Back On Conditioner Only... For The Time Being

So, I know I've said this before only to go back to gels and leave ins, but I think I'm sticking with the Conditioner Only / Tightly Curly Method for a while.  I just finished re-reading Curly Like Me:  How To Grow Tightly Curly Hair Long and Strong (what a mouth full!) by Teri LaFlesh.  Everything in it reminded me why I initially stuck with just leaving conditioner in my hair after my big chop.  It was just so simple, cheap, and logical.  If rinse out conditioners have the same main working ingredients as leave ins, only in higher quantity (which I take to mean more moisturizing), then doesn't it make the most sense to take advantage of that for my naturally dry hair?

The last few days, I've been styling my hair with just Tresemme Naturals Vibrantly Smooth Conditioner.  No oils, no butters, no serums, no nothing.  Just the conditioner.  And it's been great!  My hair has stayed moisturized, my curls were defined, and it was just a good couple of hair days in general.  What I noticed about using just conditioner in my hair is that even though my curls are defined, they're kind of a frizzy defined.  But surprisingly, I liked it!  When I use gel in my hair, it takes a whole lot to get the definition I want, which has the tendency to leave my hair really hard.  Even if it doesn't turn out that crunchy, it's always sort of stiff.  I don't need to tell you how unattractive that is.  With conditioner, the definition is there, but the crunch isn't.

I stopped using the Tightly Curly / Conditioner Only Method mainly because I couldn't stretch my hair days.  But now I know that was because I was always playing in my hair before it finished drying, which didn't allow my curls to properly set.  So, there was no way I could expect my hair to stay all nice and defined when it wasn't even like that from day one.  Plus, I didn't have my night time routine down (I was still trying to make bonnets work for me... which they don't... at all. -__-), and my hair was a lot shorter.  As it's grown, the natural curl has become more defined, and I can get wash an gos to last much longer.  Today I have Herbal Essence's Hydralicious Reconditioning Conditioner in my hair and I love it!  My hair is nicely fluffy, defined, and fragrant.  I think COM will work for quite a while. :)

Daily Hair Blog: New WnG Method

Hey guys. I've been doing my hair in a different way for the past few days. I normally cowash my hair in the shower and then spray my hair thoroughly with a water and conditioner (Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition) mix, seal with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and then rake my fingers through my hair to evenly distribute the products. That usually left me with soft hair, and lots of thin little curls all over my head. I say thin because there never seemed to be that many strands of hair per curl, but I always just thought that was how my curl units liked to clump.

But one issue I always had was the crown/top of my head. The hair there doesn't have any curl to it (yet), it's just wavy and it loses all the water from my shower almost instantly. Since I like my hair to be almost soaking wet when I style it, to seal in all the moisture I possibly can, that was a serious problem. After my hair was done it would always look good at the sides and the back/bottom of my hair, but the top was normally just wavy with no real clumping going on, so it always looked frizzy. I had to find some way to counter that issue.

So, the very first thing I changed about how I do my hair was doing it with a spray mixture. I waited until my bottle of water/condish mix was completely out and started doing my hair in the shower. First, instead of Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition (which I still absolutely love!) I used Tresemme Natural's Nourishing Moisture conditioner to cowash my hair, and then reapplied it to use as my detangler/leave in. Then I detangled with my fingers until I didn't feel any major knots and then followed with my denman brush to remove all the shed hairs that my fingers missed and applied Extra Virgin Olive Oil after scrunching out the excess conditioner to seal in the moisture. The whole time I would be raking my fingers through my hair to help (or so I thought) with definition.

My hair turned out nice and soft, and very moisturized, which is my main concern. But the top was still looking a bit frizzier than I'm happy with, so I decided to try something else. I bought LA Looks Sports Gel to try as a finisher because it was very cheap, it's CG friendly, and I've heard really positive reviews on it. So, I did everything the same way I had been doing it, minus two things: After I detangle with my denamn, I don't rake my fingers through my hair. I just smooth on the EVOO and gel. Then, once I'm done, I shake my head from side to side and back and forth to get rid of any excess product still sitting on my hair, and to separate the curls. I decided to try shaking instead of raking because I wanted to see if it could give me better definition in my crown area, thinking that if I shake, all the curl/wave units will just break up into all the little sections they naturally want to. Whereas if I rake, I'm mechanically breaking them up into little units that they may not have chosen on their own.

