5 Hour Wash Day

It began with some hubris and my Curlformers.

I can't even remember the last time I did a Curlformer set, so when I saw this tutorial, I was going in like a flash. Yes, I would like stretched out curls for my friend's birthday party! And I had a whole day free as well, so the caveat of it taking 3 hours didn't phase me.
I only remembered to pre-treat my hair with coconut oil that morning, so it got half an hour instead of overnight.
I started off with a bentonite clay treatment, which was bad of me - I've been meaning to do a Cassia for a couple of weeks, but didn't want to end up with minuscule pieces of grass in my head whilst meeting new people. So bentonite only it was. I added a bit more water to it than normal, to make it easier to rinse out, as well as  my usual splash of apple cider vinegar

Using less water meant my hair wasn't as weighed down, but it still had the same effect as normal. I always love the results of my bentonite clay treatments, because they're always the same - happy, bouncy hair, with pretty defined coils.

After rinsing out the bentonite, my hair felt so yummy, I considered skipping conditioning. Then I realised that this was crazy talk, conditioned as normal (leaving conditioner on for 5 minutes) and the skipped out the shower.

Once out, I applied aloe vera juice to my hair, and then split it up into sections, in preparation for the curlformer business. Smaller sections = easier to handle. I deliberately made myself choose smaller sections, and on those sections, I applied some Shea butter mix and Eco Styler Olive Oil gel. 

I knew I didn't have enough Curlformers for my entire head (I hoped...), but because my sections were so small, they dried faster than normal and initially still came out silky smooth when I took the Curlformers off that section to use elsewhere. I used rosewater in my spray bottle to refresh the parts of my hair that had dried whilst waiting. 

I started all these shennanigans (from the pre-poo) at 10 in the morning. 

By half 3 in the afternoon, I was done. 

5 hours??

It was all pink on the left and all orange on the right.
I need to be more strategic where I use my curlformers - in some parts, my hair has already outgrown them!

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 Becase of my haphazard placement of the curlformers, I couldn't stretch them in the same manner as naptural85 does in her video, so I gently pulled the curls to one side, for a regal pinned up kind of look.

I only have one picture because by the time I was ready, it was time to go! I over applied the gel in some areas, so I got flakes *sigh*

I find that Curlformers only ever last me one day. I'll have to work out a way to make them work for me for longer.

But despite the loss of the curls, I didn't want to let the awesome stretch go. So I started mini twists the next day (Saturday), trying to do at least 2 for each curl section. Today is the third day, and I'm barely halfway through >.< However, my hair still feels so moisturised from the aloe vera juice and shea butter from Saturday! Win!

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This wash day was not sponsored by Garnier

My wash day last week was pretty simple - no bells or whistles.

1) Pre-pooed overnight with Coconut Oil. 2) Shampooed with Garnier Fructis Anti-Dandruff Shampoo. There are two reasons why I probably shouldn't have been using that shampoo. One,  It has SLS, which seems to be the ultimate RED BUTTON; DO NOT TOUCH on the curly, kinky interwebs and two It contains white willow bark, an excellent anti dandruff treatment, since it is a rich source of salicyclic acid. It is also an active ingredient found in aspirin (for dilating blood vessels or something) so as an asthmatic, I'm supposed to avoid it. But if I'm feeling halfway rebellious, may as well go all the way, no? I applied the shampoo in sections, to make sure I got to every inch of my scalp. Also meant I used, like, 10 times the recommended amount... 3) Rinsed like the Dickens. 4) Applied my Garnier Ultra Doux conditioner, with Vanilla milk and Papaya pulp. It's formulated for long hair, so I reckon it should help my fragile ends. Also, smells like heaven. Fruity, but not too much and mixed with that irresistible scent of Vanilla. Love it. I left it in for 5 minutes while I bemoaned the state of our shower, thanks to the hard water. 5) Rinsed out, but not intensely - I don't mind if a little bit of the product is left behind because then my hair smells gorgeous :) 6) Applied home made Rose Aloe Moisturiser. 7) Sealed with Hempseed oil and some whipped shea butter on my ends.


Happy, happy hair! Soft and fluffy. And my scalp was completely and utterly clear! Nothing else to report really with the shampoo, apart from a nagging,persistent headache the following day. I'm not sure if it was from the shampoo or not - I'll find out next time.

To stretch, I decided to indulge in some banding for a couple of days. 

 When I released it, it simply went up in a bun, to avoid my hair brushing on my scarf. The first picture is my hair after I decided to finger comb a little.

I love how big looking it turned out!

It's only now as I've written this up that I've realised both commercial products used are Garnier. 

