Straight hair:
ONe of the main thing I wanted was to master a good flat iron/blow dry. But I gave up on it for a while since I only plan to straighten my hair about 5 times a year. I tried a new salon, but wasn't feeling them so I am going to attempt yet again to straighten my own hair and kinda give up on finding someone to straighten my hair up here in my new location. I go home about 2 or 3 times a year so I can go to my stylist in Atl for trims on those times, but the other couple of times I need to learn how to do it myself.
I plan to attempt to straighten my own hair for NYE, concentrating more on technique and keeping the flat iron at 390 degrees. I'm not sure what speed/temp to put the blow dryer on. So I guess I will try low speed/warm to be on the safe side.
Everyday styles/twists
I haven't really been feeling the twists. They always come out frizzy and anorexic looking since my hair is fine. And are so time consuming, and shrink so much.
I've been doing I guess you would call it a chunky twist out and pulling my hair back in a big ponytail or a bun.
I've been working out a lot (and I sweat REALLY hard esp in my head) so I've been wetting my hair in the shower and sleeping with it damp in big twists and a (silk of course) scarf around the front. And then taking the twists out and pulling back into a bun in the morning. My hair seems more manageable, stretched out, and not as dry looking doing this. I just wonder if this bad for my hair bc I think I've heard people saying its not good to wet fine hair all the time. But I am only barely manipulating it with my fingers and smoothing the front down with my hands (I never use combs or brushes except on wash days)
Products
I'm pretty much using the same stuff except...
I recently revisited Oyin Products. I tried them out back when I was transitioning. Back then I liked the Juices and Berries spray but felt it was too sticky. And I thought the Honey Hemp was too sticky as well...I thought it was cool that it made my hair "clump", which at the time was hard to do but didn't seem to do what I bought it for (deep moisture conditioning).
So this time I've been using the Juices and Berry on wet hair or diluted with water and I like it (plus people are always telling me how good my hair smells, lol). And using the Honey Hemp as more of a leave in/moisturizer when I wet my hair in the shower, it helps my hair be more defined when I have in twisted out/loose. Also I like the Dew as a leave in...I get tired of making that kimmaytube leave in and this seems to work just as well. I used to avoid Oyin's products bc of the honey and glycerin esp in winter. But on their site they say in winter to use them in the shower, which is what I do.
Final Verdict:
Still playing around with my reggie a little. The big things for me right now are finding cute styles while maintaining the health of my hair. When I was trying to make SL, I was like...I wanted to get some length by any means necessary. Wasn't concerned about styling or time consumption; I wore a wig almost 100% of the time for about a year even tho I'm not really all that fond of fake hair.
But now I'm trying to pursue some hobbies/interests, get out more, etc so I want to slash some time out of my reggie and feel cute wearing my real hair out in its natural state. As silly as it sounds I'm actually excited I'm finally able to do a bun-my hair is so kinky and poofy, getting it to pull back into a neat looking bun is a big accomplishment.