Happy belated birthday, Disco!
Okay, let's see. Step 1 I used this recipe that I got from the maxhydration.com website:
- 2 tablespoons bakingsoda
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 6-10 oz of water
The baking soda was probably on for 20-30 minutes.
Step 2 I did this, same site using Kinky Curly Knot Today:
Option 3: Apply warm conditioner in your hair in sections.Let it sit for 10-15 minutes under shower cap, and rinse it out. This will function as your cowash. if you are doing this step, first pour 1.5-2 oz of conditioner into an applicator bottle. Then pour in 4-6 oz of warm/hot water and shake.
This is the step where I was told you really finger detangled. I tried, but it was taking forever. Finger detangling has never been a win for me. So I did a half@$$ job because, you know, I have other things in life to do, lol. Every experience finger detangling in my life says it takes me at least 2 hours to actually get the shed hair out, and things were not going any differently this time. So I did a not thorough job which took me about 30-40 minutes. I left the conditioner on and went to the store to buy betonite clay and gel. I was going to get Kinky Curly Knot Today, but it's expensive, the store I got the bentonite clay from didn't have it, and they had Giovanni gel which is cheaper. And since I never use gel for anything else, I really didn't want to spend a whole lot of money for something I might never use again. The clay there was already $16!. I got back from the store like an hour or so later and rinsed the conditioner out.
Step 3 was the clay rinse, where it really started to fall apart. I was trying to use this recipe, which I also got from this site:
- 1 cup pure clay powder
- 2-3 cup warm water
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
And this recipe was not happening. Like, I put in 1 cup of the clay powder and added 2 cups of water. Too thick. Another cup of water. Too thick. Another cup of water. Still super thick. I added the honey and olive oil. Still super thick. And the clay was all clumped up no matter how hard I stirred (the first time I tried in a metal bowl) or shook (when the bowl failed I tried in a dish detergent bottle like I saw on a YouTube video). Like, it wouldn't loosen up to form anything remotely smooth. It had watery and smooth portions and then lumps of heavy thick clay in there. But after 20 minutes of trying to get something workable, I just took what I had in the dish detergent bottle to give it a go because, well, other things to do!
I was beginning to get doubtful at this point, so I decided to try on just 1 section of my hair. My hair was in 8 sections, by the way, because all my experience says 4 sections is unworkable for me. I usually detangle in 15 sections, for what it's worth. So I applied the clay to one section, fully coating. Then I tried to finger detangle more. It was not happening, because the clay provided no slip. It was even more difficult than trying to finger detangle with the conditioner was. So much shed hair, so many tangles, so much frustration! After spending about 10 minutes on that one section (keep in mind, if I was going to do this for my whole head, I had 8 sections), I figured that was all I was going to do because, well, other things in life to do! So I rinsed that clay out.
Steps 4 and 5
Then I applied watered down conditioner, KCKT trying to rake through the section. Mind you, my hair is not the "rake through" type, so that wasn't working out either. You can't rake through when there's shed hair and tangles, but I did my best. Then I did the same with the gel. Mind you, I kind of hate gel, which is why I never use it and don't own any. But I did it.
And the result? Um, my hair was there, existing and whatnot. It felt kind of hard and not moisturized, stripped sort of. It was still kind of tangled, shed hair was still in there. It had curly clumps, with some of the middle portions kind of suspiciously straight, like they had been blow dried. but they were wet. I'm not calling it damage, before anyone gets upset, I'm just describing, it's what I think of texturized hair looking like. I'm actually in line to get a texturizer as soon as my hair dresser has done enough research that she feels comfortable enough to do them, so I'm not dissing texturizers or anything, just saying. After trying it out on that 1 section, I really had no desire to continue on to the other 7. And I also didn't have the time. I really do not have the time in my life right now to devote many hours to my hair.
So my hair is currently still mostly tangled. Tomorrow I might rewet and apply conditioner and detangle with a comb, then blow dry.
This is here to mostly document my experience. No one of course needs to feel obligated to fix this problem. It's okay if it didn't work out for me. My experience is generally there will be some new trend that everyone swears by, I'll try it, it won't work, people will say it's because I did it wrong, then I'll try multiple slight permutations of the method, like next time I'll add 1.25 tablespoons of honey, not just 1, then I'll do it with rhassoul, not bentonite, then I'll do it with KCCC, not Giovanni, and I'll do a bunch of permutations that also don't work until I once again accept my hair for what it is and go back to OT where I belong.
ETA: Geez, after reading that, it sounds really negative. Sorry to bring down the mood. It's true it didn't work out for me, but I am glad it's working out for some. Y'all need to talk to
@JudithO who posted a thread asking for hair help, maybe this method would help her.
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) has caused so much detriment to your hair, then by all means stop.
If I could ever do my hair in 1 hour I would think a miracle had happened.
My hair is defined and laying closer to my head! I usually end up with a huge undefined curly fro. I had to diffuse it after 2 hrs its was still super wet.