I've never really paid attention to any brands (outside of Tresemmé) but my experience so far is definitely making me think I might try them out when I go back to England.

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A Sunday Wash

- Since I had planned on washing my hair on Saturday, I generously applied coconut oil on Friday night.

- Didn't get up in time, so my house mate used up a lot of the hot water cleaning and informed me that there was about 25 minutes left of hot water, and she hadn't showered yet.

- So on Sunday, I decided to slick some yoghurt on my head as a sort of pre-poo thing too (I had some left over from eating porridge and couldn't bear to put it back in the fridge). My hair was in about 6-8 sections. I left it on for about 20 minutes before rising out with warm water.

- Rinsed with heavily diluted apple cider vinegar (like 9 parts water to 1 part apple cider vinegar) to combat the effects of the hard water, with a few drops of tea tree oil and massaged it into my scalp and hair.

- Gently applied conditioner and finger de-tangled with conditioner in. Left on for about 5 minutes.

- When I got out of the shower, I wrapped my hair in a normal towel, and then added my leave in, as well as some brazil nut oil and some shea butter (why? Why did I do that??) on the ends.

- At this point, I was running late for church and I panicked (maybe that's why I added Shea Butter too...). At first, I considered doing a half up, hlaf down style, but my hair was barely dry. Such impulsive actions would surely come back to bite in the form of tangling during shrinkage and SSKs and breakage. So instead, I split my hair into two vertical sections, twisted each one and then added further stretch with some hair bands (Goody Ouchless), then rolled them under.

The problem was that having applied the shea butter to my ends that were no longer in twists means I ended up with stringy hair that evening when I unravelled everything.. 

So I put my hair in a puff.

I think I need to do what I did for my self-summer challenge and plan what I'm going to do with my hair and how I intend to do it (including stretching time - because my hair very rarely dries fully overnight). I know it sounds like extra effort, but if I don't, I just always end up disappointed with my hairstyle.In two days, In the 24 hours since washing my hair, I've done about 8 styles, because I'm never really happy with them. At the moment, I've got it in twists that I did this morning for a potential twist out on Wednesday, but if that doesn't work, I'm sock bunning it until I can put my hair back up in twists.

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Weave Really got to Stretch it Out...

When packing in a slight rush to move to a foreign country, there are things you may leave behind.

Unimportant things, such as your sewing machine; those pair of jeans with the hole; toothpaste.

But today, I realized I'd left behind something mega important.

My CURLFORMERS.

It's winter! Rain, and thus tangles, will surely be upon me. How will I survive without stretching?

 What to do? 

Eotteoke?!

Ah, but look what I did remember to pack.

Weave thread somehow managed to find itself into my bag, despite the fact the first (and last) time I had a weave, I was not even legally old enough to do a paper round. Whatdaheck?!

Anyway, having stumbled across this very informative video by the lovely Nadia of GirlsLoveYourCurls, I may give African Threading a whirl this winter.

Granted, the last time I had this style done, I was too young to consent to the actions being taken upon my person, so my mum did it in looped arches over my head that had the other kids calling me spidey-head.

Nowadays, they'd be calling me innovative! 

I actually took my twists out on Friday. I'd started on Thursday night and hoped it would take me till Friday afternoon to take them all out, but nope, I didn't finish till 10pm on Friday night. So I just bunned it and left it like that.

On Saturday morning, I quickly mixed up some bentonite clay mixed with some ACV and water and slathered my head in it. I ended up leaving it in for an hour, because my housemate got to the bathroom before me >.<

When I finally got in the shower, I rinsed it all out quite easily and then conditioned. 

I tried my best to leave it on for longer than three minutes, but there's only so long a girl can scrub her elbows for.

Rinsed that out, put in my homemade moisturiser, and then decided to thread my hair to stretch it.

It took me nearly two hours to do my head, but that's because the technique takes a while to get down, and I was wrapping quite tightly. 

Also, on some of the sections, I would be nearly to the end, check the mirror and realise that I hadn't secured it tightly enough at the root and the thread had slipped, so I'd have to undo it and start again.

I used about 5- 6 foot (up to 180cm) of string for each section and on some of them, I ran out.

But the stretch was pretty awesome. Instant hairnorexia cure.

 

Taking them out was ridiculously easy. Seconds per section. Really. However, it was only a couple of house (6 hours, I think?) so my hair wasn't completely dry, but it was on it's way there.

The roots were still a bit big, because I didn't secure them all very well, so I just threw my hair into a bun. But then I remembered buns don't always work for me, so I split it into two buns. Then each bun I split into two sections and fat-twisted each sections. 

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