Observation/random thought ahead:
Sooooo, in short -- I realize that I am learning my hair all over again. This is indeed a journey. Just like I learned through tons of products and techniques what worked for my relaxed hair, I must now learn my natural hair and how it behaves, accepting that it will take more time to learn, dealing with different areas and textures behaving differently, and a big one--- putting the
time to make this work.
As the week has gone on, I loved the second day hair I had from my big chop. I did cornrows in my hair the night before and twisted the ends, and it gave me beautiful hair the following day. Later that night, I figured I'd just put my hair in loose ish cornrows, I didn't use product just misted my hair with water. Well, the following morning as I took the braids down it looked fine, as the day went on, I lost a lot of definition particularly in the back of hair and my hair looked like a frizzy afro.
Sooo, yesterday I went into the bss and who knew there were so many pudding type gel/products in an aisle
. I went with the Cantu lock and twist gel (I think that's the name). I went home, washed and conditioned my hair b/c it felt greasy though it looked frizzy and dry on the ends. I washed in 4 sections like I did through out my transition. I tried something new this go around. I applied my leave in (apb pudding leave in), followed up with apb oil, applied the cantu product and put my hair in small two strand twists. I put about 30 in my head. This took me 42 minutes to be exact. I figured this would give me 2 day hair. I then sat under my dryer for like 40 minutes b/c I didn't want to have damp/wet hair in this morning.
I took out my twists this morning and while I have a lot of definition I don't really like the look. My hair doesn't hang the same as when I go flat twist/braid out. The time I put into this style wasn't worth it for me today. It doesn't look bad, it's ok... but not a preferred look for the time I spent to do it mid week. I also noticed I was prob heavy handed ish with the oil and when I put my head on my pillows last night it seeped through my bonnet and left oil stains on my pillows
. I see I have to be very light with the use of oil -- my relaxed hair was never a fan of oil either. It might be best I stick to the usage of oil on my scalp or being more light handed when I use it.
I also have some stick straight pieces and loose hair pieces through out my head from heat damage. Because my hair is short, and the back has a frizzy coarser texture, I notice it is hard for that area to keep definition. It will frizz out the fastest. Until my hair is long enough where the top will grow to cover that area, I will have to accept that back there can look like an afro real quick lol.
As I keep touching my hair, I keep feeling the oily residue smh. Makes me want to run it under water to get it all out.
I will say, I am glad that I cut my hair when I did -- this way I get a chance to really and truly see what I'm working with. When I was transitioning I would mostly wear my hair slicked back or do occasional braid outs. I didn't get to really see how my hair behaves. I also didn't really notice I have more heat damage in areas than I thought. I'm assuming it's from the few Dominican blow outs I got.