Techne's Hair Thread

[techne]

Ok so over the last few days I've been thinking about starting this, so I finally am!

About my hair and its goals:

Type: 3b/c
Colour: Dark Brown
Last Chemical Relaxer: Dec 2007
Length Overall: 12 inches
Length of New Growth: 7 inches
Big Chop at 12 inches of new growth.
Goal Length: 21 inches natural hair.

My General Routine:

My week starts on Sunday with my hair care day.

Wash: Tresemme Curl Moisture Conditioner and a tiny bit of same shampoo, rinse completely.

Detangle and Condition: Tresemme Curl Moisture, Organx Anti-Frizz Serum. Seal ends with shea butter super grow. Dry naturally.

Setting: This usually takes place before I sleep. Sometimes I do twists, although I prefer to do two french braids at this stage. I curl the ends using orange perm rods (no idea what size..oops) I use Motions CPR Anti Breakage Cream all over my hair before I braid and curl it. I usually set my hair when its dry. I like the way it hold us better than if I do a wet set. Pretty much same applies for a wet set, but I usually just do a roller set for wet hair. I always put my super grow on the ends.

Night Time: 2 French braids, seal ends, sleep. If I have done a roller set I do a few bantu knots to sleep in. No special pillow cases, or scarves.

Morning: Take out braids or knots, spritz with Wonder 8 oil, smooth some glossing polish on top and bottom and then FLUFF!!

Once every 2-3 weeks I will deep condition with some coconut cream and avocado. My hair loves this. I also do a yogurt/mint/rice flour face mask at this time which is also awesome.

So basically that is it for my hair care basics.

[techne]

This is my hair today. It is the result of taking out yarn braids the night before. I am EAGER to get back to my usual routine, because I MISSED my curls! The yarn braids where cool but they didn't stay in my hair that well. My hair is maybe too thin.

[img][/img]

[LilMsPuddles]

Your hair is like my hair, hair twins yay! Welcome! What are yarn braids by the way?

[techne]

LilMsPuddles: yarn braids are pieces of yarn braided into your hair. They looked cool but didn't stay in well... lasted about a week before they started to fall out. Most peoples last as long as they want, but mine were not well done.. also took FOREVER to put in...


[img][/img]

p.s. beautiful avatar!

[LilMsPuddles]

Lol I feel slow there is a woman in my English class like that and I never knew thats what they were I just liked them
Thanks.

[techne]

I've just washed and conditioned my hair, put in my leave in. It's mostly dry and I am trying not to play with it too much, because I am having a bit of an itch to cut it. I am supposed to be deciding on a protective style for the night but instead I am thinking.

This is what I am thinking:

I have quite a few inches of new growth on my head and every time I wash and let it dry like this I can't help but wonder what my hair looks like without 5 inches of brittle, brassy coloured ends. The curls on the top are dark brown almost black and they seem quite large, like nickel diameter 'S' curls. Also very soft and defined it reminds me of photos of my hair when I was a baby. At this point I really feel silly because all my life I wondered what happened to my hair that it changed from that baby hair into a brick house of frizz, and now I see that I poisoned it into some semblance of submission and burned it to the point that it feels like straw on the ends. Poor hair! I did some kinda bad to her. Right now all I want to do is to cut the 5 inches off, but to be honest I think I'd freak out when I came to my senses.

Moreover, I am now clinging to the hair that I already killed! I don't know what it is, maybe I am looking for absolution from it? I conclude the thinking about this during my premenstrual cranky time is probably not a good idea. Wow, this is turning into a bit of a PMS driven hair crisis.
At this point I am obviously not going to cut it, but I do know that I am overly goal oriented and stick it out whether I want to or not. Compulsive living. That's a whole 'nother entry..

Has anyone else had this kind of thing? Well I am sure you all have, I guess what I am asking is did you actually cut it or did you stick it out to your goal length before cutting off the chemical hair?

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[techne]

Today was supposed to be my hair care day BUT things got a little hectic and now I am too lazy. Yep. SO I'm just going to cuddle up in bed with my man and my tv show of choice. The Wire. I can't wait to finish it because it makes me really angry but its a great show.

This is my hair right now, I slept with it in a bun last night, wore it in a high bun all day and now it is down for the night. It feels a little crunchy because I didn't moisturize it at all today. I hate those hectic days where I throw my hair up into a bun and leave it there all day to be wind ravaged. Ugh! I always feel so bad when I see it like that too. anyways this is what it looks like as I type.

