Blow out!!

I blew it out!

I've been feeling like my hair has been loosing its density as I age, but when I see these pictures it looks very much the same as it did when I was younger.  I need to stop worrying so much!

I am now entering a phase where I want it all dark again though :-/

I may waylay my plans for length for a little bit while I trim the rest of the color out over the summer.  I thought about putting a rinse over it, but I finally have the majority of my natural color now, so I don't want to mask it with anything.

The process to blow dry it was simple:

• I split my wet hair into 6 twisted sections then put a turbie towel on for about 20 minutes to absorb access water. 
• I then applied the Nubian Heritage Honey Black seed heat protectant leave in and then foam with avocado oil on top for shine. 
• I used the tension method to mostly dry my detangled hair on medium heat while held taught.
• Then used higher heat and the comb attachment to smooth it out a bit more.  It probably took about 5-8 min per section. 

I twisted it up after the blow out and then wore the twists for most of last week in various up-dos.
Over the weekend I finger combed it and put it in much larger twists with curlers and the last pic is the result of that.

 

 

A Twistout

I have not done a twistout in a long time and having gotten a little bored with my wash&goes = Ta-da! Time to revisit.

I twisted it wet with KMF gel, castor oil and KMF mistreated conditioner as my leave in.

Of coarse it was not dry in the morning so I had to wear my ropey twists to work. I decided to put them into an updo.  I used pins and just made circles all over my head.  The front two twists were dry so I took those apart and looped them backwards... like so... (I wish you could hear how I just said that in my head lol)

So then I took them apart that evening and I was a bit disappointed.  They were super tight and the ends were not uniform.

SO I took them apart very carefully and didn't separate them many times, trying to keep the frizz down, since then ends weren't coming apart cleanly.

So still meh... It was unwieldy and the shape wasn't quite right. I decided to use my blow dryer to streatch it out and I used gel on the worst of the ends to get them back under control.

So I kinda fixed it :-) I was able to enjoy it for a few days. But ultimately the inconsistency of the pattern and the ends took over. By day 3 it was pretty done for :-(

I'd have to make the twists smaller, and I have to re-examine the KMF gel for twists.  It really takes the volume out of them by removing most of the frizz factor, then the frizz that does exists looks inconsistent.

All said, I prefer my wash and go coils better, and its much faster to set it with gel and just let my pattern do what it does.  However I do want to maintain my ends this summer to keep some length for once.  I'll have to figure out some more styling options like this one.

Hair for the Holidays and Beyond

Happy Holidays!!
I'm traveling and enjoying time with my family. I hope everyone else is enjoying this time of year as much as possible. I know a lot of families are having a rough time closing out 2012.  I'm from CT. I have a lot of family here and thankfully we have been spared by the recent tragedy here. However please continue to send prayers out for the families of the children we lost. Several of my high school classmates lost young family members :-(

As we get closer to 2013 I am trying to wrap my head around what the next year may look like. I'm running out of days, however, and have not gotten my story straight yet.

One miniscule and insignificant change I want to make this year is to let my hair grow out for once. It's about as long as its ever been and I want to see how much further I can go over the next 12 months. Last time I said this I made it about 4 more months and then decided to cut it lol.

So as a part of this small decision I've been twisting my hair after I wash it and then fashioning the twist-out into various updos. I hope to keep my ends in good shape and retain as much growth as possible throughout the cold months.

Here are a few picts of one of the twist outs and the updo I wore for a friend's party and one I wore for our office Christmas party.

I'm wearing my hair pressed right now and will post about that in the next few days after I get a week's worth of pictures. I roller set it and then passed once over with the flat iron as I took the curlers out. WIN! lol.  I also made my own beeswax/castor/essential oil mix and it works like a dream. Stay tuned.