my room, then have wet hair. Though I guess that's not much of an excuse. Anyway, I totally forgot that I used to do that back when I had awesome hair.

So I hung my flour sack towel on the shower and blotted a bit before adding KCCC. Which was WEIRD. As soon as I started scrunching, my hair felt very dry. I had clumps and spirals everywhere, but it was dry and frizzy. I'm not sure what exactly caused it. On one hand, I did use protein. But that hardly every feels bad in my hair when it's wet. KCCC makes some sense, since I noticed it as I was scrunching that in. But I've used it before (and always with no success), and never felt this before. So I'm not sure.

Anyway, I decided I really could not plop for very long. I ran out of the shower, scrunched in ASG as usual, and then plopped in my Curl-Ease for five minutes - just long enough to get dressed. When I was applying gel right-side up, my hair decided to part down the middle. I half-attempted to move it back to the side, but didn't want to create more frizz. Then I diffused. Which was weird. Again. Each section looked great immediately after diffusing. Then it would droop a little. And it was obvious it was wet. Which was weird, because my hair was very dry when I scrunched in KCCC. After diffusing, I had some major clumpage going on. And my hair randomly decided to go back to a side part, which was weird. I clipped and air dried for a few hours.

Just took out the clips and scrunched the crunch. The back is kind of weird looking, but I do have curl all the way to the root! And volume! There's one clump that is literally three inches wide, which looks crazy. I scrunched most of my products in upside-down, so I'm guessing that's why. But this is crazy. I've never had anything remotely resembling success with KCCC.


So I'm pretty happy. Especially because this is hair that went through a low-poo and two sulfate shampoos in the span of four days! If this doesn't look great when I wake up, I may experiment tomorrow with some of BB's FSG. It's been a while.

Got My Hurr Cut

Woot... First, happy St. Patrick's Day!! I love being Irish! We went out to lunch at a local Irish bar and grill. It was PACKED. They had special menus with only four items on them. We all got Irish nachos and they were delicious!

But yes, I got my hair cut. It feels shorter than it looks. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. I brought in my KCKT so she could just rinse and use that to detangle. Apparently "wash and use this" means "wash my hair really well with shampoo and conditioner, and then use this." So kind of pointless, but whatever. I low-pooed last Friday anyway, so I already wasn't back to normal hair. It's not going to make much difference.

She didn't use any other product and my hair dried a little wavy. I'm debating washing it again. I think I may use a sulfate (since I have no idea what was put in my hair) and DT overnight. So it'll probably be tomorrow before I can tell what it'll look like curly. Feeling the shorter layers scares me a little. And I really hope I don't have to modify my routine too much!

Haha, I just told my mom about the shampoo/conditioner usage, and she said "Oh! Does that mean you're going to do a treatment tonight?" She's learning!

The Honeymoon's Over

It seems my love affair with FSG has come to an end. My curls are loose (barely wavy in the back), hair is dry, and I have never-ending frizz. It's been this way for at least a week.

I have two theories:

1. Weather. This stuff was working well for me in lower temps and dew points. Recently temps have been in the 70s and 80s with dew points in the 50s. Maybe I need more hold then? If it's humid out, forget about it.
   
   
2. My hair is satiated. A week or two after I started using FSG, I realized I had better curl formation and hold when I used more FSG. Now I'm finding the opposite to be true. Clumps don't form or hold much at all anymore. Taking my hair out of a plop has become depressing! It's also started taking a lot longer to dry, which is weird. It's almost like I'm airdrying, when I've been sitting with a diffuser on for ten minutes!

My hair is deflated before I even leave the dorm/house, which makes me think it's not really weather-related. Luckily (or unluckily?) I'll be able to test this out this weekend. Check out these numbers:

Yesterday: 80 degrees, dew point of 58
Today: 34 degrees, dew point of 36 (it's raining)!!!!!!!!

Ridiculous. It's supposed to stay cold until Sunday. My hair's feeling kind of gross, so I think tomorrow I'll low-poo and do a DT. I've DTed 3 out of the last 4 days. My hair is dry in some places, and gunky in others. I'm SO over it. I think part of it is I really really really need a cut. My hair is soo long. Luckily I'm scheduled for Tuesday.

I guess that's all I needed to update on. I'm working on a new clipping method (which was working well until this stuff happened) that I'll post about soon.

Lesson Learned: FSG + Leave-ins

Honey Flax Seed Gel + leave-in (in this case KBB nectar) = BAD.

80 degrees with a dew point of 58 (it was so humid today!) might seem like a good time to pile on the humectants. At least, that's what I thought. But man, it did not work well at all!

As soon as I undid my first plop, I knew I was in trouble. My curl-ease had literally soaked up all the water in my hair. Even when I had frizzy when wet issues, I didn't experience drying to that extent. I had to squirt it down with water just to scrunch in Aussie gel! What the heck? It wasn't too bad after I diffused. There was a little hold here and there, but I could tell it wouldn't be a good hair day. Or an ok hair day. I took it down from a pineapple this morning and it was very frizzy. I didn't feel like dealing with it, so I just left it down. I did spray some Deva Set It Free in though (which seriously smells like skittles!). Don't think it helped.

I'm on my old computer (which feels really small, even though it's a 15 inch notebook...), so I have no pics. But it was frizzy and barely wavy today. It also feels dry, but greasy in some places. Not sure if that has to do with the weather or not (it was threatening to rain all day).

