My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hair

[sheba1]

Some of you may know that I'm on a personal, sudo HYH challenge until the end of March. I had planned to do a length check end of December (right about now) but, other than that, had planned to stick with wigs, weaves, braids, etc. My hair has been perfectly fine with this plan and we've been getting along well. Except for my sew in leave out hair, I have not BKT'd since July.

So... a couple weeks ago, I took my sew in down in preparation for my length check. I did some DCs but, still, braided my hair up and continued to maintain it this way under wigs until flat iron day. This past weekend I did a henna! I hadn't done one in some time, and wanted to revisit.

I took down my pixies, had a great detangling session and did my henna. Afterwards, I did plenty of conditioner washing to try to get all the henna out. Just to be sure, however, I decided to cowash every other day this week and wet bun until it was time to length check and rebraid my hair.

You may recall, daily cowashing and wet bunning was an absolute winner for me this past summer. I only detangled once a week, even! Yeah.... so back to the present. After a week of cowashing every other day and wet bunning, my hair was a tangled mess. I took me well over an hour to carefully detangle and prepare for my shampoo, DC and flat iron. Ok so lesson learned: it does wear off... and when it does, I'm not to treat my natural hair like my BKT'd hair.

 

[RENIBELL]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

how many times have you done the bkt?

 

[sheba1]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

Hey there, Renibell, I did 4 full head BKT's with Global 2% from April to July. I did the hair left out of my sew in with Dreamhair a few weeks ago. I hadn't planned to do my next BKT til my March reveal but I may reconsider.

Have you seen my fotki? I documented my BKT journey there. http://public.fotki.com/sheba1/

 

[Theresamonet]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

Were you able to wet bun and co wash with no problems, before you started BKTing?

 

[sheba1]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

Hey TM, I had never tried it before, but I doubt it. Every time I read that someone's hair was thriving with that much manipulation (and no tangles) I would shake my head in wonder and awe. I just couldn't imagine that my uber fine, super tangly strands would do well with that. Single stranded knots and snapping/popping strands while wet were both real problems for me before BKT so I was certain cowashing would do more harm than good for me, at the time.

It wasn't until after I BKT'd that I experimented, first with wash-n-gos and then with wet buns. My hair thrived, the single strand knots (once removed) hadn't returned. I ran into a few while detangling today, however. If I'm not going to BKT again til March, I'm going to have to stay braided up to lessen manipulation. I didn't lose too too much hair today, but still more than I would have liked.

 

[naturalmanenyc]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

That is the only problem that I notice with BKT, when it wears off I tend to treat my hair differently. I had the nerve to comb my hair from the roots down while BKT'd and kept doing it for a while after the BKT wore off.

 

[sheba1]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

I know right?

it's like my hair and I were both looking at each other like, "what are you doing?", "no, what are YOU doing?"

 

[melissa-bee]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

^ crazy, so do you have a name for your hair?

 

[Chaosbutterfly]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

I know right?

it's like my hair and I were both looking at each other like, "what are you doing?", "no, what are YOU doing?"

I feel like everyone at some point has had that moment with their hair.
And the hair always wins.

 

[sheba1]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

^ crazy, so do you have a name for your hair?

Hmmm, I'd never thought of it! But she sure is spoiled... I suppose I could call her princess

I feel like everyone at some point has had that moment with their hair.
And the hair always wins.

I know!!! I know! She so won... lol After I screamed uncle, I got out all my ole school, pre-BKT detangling supplies and settled in. Again, lesson learned.

 

[likewtr4chklit]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

Yeah it's back to the old school for me too. Washing in sections, detagling with tons of conditioner and then putting it back into sections to dry. I'm not mad though. The next time I do a BKT will be in spring when I let my hair out again.

 

[jayjaycurlz]

Re: My hair has spoken... once the BKT has worn off, I cannot treat it like BKT'd hai

Yeah it's back to the old school for me too. Washing in sections, detagling with tons of conditioner and then putting it back into sections to dry. I'm not mad though. The next time I do a BKT will be in spring when I let my hair out again.

I had to do this just yesterday. I totally forgot HOW to wash and detangle my hair - BKT had me spoiled! I'm 19 weeks post and I don't plan on getting another touch-up until the end of January (I'm on an HYH so if I get braids, I might go longer than this!) so I've been wet bunning.

One thing for sure is I totally agree with you sheba1 - I need to have a different reggie for my recently BKT'd/Texlaxed hair than for when I'm stretching and the NG is thick!