I'm unsure of how long I've been on my hhj... I guess it would be since I decided to join this forum, about 5 years ago. I started the journey because I wanted all natural ways to take care of my hair. Then I went natural and found out all that entailed for hair that was longer than a few inches
For about the past 3 years I've been exploring products and just came to the conclusion last year that an "all natural" product regimen is not for my hair.
Highlights:
- Being natural and learning my natural hair texture. I actually like it. If being natural took less time and effort than being relaxed I'd definitely do it.
- Having family members who can use the hair stuff I'm not using. Haven't had to throw anything away yet.
Triumphs:
- Finding a simpler, quicker and more effective regimen that works for both my hair and scalp
- Finding great, inexpensive products
- Putting a limit on what/how much I buy. Decided that if I don't have an ingredient list I'm probably not purchasing it and putting price limits on products. I have to value how much they benefit my hair if I'm going to venture to more expensive stuff and I try to buy samples when possible to test it.
- Finding all the products that work for me on the ground and in multiple stores so I don't have to plan purchases
- I've always liked my hair but now I'm able to take care of it the way it was supposed to be taken care of so it can shine
Failures:
- Taking so long to figure out the obvious and stop trying to make things work that obviously don't, especially when it comes to ingredients that my hair obviously doesn't like.
- Building regimens that are a mile long. If my hair needed that, I would do it, but it doesn't and I used a lot of time and money that could've gone to other things. The good thing is I paid attention and learned a lot.
- Listening to too much advice. There are a lot of recommendations out there and I had to learn to only partake it what made sense for my hair based on what I've learned about it. There are ingredients out there that my hair has already rejected so I don't care how highly recommended a product comes... I'm probably not using it. Just like there are things out there that other people reject but my hair likes them.