I was talking to the dean of the Honors College and she said "your hair looks different." Not in a good way, either. I knew it wasn't normal, but I didn't think it was that bad! I was caught off guard, so I said "um, yeah..." Oh well. Good thing that was my last class. I'm super exhausted, so I'm going to take a nap before showering. Not sure what I'll end up using.

Deep Treatments

I'm taking a break from writing my philosophy of education (which also happens to be due in about two and a half hours... yay procrastination!) to talk about deep treatments.

I started CG in the summer, so moisture was never an issue for me. The one time I tried a DT, I actually got overconditioned. So I just stayed away. Then winter rolled along. In January, it got really cold and dry out. I started doing DTs with conditioner, olive oil, and honey (which may not have been the best idea considering low dew points). I noticed moisturized curls for a few days here and there, but the weather has been all over the place, so I never did it on a regular basis.

I thought my DT days were over when I started using pink boots, which is actually moisturizing to me, and then FSG. The weather has also been very nice here, in the seventies and eighties with dew points in the fifties. I really didn't think DTs were important, now that there is moisture in the air.

About two weeks ago, I began noticing bad tangles at the nape of my neck. By the end of first day hair, my curls there would be dry and impposible to untangle. Even detangling in the shower was hard. Soon my hair started looking dry at the end of day one. It didn't feel dry, but it looked like I hadn't conditioned in months! I thought I may need protein, as I was also getting fly-aways, but luckily never remembered to grab my LVPNG.

Today I grabbed all that I could get my hands on to do the mother of all DTs (at least the biggest one I've done so far...). I come home on the weekends to tutor a family friend for one my education classes, and I don't bring a whole bunch of product because it's a pain to lug down three floors and a block or two to the car. So I became resourceful and used what I could find.

1. Karen's Body Beautiful Hair Milk in Pomegranate Guava - I've been avoiding this for a while. I didn't think my hair was doing well with oils and the panthenol seems to do the exact opposite of moisturize (which is odd considering the first time I used the milk, I got overconditioned). Unfortunately, it's what I had. So I coated my dry hair with it, paying extra close attention to the nape of my neck.
2. Fruit of the Earth Aloe Vera Gel - FOTE is also something I've been avoiding. It worked well in late summer/early fall, but also seemed to contribute to drying me out. I know it's supposed to be moisturizing, and since the weather has improved, I thought I'd give it a shot. I squirted a few puddles into my hand and worked through my hair.
3. Olive Oil - I'm still not sure how my hair does with oils, but olive oil has never been a problem in my other DTs. I've recently discovered my skin needs oil to stay hydrated (liking Camellia oil right now), so I thought I'd apply the same concept to my hair. I ran a few palmfuls through my hair.
4. GVP Conditioning Balm & Suave Cucumber and Melon - It was at this point I realized I should add some rich conditioners. Except I didn't have any. I'm dangerously low on GVP CB. So I panicked and used about a quarter size blob of that and then some Suave.
5. Honey - With the dews being higher, I decided to add some honey in. I've been having some success with it in my homemade FSG. It was pretty sticky going in, so I added a little water.

I clipped my hair up for about two hours while I worked on some homework. When I washed it out, my hair felt very moisturized and my tangles were gone! I think I'll incorporate this into a weekly routine for as long as I need to. I haven't scrunched the crunch yet, but so far things look good!

Just to add, there are special deep treatments out there that you can buy. I'm cheap and usually just add whatever I have in my kitchen/bathroom to some conditioner and call it a day. Some of these include Karen's Body Beautiful Luscious Locks mask (which I've heard great things about, but can't justify the price), Jessicurl's Weekly Deep Treatment, and Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose conditioner, which is also a good conditioner (though I've had some problems with it, of course...). I think the best approach to deep treatments, like everything concerned with curly hair care, is to experiment! Pay atttention to ingredients to see what's moisturizing or what has possible sensitive ingredients, like protein or humectants.

I'm Running Out of Titles!

I washed again last night and decided to modify the clump method a bit. I still scrunched in conditioner upside-down, but I rinsed upright. I think a combination of rinsing upside-down and plopping "too hard" (wearing the towel too tight, especially in the root area) contributed to the weird roots on Saturday. I used my regular FSG (back to cold weather here) and everything else was the same. And I will admit, I half-azzed the method. I wasn't really thinking about it in an experimental-type way when I did it.

I still had root curl and volume, just not as much as Saturday. But the good thing is that my roots were better than usual! I also retained clumps and spiral curls!

These were taken today after taking it down from a pineapple:

And here's a funny picture of one of my dogs, who would NOT leave me alone while taking these!

Temps are supposed to get back to the 70s tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to more Honey FSG. And experimenting some more with the clump method.

Double Experiment Day

Yesterday I got the chance to use my Honey FSG. At the last moment, I decided to try out the popular new method on nc.com to help with clumping and root volume. Basically you apply your rinse-out upside-down, scrunch like crazy, and rinse while upside-down. I'm not a big upside-down person, so it was weird. I didn't think it would help much because my hair is straight the second water touches it. But I had to try it!

The result? Awesome curls! The problem? Not entirely sure what caused what. I had a lot of shine and my hair was soft. I had curl up to my root again, but the roots themselves were VERY flat.

I couldn't take a good picture, so this will have to do until I can try this again:

(a few hours after it had dried completely)

I'm not sure I'll continue with it. My roots were seriously messed up. I have second-day hair right now that's half-up with my flexi-8. I really liked my Honey FSG though!