Well, let me just tell you guys, MY HAIR HAS NEVER LOOKED BETTER than when I use this method!! I have more definition than I ever really thought I could because my curls are nice and plump, with lots of hairs in each unit. And the addition of the gel gives my hair the hold it needs to stay in each little curl without every being crunchy or hard. I was so impressed! Obviously, once my hair get's longer I will probably have to find a different method to separate the curls, because I don't want to make a mess shaking my hair out. But for now, my hair is #winning! Lol

My First YouTube Video!!!

Hey everyone! I added my very first YouTube video today!!! This is just me introducing myself and letting everyone know what my channel will be focusing on. I didn't really say everything I wanted to say in the video, but I suppose that's what this blog is for! :)

I was seriously not feeling my hair today because I did something different to it, just for the sake of doing something different and I did not have favorable results. My hair wasn't anywhere near as soft as it normally is with my regular routine and I could just tell by the feel and sound of it that there wasn't enough moisture there. I should have rinsed all of the products out and started over, but I knew I wasn't going to leave the house today and I figured one day with drier than normal hair wouldn't ruin me.

I normally follow the conditioner only method, also known as the Tightly Curly Method as pushed by Teri LaFlesh in her book Curly Like Me (which I absolutely love and recommend).  But today I decided to try using two products that I bought at the very beginning of my hair journey and only used a few times because I didn't like how they worked with my hair. They are Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie, and Kinky-Curly Curling Custard.

   

I decided after a few times of using CES that it didn't work well in my hair due to the high coconut oil content, because my hair doesn't seem to like coconut oil very much. It just leaves it dry and brittle instead of soft and moisturized. And the KCCC just sat in a drawer full of other hair products that I barely touch because I didn't really see anything too special about it and it left my hair hard and kind of crunchy when used alone. Though I did once have pretty nice results when I used KCCC and Tresemme Naturals conditioner together.

So, boredom with my normal routine struck and I convinced myself that maybe I just needed to revisit these two products and see if perhaps I was using them the wrong way, or possibly using the wrong portions. And I had heard of numerous people combining these two products and having wonderful results, so I just wanted to be counted among them I guess. 

Well, you know what they say: Don't try to fix what isn't broken. I wouldn't say I had the worst hair day EVER, but it wasn't a good one. I'll stick to COM/TCM in the future. Instead of trying different hair products,  maybe I'll just try out different silicone-free conditioners. But that's a whole other post so, till next time! :-*

How I Did My Wash n Go Today

So today I did my hair in a kind of experimental way. I normally just used my water and conditioner mix to do my hair but for the past couple days I've noticed that my hair is only soft for the first half of the day. By the time I'm almost ready for bed my hair feels dry and almost crunchy. It doesn't become totally crunch but its close.

So what I decided is the conditioner alone wasn't doing enough to keep my hair hydrated for more than a day. As my hair gets longer and I'm finally able to stretch my wash n go's, I don't want to still be forced to redo them on a daily basis. So I decided to start sealing my hair before adding the conditioner to see how my hair likes that.

I normally seal with extra virgin olive oil but I've found that that can be a bit too heavy and its hard to control how much I'm using when I'm just pouring the product straight from the bottle. But I really do love that EVOO is one of the only oils known to actually penetrate the hair shaft and moisturize from the inside out. So I wanted to keep using it, but in a way that would offer more control and add to the softness of my hair.

Welcome, shea butter! I made a mix of equal parts shea butter, aloe vera gel, coconut oil, and olive oil, with a few drops of tea tree oil added to act as a preservative. The consistency is hard to describe. It's kind of like a creamy and slightly gritty solid. But its very easy to scoop.

I added this mix to my hair as soon as I got out of the shower while my hair was still dripping wet. I divided my hair into three sections, one on the bottom/back and two on the top. About a finger tip full was enough for each section. Then I sprayed each section liberally with my normal mix of GFTN and raked the product through. Using paper towels, I squeezed out most of the excess water and product, then diffused my hair on low speed and low heat for about five minutes.

That was about two hours ago and so far my hair is nice and soft. Hopefully I can keep my hair as healthy as it is now. It's all just a bunch of trial and error. Wish me luck. :)