[img][/img]

Tomorrow I will do a better post, I am going to do a coconut deep conditioning treatment on it and my usual Sunday routine, plus I am going to do a rollerset since that will motivate me to stay inside and study...well the fact that I can't go out with wet hair in rollers will keep me inside!
I'm also planning on making headway with my exam prep tomorrow. Yikes! my philosophy exam is Wednesday night! Anybody want to talk about the philosophical methodologies of Rene Descartes and Marcus Aurelius? I have 4 essay questions to prep and only 2 will be posed on the exam. Sigh! Tomorrow my hair and I will be learning up a storm!

[ChrsLvsBks]

Once every 2-3 weeks I will deep condition with some coconut cream and avocado. My hair loves this. I also do a yogurt/mint/rice flour face mask at this time which is also awesome.

What is your mixture of coconut cream and avocado deep conditioner?

Also, please share your yogurt/mint/rice flour face mask. Is your skin dry, combination or oily? There is also a skin care forum, feel free to share the mask recipe.

[techne]

Hello Again!

So all that fun stuff I promised in my previous post.. forget it! We'll learn as we go I guess!

Right, the part that I said about doing coconut/avo DC and roller setting.. didn't happen. Oh but don't worry its a fun story!

Rewind to 5:30 pm. I've just finished studying. I've been hitting the books since 10 am trying to get an edge on my mid-year exam for my philosophy class. I'm thinking, therefore I am right?! Well here I am at the grocery store, list in hand cruising the aisles, checked off every item on the list! I've got that "I just super achieved" spring in my step as I head home feeling smart and together and all that jazz, bags just a bouncin' despite the FRIGID cold of our first Canadian snowfall. Yay only 6 more months to go! Oh and look how pretty that snow is!

I arrive home, unpack. I'm cooking up some spicy chinese noodles with shrimp and veggies. I just opened up a beer, sat down to eat when it hit me. Coconut milk. It wasn't on the list. Devastated (really not but you know...for the sake of the narrative) I lunge for the avocado and slice it into my dinner. Mmm it was good.

FFWD to hair time, after a nap and another infuriating, yet surprising episode of The Wire, I opted to try something else for my hair. I had read rather near the beginning of Tiashauntee's thread a few days ago about an oil rinse, so I checked out her blog for the directions. I have TONS of oil in my house, so I did that. I chose olive oil.
This is the link to her blog post about it: http://tiashauntee.blogspot.com/2009/11/oil-rinse.html

It was an interesting experience, I've never done it before, so I was a bit worried about it but once I was in the shower oiling up my hair it felt awesome. My hair was super thirsty, it felt like it wanted some more so I did it twice. It feels great right now. I rinsed out my usual leave-in/combing condish and just sealed my ends up with my SUPER GROW! and twisted my hair up into bantu knots (12 to be exact.)

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I'm excited to see what it looks like tomorrow when I take them down and fluff them. I hope my hair feels soft and happy.

Also in response to ChrsLvsBks: The Avo/Coconut DC is basically that. A can of coconut milk, (I take the cream off the top of the can and leave the milk at the bottom alone) put it in a small dish- its about 1/3 can of coconut cream that I get, half an avocado and a little lime oil-about 1/2 a teaspoon. Mix thoroughly and apply to damp/wet hair. Cover with a bag for 30 mins or so then rinse.

The recipe for the face mask is simple as well. I have combination skin, but I have used it on lots of my friends who all have different skin types and they loved it.

Basically put in 4 tablespoons of yogurt (plain greek style of you can get it, but any plain will work)
2-2/12 tablespoons of rice flour (if you don't have any, pound some jasmine rice using a pestle and mortar OR as in my case when I first started out in a cheesecloth bag with a skillet! Add in as much ground up or finely chopped fresh mint leaves as you like to the past and viola! Relax and enjoy. When you have had enough relaxing you can take it off, massage it off I should say Sometimes for extra exfoliating power I add sugar to my fingertips when I rinse it off so that the granules can do what they do while I am rinsing. Its a delicious mask that makes my skin feel SUPER!

OK so I know this is a really long post but I just want to say that I have been reading through as many of the threads that I can and I really love reading peoples stories! I love that we can share where we came from with our hair and our lives freely. I'm not one for talking about myself but I definitely feel like I want to share my story here. If it inspires anyone as much as everyone else whose story I have read inspires me that is well worth the effort. So thanks everyone! Ooo are these bantu knots tight? I feel like I might just cry!

[techne]

I woke up this morning and my hair felt great, the ends didn't. Then I went outside and it got frozen. I was just so hot in my hat and coat and scarf that I took off my hair without thinking about my hair. I walked 4 blocks to the restaurant where J and I were having lunch and when I got there, THIS is what my bantu knot out looked like! Unfortunately I was so late this morning that I didn't have time to take a pic of the fluffier results, needless to say, this is not happy hair..

