How long did it take for you to nurse your hair to health?

how long did it take you to nurse your hair to good health?

  • i'm still nursing my hair to health.

    Votes: 427 56.2%
  • my hair doesn't seem to be progressing.

    Votes: 19 2.5%
  • 6 months or less

    Votes: 128 16.8%
  • 6-12months

    Votes: 98 12.9%
  • 12 months +

    Votes: 52 6.8%
  • my hair as always been very healthy!

    Votes: 21 2.8%
  • other:please state

    Votes: 15 2.0%

  • Total voters
    760
  • Poll closed .
I really messed my hair up really bad during the Summer. Bunning and not moisturizing and going swimming and not washing/clarifying my hair right away. The damage was cut in Sept 09 and It took all of 3 months to nurse it back to health.
 
well, the last time i posted on here was in jan.2010, so, yes, i'm still nursing my hair back to health, but i hope and expect to see some progress when i relax in 2-3 weeks.

i've worn my hair in a ps since the first week of february and been cowashing wet bunning like crazy.

one difference i have seen already is that it is growing, and the fact that i can see that even with 14 weeks of ng under there, means it is getting healthier.

i'm SO GRATEFUL TO THIS BOARD, because otherwise, i might not have ever learned HOW to properly care for my hair.

HHJ LADIES!
 
Man I tell you old threads are THE BEST lol. Anyways, hmm..

My hair was doing so well relaxed when I started this HHJ ('08) after just a few months, probably because I never really had any problems besides not being able to get past SL- no split ends, shedding, excessive breakage, dryness, yada yada. When I started wearing my hair up off my shoulders within the summer I went past that. Then I went to bootcamp '09 had it haphazardly chopped to EL. It was ok after I got out because it hadn't been manipulated or seen heat for over 2 months. It was actually very healthy when I started my routine again. Then now *sigh*, this transitioning journey is rough for me. I had a breakage problem for about the first 1.5 years. These last few months have been ok, creeping on APL BUT, it doesn't look healthy because of the short strands all over the place. I chop that up to now knowing wth I'm doing because this is the first time I've dealt with it this texture myself (last 2-3" texturized).

So honestly after 15 months, it still needs A LOT of work unfortunately in my mind. :( I'm barely experiencing breakage and splits are occuring less IDK how that happened tbh lol. So I suppose I'm still nursing it to health. I just wish I could hurry up and figure out how to get the natural hair to be as happy and beautiful as my relaxed hair was :perplexed.
 
i'm still nursing, but am happy to report that as part of the nursing my hair back from all the damage heat gave me (i used to see hair all over my hot rollers, and those i would scorch in AFTER i had flat ironed my already permed bone straight hair!), i have stopped using all heat since nov. 6th. of last year!

i will wrap, i might even roller set on some days, but only air dry.

it's been just over 2 months so far and my hair is getting better....it's healing.

but i feel i've got to continue because of the damage i did for way too many years....

I can't believe you say you're hair isn't healthy. You're hair seems to be so healthy, shiny and sleek; it looks lovely to me. Congrats on your progress though.
Seeing you say that your hair is "healing" makes me think whether it is/was really unhealthy. I believe it's the general consensus that you can't permanently fix damaged hair but a protein treatment can help mend in the mean time but ultimately you'll have to cut. Maybe your hair just needed a little TLC i.e.: less heat and better practices. For instance when you see threads where people say almost immediately after a trim their ends are bushy and dry even after all the DC's and moisturizing and sometimes a few nights of baggying, M/S 2x/day, or w/e other method can alleviate their problem rather quickly. IDK just throwing some thoughts around. Excuse my rambling :spinning: I'm just trying to figure out whether you're saying less heat helped fix your damage. I always thought damage to hair couldn't be fixed or reversed.
 
Still nursing...

I work on one problem at a time

First, my hair was dry and I fixed that with consistent deep conditioning and wrapping at night

Then, I focused on breakage and Im curbing that with protein hot towel treatement

After I get my anti breakage routine down, im gonna focus on getting my hair to be more shiny:)

And so on and so forth:grin:

Girl this is exactly my strategy. One thing at a time.. I think its working better this way because I had a huge setback from doing toooo much.
 
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blah blah blah...


just kidding...that's hair envy talking
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Adequate thinking of macheriamour's hair ---->
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isn't that thwarting crazy lady
 
It took me a year to figure out and implement a regimen that seems to work for my hair. Biggest breakthrough was learning that my scalp did not like going more than a week without shampooing, and that if my scalp isn't happy, my hair suffers for it. :yep:
 
Great thread OP! Um well let's see. During college I severely mistreated my hair by dying *at a white salon, I might add*, by dying myself, by attempting to self relax with no inkling of what I was doing in an attempt to save a couple bucks, etc. so my last year of college I hacked it all off and rocked it super short, went to the salon regularly and did what I could to keep it moisturized until I came across LHCF this past may. Since then I've been working really hard to maintain thickness, moisture and protein levels alongside growing my hair to mbl. So all it took was one cut but the learning process continues...
 
This question really made me think about the way I treat my hair. I went back to my hair journal and reviewed it, day by day. Turns out 2009 was the best year for my hair. It only takes me two weeks to get my hair to a balanced, moisturized, soft, shiny state. But KEEPING there is my problem. I gotta stop experimenting and stick with what works.
 
i don't remember if i posted in this thread or not, but it seems like it is taking me some time to figure out what works for my hair and getting it back on track. i am going back to rollersetting and wash/dc'ing every 3-4 days. my hair doesn't like a lot of buildup, but requires a lot of moisture. now i can start implementing protein back into my reggie, but only in small doses. i am going back to sitting under the dryer too with my dc and roller set. air drying loose hair is not the business for my ends.

i also need to figure out how to handle my new growth. i gotta try to stretch longer.
 
At the beginning, my hair was seriously abused - I was about APL, but had extremely thin uneven hair, with split ends on pretty much every strand, and even all along the strand. I used to not moisturize it at all, and flat iron on wet hair!!
It took me about 6 months to get significant change - I just deep conditioned, stopped using heat, moisturized faithfully. That was it. But the ends of my hair were completely destroyed, so I had to cut them off after trying to nurse them back to health for the entire 6 months.
After the 6 months, my hair was much thicker, had minimal breakage and just better. But the heat damage was still there, so I had to cut again after another 6 months (so that's 2 cuts within a year) all the way to my nape.
 
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