Hair Trial #1

Saturday is usually the only kind of "off-day" I have. This Saturday, I had time and my hairstyle had been in for about 2 weeks, so I figured I would take it down. I frequent a local salon that specializes in natural hair every 2 weeks to get my hair done. Somehow my weeks got off and since I had a protective style I agreed to go 3 weeks this time to get back on track.

This night's routine was just that...routine. Here are the steps I took:

• Co-washed my hair with Beautiful Textures Tangle Taming Leave-in Conditioner 
• I co-wash because I get shampooed at the salon. Co-washing is when you only use conditioner to wash your hair)
• Towel dried my hair 
• Moisturized with using Influance's Moisture Lock with Shea Butter
• Locked in the moisture with Nutiva's Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
• Finger parted medium-sized sections of hair
• Coated each section with Beautiful Textures Moisture Butter (Whipped Curl Creme)
• Followed by Eco Styler Olive Oil Styling Gel - to set the style
• After all my hair was twisted, I pulled each twist as far as it would go and bobby pinned the twist down to my head, in no particular direction
• I washed and twisted my hair Saturday night and untwisted it Monday morning

I'm still trying new and different combinations of products and styles because I haven't quite gotten a set routine down with my hair yet. Whenever I try styles at home, they don't hold up. When I go to the salon to get styles they magically hold very well. The difference = GEL! I've never particularly used gel for regular styles, so I was wary about using a gel at all! The visions I have of gel are flaky hair, globs of black goop built up on hair's edges, etc.!!

Of course, I hear Eco Styler gel is the best gel to use for naturals. It supposedly doesn't cause any of the scary visions I have in my head about gel. A few months ago I bought some Eco Styler gel that had a hold of 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. I bought a 5 out of 10 because I figured it would be a mild version, but even then I've only used it ONCE! I decided to give it a good go this time and bought the Olive Oil version with a hold of 10 (the max!). This was the first time I tried it and I was pleased with the results. It wasn't too heavy for my hair and it didn't flake!

Here are my results:

I learned a few things from this trial.

1. When bobby pinning the twists, I need to do it in the way I want my hair to lay
2. I need more everyday-wear wigs - I wore a wig over my style for church, but my selection was very slim as some of my wigs have just about had it!
3. It's best to give my hair time to dry. When I set my hair at night and untwist it in the morning, it's still wet. The dryer and I are not friends, so I avoid it at all costs!
4. Put more moisture on my ends - some of my ends were a little crunchy. That's an easy fix)

As far as the end result, I was not pleased with my hair's turnout. It looked like a dried-up Jheri curl!!...BUT at least the curls held. I learned some good lessons. Hopefully, I can take those lessons and apply them to my routines to make corrections next time!