This is not good. Also I am starting to think that my chemical hair may have hated the oil rinse. It felt so nice in the shower when it was all steamy but today the chemical ends feel more prickly than ever before. Which means that I start to question why I am waiting to do my Big Chop in the first place. I mean it was supposed to be at 12 inches of new growth because that is a length that I am comfortable with and can easily style but this experience is one of the few times where the two textures of my hair have actually had very different reactions to something. I mean my natural hair feels fine but 5 inches at the bottom do not feel fine, they feel sick and that makes me sad. I hope that it just feels worse than it is, but I don’t want the damaged ends to start to damage my new hair either I mean part of my reason for keeping them so long was to give my new growth a bit of a head start before its out there on the front lines.

Another day, another thought about doing the big chop!

If anybody out there reads this, tell me I’m not crazy please!

[ChrsLvsBks]

You are not crazy and stick to your goal. You can do it!

[tiashaunteé]

Did your new growth like the oil rinse? That sucks about your ends.

I like how you are determining your big chop in regards to length instead of time. It seems like you really gave this a lot of thought.

Keep those tresses protected from the cold air!

[techne]

@ChrsLvsBks Thanks! I will try hard, its so nice to have such a supportive place to pursue my goal.

@tiashauntee: Yes! My new growth LOVED the oil rinse, my ends not so much. I will definitely keep that in my repertoire for when I am all natural, because my new growth felt and still does feel awesome after. I hope you didn't mind me posting your blog link.

Boy did learn my lesson about keeping my hair protected from cold yesterday, yikes!

[tiashaunteé]

No, I don't mind at all. We are all here to help each other (I hope)

[techne]

Hey Again!

So I don't have much time to post today because I am writing my philosophy exam at 7!

It appears that my hair has recovered from yesterdays disastrous events.
I had to give it special attention today though. I showered and did a co-wash and just let it get soaked in conditioner and water for quite a while. Then I did something that I deemed to be absolutely necessary. I cut the ends. Yesterday's damage was pretty severe for those old ends so I clipped off about 1 1/2 inches in the longest area, less in the shorter areas. This sort of serves my hair goals since it is now closer to the all one length end result. I don't miss that inch and a half one bit! This is my hair after what I am calling the Emergency Trim.
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So now to protect my hair from future cold exposures I have come up with a new style for it! Its kind of a bun and kind of a roll. I don't have a name for it yet, but I am going to make a tutorial for it after my exam is over, so likely tomorrow or Friday depending on how much I celebrate tonight..if you know what I mean holla! Exam finished, woman party! Anyways this is my bun-thing.

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Well I guess I'm out and feeling good about my hair and myself today, gonna make good on this test!

[tiashaunteé]

You should also check out the Southern Tease bun. You can find the tutorial on YouTube

[techne]

Hey Again!

Officially hating winter hair.

Today I decided to flat iron my hair on the 5 setting on my iron (5 is warm, I can touch it and not be burned) but before I could flat iron I had to detangle. GOD what a disaster! I really need to figure out a way to keep my hair from matting so badly. The knots at my front line (new growth meets dead hair=battle-front line) on my crown where unreal. I just wanted to rip out my hair I was so frustrated! I persevered with gentle detangling and it was finished about 3 hours later.

The flat ironed hair is still wavy-ish but stretched out a bit so I can brush through it without hassle. Its my mothers birthday later today and we are all getting together to decorate the xmas tree and celebrate her and I wanted to do a cool style that I could stretch because Sunday is my haircare day and I am not going to have much time to do anything with it. There is also a good chance that I will be drunk and not feel like doing anything with it tomorrow either, this is a risk for my hair because it gets so knotted up if I don't detangle and set it up at night that I feel like it would be better to just shave my head than try to detangle it. Problem solved, no matter how drunk I am I can braid straight-ish hair.

I miss summer. My winter hair is angry and frustrating.

[ChrsLvsBks]

What do you use on your new growth? Perhaps it does not have good or great detangling ingredients.

Have fun celebrating and decorating for Christmas!

[Lynnieluve]

I enjoyed reading your thread. I am just wondering how long those ends will last. I cant wait to see the tutorial on your new bun hairstyle.

[techne]

Hey All!

So I have been really busy and really frustrated with my hair lately. I've got my hair braided to one side and I am preparing to rock a big afro do tomorrow. Also my cousin is here with her camera and she has agreed to take the photos for my bun tutorial! So hopefully that will be up in my post tomorrow.

That's about it for tonight.

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