what did you do to you hair in college ?

[Harina]

i'm going to college in the fall. my hair has been recuperating from a bad relaxer and a scissor happy hair stylist. my hair is very short and i am at a loss as to what i am going to do with my hair in college. i really would like my hair to be healthy and around brastrap length (or longer) by the time i graduate. but at the rate i am going, i'm starting to think that is not possible. any tips?

 

[Summer_Rain]

what did you do to you hair in college ?

short answer....ruined it.

 

[MissFallon]

I rollerset my hair every week and made sure to deep condition with ORS hair mayo every week (or some form of cholesterol). I wore my hair down most days and made sure to keep it moisturized. I don't remember what moisturizer I used (it was 4 yrs ago). Since I didn't have a dryer I used to rollerset and let it airdry, at the time I thought it sucked but now I think it was a blessing that I couldn't use heat. Just try to keep your hair in low-manipulation styles.

 

[glamazon386]

A lot of people wear braids. But they tore my hair out freshman year and it hasn't been the same since. I've been wearing weaves off and on for a while since I couldn't get to the salon every 2 weeks. You usually see braids or people just kind of wash and deal with their hair themselves. I didn't see too many heads done at all around campus.

 

[BroadstreetBully]

I'm still in college but for me I wore fashionable scarves most of the time. People loved it and complimented me on them. After just wearing scarves for a few months my damaged hair grew like crazy! Unfortunately I wasn't taking care of it and I had a scissor happy stylist. But still, the fact that it grew like a weed when I wasn't taking care of it only excites me now that I am taking care of it!!!

 

[macherieamour]

I rollerset my hair every week and made sure to deep condition with ORS hair mayo every week (or some form of cholesterol). I wore my hair down most days and made sure to keep it moisturized. I don't remember what moisturizer I used (it was 4 yrs ago). Since I didn't have a dryer I used to rollerset and let it airdry, at the time I thought it sucked but now I think it was a blessing that I couldn't use heat. Just try to keep your hair in low-manipulation styles.

Ditto. I had my hair rollerset each week, wrapped it every night and wore it twisted up in a bear claw each week. It was def my most significant growth period. My hair grew very long and was super healthy

 

[seeminglysweet]

I wore a claw clip most days and went home for relaxers when I had the cash.

 

[Angelicus]

What I did:
Not wash it for weeks at a time
Never protected it at night
Slapped tons of gel in it to get the black-eyed peas to stay close to my scalp
abused it with styling tools.
Washed hair with hard, calcium-laden water

What I should have done:
weekly Wash and rollerset
At-home protein treatments with mayonnaise once a month
put up hair at night
finger comb or use shower comb for daily maintanance.
trim once a year

Good luck to you... you can definitely do it. Learn from our mistakes lol.

 

[PinkGyrl]

i am in college and before finding this forum i used to abuse my hair with gels, heat, etc.

now i find time to take care of my hair.

right now i wash on the day of the week when i dont have class, which is tuesday and saturday

when my hair feels dry i just cowash as soon as i get home.
so when i have to study i sit at my desk with conditioner in my hair.

it works!

 

[MissFallon]

I used to always envy my roomate ( a white girl with hair past her ass) and she never washed it or tied it up. It still seemed to grow and looked great. I tried to do that no washing no scarf at night thing and my hair looked a hot mess. I had another roomate ( a puerto rican girl with hair to her ass) who blew it out with the hot *** red blowdryer every morning to get it straight with NO heat protectant and it looked great every day. Tried that too and my hair looked alright but didn't grow at all. I tried once going to the salon (caucasian salon) but the lady washed it and tried to blow out my 5 month post relaxer hair and my hair came out looking like I had an afro wig on from the 1970's I had to go home and use my roomates hot *** red blowdryer to smooth it down (but I used a serum). Thats when I figured out my hair needed a little more love and that I had to rollerset it every week because I cant braid or do anything else and was sure not going back to the salon in that small hick town.

 

[cutiebe2]

I would braid it...at least for the first year to help get your hair back in shape and long enough for a ponytail.
If your hair is weak, make the braids smaller (NOT micro) so that there is less tension.
HTH

 

[Harina]

thanks for the tips ladies, i'll probably start with braids then work my way up to weekly washing and rolelrsetting.

 

[Brownshugaz]

I went natural!

 

[PaperClip]

I'm in college right now.... Transitioning to natural... with braids and weaves. Have a SLAMMIN' curly weave right now... shake and go, baby! LOL! More importantly, I'm learning how to respect and care for my hair during this transition. I appreciate the information on this forum.

 

[sassyhair]

I am in college now...so far...All in sequential order ...I have

-Went natural
-Wore micros and any other type of braids
-Got press and curls
-Got a botch color job...supposed to get highlights but got the whole top half of my head bleached
-Got a texturizer
-Wore more braids
-Got a virgin relaxer
-Wore weaves
-And as of now I am rockin my hair all out in the open, trying to figure what I should do next

 

[asubeauty]

I am in college now, and I rollerset every week and wrap every night. If my curls fall, I pin curl at night.

