I've been slippin'...

Good afternoon :)


Lol as the title says, I've been slippin on my hair care. I haven't updated in a while and I must admit, I have been the most bored with my hair. Between the gym, the fact that my new growth is coming in faster than previously expected and that my hair has been acting strangely, I just haven't been feeling it. I still keep up on my wash days, moisturizing/sealing, but I need to step up my deep conditioning. Now that my scalp has recovered from the tenderness, I can get back to protective styling. I will primarily be keeping it simple and very light on tension, so no tight buns or butterfly clips, etc, mostly just clipping it up with a duckbill clip (which is only semi-protective, but I'll get into that in my next post ;) and leaving it alone.

 

pics of today's super messy bun (with no elastic bands)
and my new floral shirt! lol

Aside from that it's been business as usual, I've noticed more breakage, but since I've been slacking a bit on my deep conditioning and my hair was out all the time, I anticipated there would be some. It doesn't seem like I lost any length, but my ends did certainly take a beating, especially the last 2 weeks. I plan to trim the next time I relax, so hopefully this won't turn into a setback. What the scalp tenderness has taught me is that I need to be exceptionally gentle with my scalp, no crazy massaging, high water pressure, irritants, tight styling, etc; when I am rough with my scalp my hair will always pay for it.

Last night was an odd wash day, I had been to the gym twice since the last time I washed so it was definitely time to cleanse. Here are my wash day steps from last night:

1.  Pre-poo for with coconut oil for 30 mins with heat
2. Shampoo twice with Shea Moisture Moisture Retention Shampoo
3. Deep conditioned without heat for 15 mins with Aussie Moist
4. T-shirt dry for 10 mins
5. Apply leave-ins: Rusk Smoother Leave-in and argan oil
6. Detangle and let air-dry loose.

I feel like I do this routine all the time, but something about it didn't work out last night. I think it was the coconut oil. Last week's wash day disaster with CHI Deep Brilliance Moisture conditioner seems to have kicked my hair into protein overload. Even after clarifying and a few (real) moisturizing deep conditioning sessions, the property that coconut oil has of reducing protein loss seems to have kept the excess protein from the CHI in my hair longer than desired. It was hard, tangled and there was a bit more breakage than usual even after deep conditioning last night. I forgot that although coconut oil is good under balanced conditions, that I should run away from it during a protein overload! Coconut oil will just reduce the ability to remove the excess protein and make it more difficult to restore the hair's moisture level. After I remembered that little tip, I brought back one of my favorite moisturizers, Shea Moisture Restorative Conditioner (instead of using Bee Mine Deja's Hair Milk which is mostly coconut oil based), sealed with argan oil and my hair was back to normal. I've been failing on wash days recently, so I definitely need to keep it simple and stick to the products that I absolutely know work for me.

Thanks for reading :),

A Wash Day Fail

Happy Tuesday :),

So last night's wash was so awful I just had to blog about it smh. I worked out on Sunday, and it was hot yesterday so it was def time for a wash. My hair felt like it could use some strengthening but some moisture as well, so I opted to try something new, I used the CHI Deep Brilliance Moisture Conditioner which contains both hydrolyzed keratin and silk about midway through the list so I figured it would be a safe thing to try for last night. Here are the steps of what went down:

1. Pre-pooed for about an hour with coconut oil on my scalp as well as the length.
2. I shampooed twice using the Shea Moisture Moisture Retention shampoo
3. I deep conditioned with the CHI Deep Brilliance Moisture Conditioner for 5 minutes without heat (per the instructions on the package), then rinsed.
4. I t-shirt dried for about 5 minutes. My hair felt somewhat soft, but I couldn't detangle it.
5. I then applied my leave-ins Redken Smooth Down Butter Treat (more on that later!) to the length and argan oil to my ends.
6. I then attempted to detangle then let hair air-dry hanging down. 

So lets talk about what happened...
As I was rinsing out the conditioner my hair felt reasonably soft, but there was so little slip that I didn't really bother to attempt to detangle my hair in the shower. After I finished rinsing and t-shirt drying, of course detangling was still a chore so I applied my new fav moisturizing leave-in Redken Smooth Down Butter Treat and argan oil and absolutely nothing happened. My hair was still a tangled mess. My hair definitely feels stronger, it's not hard, but it feels dry and tangly. I even broke out my Pantene Normal-Thick detangler, which helped but now my hair feels coated because of the silicone in my leave-in and that detangler (ugh). It was still entirely too difficult to detangle so I just stopped and let it air-dry completely lol. Not only could was it tangled, it was also fuzzy and didn't dry anywhere near as straight or smooth as it usually does. I then moisturized and sealed with Bee Mine Deja's Hair Milk and argan oil, and that combo saved the day. I was able to get a good portion of my shed hair out but my hair looks and feels like crap. It feels coated, looks stringy and Jenna's just not pleased by this outcome.
 
Perhaps the CHI conditioner was used to close to my last application of Nexxus Keraphix (my medium protein treatment) and maybe that was why my hair reacted the way it did. In any case, I'm not certain how they managed to advertise this conditioner as a moisturizing conditioner, I wouldn't even say this was a moisturizing/light protein conditioner, for my hair it made it feel about as strong as Keraphix does. That was just bananas. Needless to say, I will have to clarify (to remove the silicone) as well as deep condition again tonight to avoid any crazy damage from dryness or silicone build up. I clearly should have done another moisturizing deep conditioning after, but it was so late last night and I was so tired that I knew that wasn't going to happen. I'm not going to give my final verdict about the CHI conditioner until I use it a few more times, but at this point I'll probably have to wait until after I relax my hair next (mostly because after a fresh relaxer I won't have to worry about tangling and also because my hair can generally tolerate more protein). Well, today definitely turned into a day for an updo lol...

What was your worst wash day experience?

Thanks for reading :),