Oh gosh where to begin lol. I've been kinda lurking the forums for about a year now and just decided to drop that $6.50. A little background about myself:
I have never had long-ish hair. Ever. My mother started relaxing my hair when I was really young and the hair dresser I went to had no idea how to take care of hair; only how to style it. So my hair was always raggedy and around neck length at the longest.
I discovered this site late last year in a search to grow my relaxed hair longer. I know you gals like pictures, so I will post the few I have. I didn't know much about hair-picture taking, but the first two attachments I have (not sure how to put in pictures yet) are of my hair between August and September of last year. It's pretty bad.
At that point, while I understood I wasn't completely taking care of my hair and tried to make changes, my changes weren't that drastic and I didn't end up doing THAT much in my routine. I was lazy and didn't wash my hair regularly enough and didn't moisturize enough; I would use oil based instead of water based moisturizers to "fix" my dryness which never helped. Even with the bad habits aside, my hair still grew somewhat. The third attached picture is my hair as of April of this year.
It was at this point that changed hair stylists (from the one I was visiting since I was a child) and let her do all of my relaxer touchups. I think part of the reason why my hair was in bad shape was because I let my mom do my touchups and she would overlap more. She starting trimming my hair and I visit her every 8-10 weeks or so. Along with the stylist change, I started washing my hair on a more consistent basis and I changed my products to ones that were more moisturizing. I wash and DC my hair every two weeks with a mixture of Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque and Aussie 3 minute miracle. Before my DC I always apply NuNaat Brazilian Keratin Intensive Hair mask mixed with Joico K pak Reconstruct for about 10-15 minutes. These and other changes have led to my hair the way it is now. The last picture I attached is my hair from about 3 weeks ago. To some people that might not be much improvement, but I'm SUPER happy and shocked because this is a first.
Overall, I'm happy that I'm seeing growth and HEALTH. My hair has NEVER been this long in my entire life so this is something new for me and anything past this is new territory. So now here is the problem I'm having: I cannot for the life of me get the sides/front of my hair to grow. I have longish bangs, so the front isn't super important to me, but the hair on the sides of my head in front of my ears has barely had any improvement. I don't really know what to do; I don't treat them any differently than the rest of my hair yet the rest of my hair has taken off and left my sides in the dust. Any tips?
So I must confess, and people here may totally want to bash me for this, but I don't really do a whole lot in the way of "protective styles". For me, protective styling also means more manipulation which is bad. I know I know, I won't reach optimal growth and length without protective styling, but I don't mind slow changes in length, as long as my hair is healthy. As of now, I think it's healthy I just want longer sides. The only direct heat I use is when I flat iron twice a month on 230 F with a ceramic/tourmaline flat iron. I've been just wearing it "out" with two clip in tracks at the top to help even out my currently lacking sides with the rest of my hair. I will post my regimen if needed, some may not agree with it (because I don't protective style enough) but these changes have led at least to the growth I've seen on all other sections of my head. I'm scared of changing up because what I've been doing has worked for all the rest of my hair....I know the saying is "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but what it's not FULLY broken? lol
If you've gotten through all of this, thanks for reading
Sorry for the long post.
I have never had long-ish hair. Ever. My mother started relaxing my hair when I was really young and the hair dresser I went to had no idea how to take care of hair; only how to style it. So my hair was always raggedy and around neck length at the longest.
I discovered this site late last year in a search to grow my relaxed hair longer. I know you gals like pictures, so I will post the few I have. I didn't know much about hair-picture taking, but the first two attachments I have (not sure how to put in pictures yet) are of my hair between August and September of last year. It's pretty bad.
At that point, while I understood I wasn't completely taking care of my hair and tried to make changes, my changes weren't that drastic and I didn't end up doing THAT much in my routine. I was lazy and didn't wash my hair regularly enough and didn't moisturize enough; I would use oil based instead of water based moisturizers to "fix" my dryness which never helped. Even with the bad habits aside, my hair still grew somewhat. The third attached picture is my hair as of April of this year.
It was at this point that changed hair stylists (from the one I was visiting since I was a child) and let her do all of my relaxer touchups. I think part of the reason why my hair was in bad shape was because I let my mom do my touchups and she would overlap more. She starting trimming my hair and I visit her every 8-10 weeks or so. Along with the stylist change, I started washing my hair on a more consistent basis and I changed my products to ones that were more moisturizing. I wash and DC my hair every two weeks with a mixture of Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque and Aussie 3 minute miracle. Before my DC I always apply NuNaat Brazilian Keratin Intensive Hair mask mixed with Joico K pak Reconstruct for about 10-15 minutes. These and other changes have led to my hair the way it is now. The last picture I attached is my hair from about 3 weeks ago. To some people that might not be much improvement, but I'm SUPER happy and shocked because this is a first.
Overall, I'm happy that I'm seeing growth and HEALTH. My hair has NEVER been this long in my entire life so this is something new for me and anything past this is new territory. So now here is the problem I'm having: I cannot for the life of me get the sides/front of my hair to grow. I have longish bangs, so the front isn't super important to me, but the hair on the sides of my head in front of my ears has barely had any improvement. I don't really know what to do; I don't treat them any differently than the rest of my hair yet the rest of my hair has taken off and left my sides in the dust. Any tips?
So I must confess, and people here may totally want to bash me for this, but I don't really do a whole lot in the way of "protective styles". For me, protective styling also means more manipulation which is bad. I know I know, I won't reach optimal growth and length without protective styling, but I don't mind slow changes in length, as long as my hair is healthy. As of now, I think it's healthy I just want longer sides. The only direct heat I use is when I flat iron twice a month on 230 F with a ceramic/tourmaline flat iron. I've been just wearing it "out" with two clip in tracks at the top to help even out my currently lacking sides with the rest of my hair. I will post my regimen if needed, some may not agree with it (because I don't protective style enough) but these changes have led at least to the growth I've seen on all other sections of my head. I'm scared of changing up because what I've been doing has worked for all the rest of my hair....I know the saying is "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but what it's not FULLY broken? lol
If you've gotten through all of this, thanks for reading
Sorry for the long post.
