Winter Challenge.

I've been logging in and drafting post since the beginning of August. I know, right? How silly and disorganised of me. But this one is definitely going up!

I've been happy with my hair so far - I'm still shedding far too much, but I'm taking steps to rectify it. And I'm determined that next year, BSL will be mine [if you read that in the tone of those very determined, romantically obsessed girls in TV shows, then you're on my wavelength) - but, baby steps. This year, I'd just like to maintain APL until the end of December.

What am I actually doing?

1) Eating good stuff - the biggest change I'm making is what I'm putting into my mouth. I'm trying to purposefully include:

•  Leafy greens - I rarely eat them any more, due to laziness and I've let them rot in the fridge one too many times.
• Black sesame seeds - chockful of vitamins and things that I suspect are helping reduce my shedding.
• MSM powder - Apparently helps your hair to stay in the anagen phase for longer, thus reducing shedding 
• Bamboo tea - Contains silica, which could help reduce shedding and other good stuff. 
• Good guts - I'm also a little concerned about the potential issues my guts may be having on my general health, and thus my hair, so I'm on the kimchi and probiotics.
• Vitamin D - Yes, I know you can make it internally by being exposed to sunlight for a certain amount of time a day, but currently my sky looks like this:

Eeyore would approve.

2) Keeping my ends slick - I've noticed that a lot of fine haired naturals use shea butter on the regular, whereas I've avoided using it on my hair for the last...oh, 5 years? Winter is here, so is the cold and I'm babying my ends by using shea butter after a wash and oiling my ends every night. Easy. I have carefully avoided shea butter for a long time, convinced that it does no good for my fine, strands. Now, I've come around to thinking that there are quite a few bloggers I know who used shea butter for good effect (Laila-Jean, Curlyproverbz, naptural85) and that it might work in a protective capacity in the winter, when I seem to rub my head and hair against ALL THE ROUGH THINGS (Wonder Thing, your stubble is massively included in this list).

3) Stretched and tucked - I've been wearing buns for the last two months and my hair is responding well. Not the neglect it occasionally faces whilst up there, but stretched, and out of the way of my fidgety hands can only ever do good for my hair. I'm keeping my hair stretched by plaiting it up every night in 4 big, chunky plaits.

4) Deep treat - This fits more into my self care targets than anything else really. I am now one of those ladies who deep conditions every time she washes (I know) but I'm like to step it up and introduce other treatments for the sake of self-care and nourishment.
And because I'd like to get fancy every now and then.
And because doing this will stop me from buying new products.

I'm not too worried about exercise - I do some on average about twice a week, and there are lazier girls than me with hair brushing their butts, so.....

Current length:

Too lazy to buy a length check, so I'm just using a striped shirt instead..

Around 12 - 13.5 inches. I'm getting there!(*drop-kicks APLateau, whilst cackling madly* )

I don't expect to see much growth - I'm just trying to get into good habits before the January resolution making.

I'm torn over whether or not to wash every week or not. Every week seems like a an effort and a promise I can't keep in this ever worsening climate (chilblains! cold toes! general shivery-ness!), but I'm pretty sure that every two weeks leaves the door open for neglect and dehydration (because that's how I do).

Other than that, I don't really want to add anything extra because I know I won't do it >.<
Are you doing anything different this changing season?

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