 

[Substance&Style]

i'm going to college in the fall. my hair has been recuperating from a bad relaxer and a scissor happy hair stylist. my hair is very short and i am at a loss as to what i am going to do with my hair in college. i really would like my hair to be healthy and around brastrap length (or longer) by the time i graduate. but at the rate i am going, i'm starting to think that is not possible. any tips?

you might not want to hear this, but i went natural. i was a freshman back in 98-99, over the years i got 12+ inches of growth :-D

 

[Demi27]

Let someone in my dorm relax my hair. It seemed like a good idea at first, but it wasn't. I didn't take care of my hair and she left the relaxer on for too long. Big mistake. I ended up chopping it all off and letting it grow out.
Whatever you do, try not to let anyone that doesn't know how to do or take care of hair do your hair while in college. I know how it is when you're strapped for money, but your hair will pay the ultimate price ! Good luck.

 

[jaded_faerie]

Luckily I found the hair boards right before I went to college...I usually just wear protective styles...nothing in particular....and ive been religiously deep conditioning my hair once a week for the pass 2 years....i just make sure to have one day devoted to my hair

 

[Trini"T"]

Cool... alot of the people who answered this are still in college! I'm in college now as well. I don't use brushes, hardly use combs, wash my hair every week, use protein treatment every other week, moisturize every day, wear my hair in bantu knots and put a scarf over it at night, finger comb my hair up into a butterfly clip every single day, treat hair extra gentle, and trim every time I relax(but I'm on a break from that until December). THE END.

 

[Poohbear]

During the first two years of college (pre-LHCF) I had armpit length hair. All I did was relax, shampoo, blowdry, and use grease. At the end of 2003, my hair shedded really badly from Accutane and I cut my hair short to chin/neck length. I found LHCF in 2004 and grew it back a few inches past my shoulders by avoiding heat and alternating between the bun challenge and rollersetting. I decided to transition to natural during the fall of 2004 and went completely natural in the Spring of 2005. I graduated from college May 2006!

 

[Victorian]

My first couple years I wash washing and blowdrying once a week as I had always done. I moisturized daily, wore my usual ponytails, and sometimes tied my hair up at night (I forgot/got lazy often). The only difference was that I wasn't getting touchups as often. I was going up to 6 months between them (compared to every 3 or 4 months) because I never trusted anyone besides my mom to touch my hair and had to wait until I went home. Overall it wasn't too bad. My hair grew even though it certainly could have been healthier.

But I think going all that time without relaxers ended up leading naturally to me deciding just to give them up all together. I started my transition in the middle of my junior year and did the big chop a few months before graduation.

I'll be starting grad school this fall with all natural hair and a solid regimen, so hair should be way less of an issue this time around

 

[MizaniMami]

I'm in college too.

I wash and DC my hair twice a week and slick it into a ponytail. Simple and helps me retain length.

 

[leleepop]

Wash my hair once a week and curled everyday. Haircut every two months. Relaxer every four to five weeks.

 

[Glitter]

i'm in college now and the best piece of advice i can give you is to not depend on somebody else to do your hair. DON'T BE LIKE ME!!

i go to school in upstate new york where hair stylists period are hard to find and trying to find somebody who can do ANY TYPE of curly hair, esp 4a/4b is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

i remember the first stylist i went to, i asked if she could do african american hair, and she was like, "well, i guess. i've never done it before but it shouldn't be much different." i was smart enough not to go there. but the other salon i ended up going to had 1 GREAT stylist - she was the owner of the shop and she was from Africa. She only did my hair once and it came out SO PRETTY. problem was she took about 3.5 hours to wash my hair, and straighten it with a chi - and i was her only customer in the chair. she didn't work that often so her 2 other assistance did my hair. one was okay but the other one -- wow, she was bad. my hair always felt so dry after going to her. i would come out with my hair sticking out of my head. she had no technique and unfortunately, she did my hair the most.

while i prolly could have done okay with a so-so stylist, what really did me in was the fact that i was AFRAID TO TOUCH MY HAIR. it's so silly now but i didn't want to wash it. these ladies were always booked since they were one of about 3 salons in the city so i usually waited 4-5 weeks between appointments without washing my hair. within months, my shoulder length hair got chewed up to less than ear length with lots of damae around the edges. i can't believe i wondered why this happened to my hairerplexed

when you go off to college, PLEASE learn from this. while it's okay to go to a stylist, please be confident in yourself that you can take care of your hiar and give it the proper attention and care it needs to flourish. a DC once a week goes a long way.

 

[alonshaw]

Hey Aloha_ Bef,
What a great thread you started, i'm truly reeping the advice being presented here, seeing as how i'll be a freshman myself, in the fall.

 

[Bublnbrnsuga]

I was relaxed and my signature style was twists in the front with my hair down in the back, scrunched with moouse.

 

[curlilocs]

I kept my signature short, relaxed crop. I rocked that from my junior year in highschool to my junior year in college, then I BC'ed and wore a TWA my senior year.

 

[RabiaElaine]

Just before I graduated from high school, I had to cut my hair off (down to 1 inch) because of coloring incident gone bad. Anyway I kept my hair braided for the summer and most of my first 2 years in college. I ended up going natural. Then some time towards the end of my sophmore year, I texturized my hair, which was cool because I could do wash and gos. My hair was past shoulder length by this time and thick. I should have kept my hair like this.

Anway I then relaxed my hair in my junior year. At that time was doing weekly washes and deep conditioner treatments in my dorm room. My hair really thrived.

I would say if your hair is relaxed you should do weekly washes and treatments. Try to do them yourself, I saved a lot of money this way. Buy your own bonnet dryer, rollers, roller clips.

I hope you have a fun and safe college experience, mine was great !

 

[Jay]

I'll be going to college in the fall and I'm glad I discovered this board before I mess something up by trying to look cute all the time. I'm going to get braids for the first 2 months so I don't have to worry about my hair.