Rosey's Hair Diary ~

Shopping for the journey!

(Click on the picture to enlarge it)

Okay, so today I did a huge hair shopping. See when you're busy doing weaves you don't really see the need to buy creams, oils and tools for your natural hair. But upon having started this journey, I realised there was the need to purchase hair care products, such need I have never experienced before. It felt weird. Yes, I had to adjust because my natural hair just achieved some level of importance in my life.

In the above picture, the oils and creams that I bought at my local hair shop are shown, the other stuff I bought will be explained too.

Stay On Satin Night Scarf - designed with a string that can be tied to lock in moister and prevent breakage at nighttime. Silk scarfs are the way forward.

Oils and creams:

Luster's Pink Original - Vitamin E revives damaged hair, Vitamin B5 protects and conditions hair, heat protection. Many of my friends that often use natural hair make use of this cream and the effects are very obvious. It's an amazing, silky smooth cream.
Indian Hemp (top) - I cannot stress how much this natural herbal cream blesses black hair. I have known its benefits as I also had a tiny container version. The ingredient label made me smile: coconut oil, sweet almond oil, rosemary oil, avocado oil, saflower oil, soy protein, Indian Hemp Herb etc. Packed up with so much goodness!
100% Coconut Oil
100% Jojoba Oil - this was expensive!!! I asked one of the shop assistants and he said the best ones are the most expensive ones. Fair enough.
100% Pure Peppermint Oil
100% West Indian Castor Oil

I decided these are the oils and creams that I will be making use of throughout my hair regime.

Sprays/Shampoo/Conditioner (not in the picture)

Bristows Extra Firm Hold - for my curls!
Elasta QP Hair Gel Organic Infusion + Olive Oil - for when I want to pack up my hair. Ingredients: water, coconut oil, olive oil, vitamin A, vitamin C, Avocado Oil (full of vitamins!)
Schwarzkopf Hair Repair Liquid Silk Shampoo - Repair Innovation with liquid Keratin (affordable!)
Herbal Essences Moisture Balancing Conditioner - Aloe Vera, Chamomile and Passion Flower

There were so many hair care products but I took my time to select the products that would do no harm to my hair and select out the good and natural ingredients. Some products had zero natural ingredients in them and all I kept reading was sulphate, petroleum this and that. There were many more good oils sold in the hair shops but I felt these ones were sufficient and had the best qualities. Although my bank account did not like this shopping, it will be a one off and I can keep consistency in my hair care. My hair must be happy right now.

Ps: I bought a spray bottle so I can mix in the oils and spray onto my hair sparingly when doing my treatments.

My current hair length

So these are pictures of my hair, after trimming (which I won't be doing for another 2 months as part of my regime), and as you can see, they are touching my shoulder lengths.

Bye, Bye weave!

Okay so I just took out my last weave! No more weaves as from today. I wanted to get it out so quickly and to just feel the breeze flow through my hair. Its feels sooo good. I realised how horrible I've been treating my hair, sowing threads through it and just having to pick out the threads from my hair, which have inevitably caused breakage.

Anyways, right now, I'm going to lightly comb my hair with a wide-toothed comb and relax it for 15 minutes maximum. After that I will airdry it at a low temperature, trim the ends, rub in some Indian Hemp cream and post up a picture of my current hair length. And so, my natural hair journey commences today. Wednesday, 22nd August 2012.

Video: 10 tips for growing strong healthy long hair

I really love her tips!

Tutorial Video: Relaxing Hair and Setting It

I watched this tutorial video and I love how she demonstrates the ease at which a girl can relax her hair and then style it after. I realised I needed to get me some big rollers as they give your hair more width. When her hair was dripped with water it looked very straight, but after the rollers, she managed to style her hair out very well. Shows how natural hair can be styled beautifully. I noticed that she has my hair texture.

Relaxing my hair today...

This morning I woke up with this continuous itchy scalp under my weave. I was waiting till the end of the month to start my journey, so that it can grow under the tracks but it seems like I am just too excited to start and the weave is displeasing me. Today I will take off the weave and I will be relaxing the undergrowth of my hair. I haven't relaxed my hair in about 4/5 months and I plan to keep it that way, relaxing it just 3 times a year.

Again, I will stress the fact that there is nothing wrong about relaxers, as long as you ''look for the good ingredients'', know the texture of your hair and thereby know how to avoid the harsh/strong ones.

Now I stumbled upon these packets of Profective No-Lye relaxers today, my mum makes good choices. Until I made this decision to go natural, If I'm honest, I never really payed much attention to the labels, I was going to fix on a weave anyways.

Benefits of Profective No-Lye Relaxer:

- Anti-damage and no-lye; lye relaxers come in around the 12-14 range, no-lye relaxers have a pH of 9-9.5. The lower PH makes it a milder type of chemical to expose a scalp to.

- Conditioning and moisturising

- Comes with BreakFree leave-in strengthening cream to stop chemical damage and breakage; this can be applied to hair before relaxing AND after relaxing to neutralise hair

- Anti-breakage Strenghtening Cream; daily after-care, prevents breakage, split-ends and dryness

More description:
Blend of natural oils, minerals and proteins that strengthen hair.

Strength + growth - wheat, oat and soy proteins
Restore + rebuild - wheat germ, olive, flax seed and jojoba oils
Hi-shine + heat protection - silk amino acids, and avocado, coconut and grape seed oils

According to other reviews, it leaves hair shiny and healthy. I have used it before but I did not appreciate its benefits, I am soo happy to find this in my house. This is what Rochelle (Blackhairgrow.com) uses, having now achieved her 18' long hair.