Rosey's Hair Diary ~

26 Apr 2015

I cut my hair!

Hey guys,

I know this will come as a huge surprise, but (sortof) even to me but I decided to cut my hair. Here are the reason why:

Two different textures: I slowly began to feel a new demarcation line between a new thicker, looser and softer growth was emerging and it was causing combing problems. I realised that all those years of 1-hour long relaxing had done some harm to my hair, and my hair really needs that time to regenerate. I am happy to start again. I have actually noticed my new growth as much softer and thicker.
Yolo! A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life. I really just felt a beautiful urge to facilitate a fresh start in my life. I am about to be a graduate, get a job, travel and do many more things that have always been at the back of my mind. My hair has been such a huge part of my body maintenance in the last two years. I am not saying that that was a bad thing, or a waste, FAR from it! It has all been a learning experience - my two years natural hair journey. But with this new growth, I wanted to apply all of my knowledge experience to this new start. Ofcourse, keeping things very simple. It's just hair... but its not just hair. Hair continues to grow, and being able to mentally detach myself from my hair anxieties gave me huge pride, and immense liberation. Honestly, it feels liberating. I did not feel any anxiety about it, before or after. It still feels great, and I am glad to have seen how long my hair grew before I cut it.
Time: Honestly, my hair was frustrating me also, after having bunned it up for a week, through the nights. Twisting up your hair everyday right before bed, is NOT easy. It takes effort, especially when you have readings and projects to be dedicated to in the evenings. At such a crucial period in my life, I needed time and space from my hair. And it felt liberating to be able to start this journey. My hair was tangled up, and I was frustrated with my texture because it likes to hug itself. But what I have learnt is that that's the nature of my texture. Just because it clumps together does not mean it is tangled up, it has no other choice. Did I have the time to dedicate to detangling this hair? No. That's fine.
Health > Length, always. It's normal to be obsessed with length when you first begin your journey, but once you have learned everything about your hair, and you become used to it, you embrace its presence and you realise that this hair is here to stay! (No more relaxers, ever). And because you are happy with that, you realise that its just hair. My hair continues to grow. What matters, is that our hair is healthy, regardless of what length it is at. We don't have to prove that black women cannot grow long hair anymore, our natural hair blogs 4chairinspiration.com attest to that! :)

I shall be posting pictures of before and after shortly. Also, I should be recording a video about it on my Youtube channel. I am not looking for support, and I may lose some followers, but I love that people follow youtubers for the journey, not for parts of the journey that they like. I learn equally from naturalistas of all lengths, styles and textures. It's all a journey. Our journeys are unique, despite our shared textures.

7 Feb 2015

Hot Oil Treatments + No more combs!

One treatment in particular should just never be overlooked in your hair regimen - H.O.T.! I was just reminded by it after resuming it.

I recently came back to it, as I stopped because of the extra time it takes (but it actually doesn't take long, when incorporated into my prepoo routine) but now I am back at it. Result? I instantly felt an increased thickness and density in my hair. It's amazing. My hair feels thicker, soft throughout the week and more manageable. Who needs a volumising moisturiser product??

Combs: I was watching this informative youtube video about detangling and the woman spoke about the point of detangling - being not to separate the individual strands but to work through the hair. 4C hair naturally clumps together. I noted this. I had also been experiencing lots of single strand knots at the ends of my hair which lead to tangles. I will be trimming my hair next week, so that I can start this year ahead with a finger-only detangling method.

What's in my H.O.T: In my applicator bottle: jamaican black castor oil (75%), jojoba oil (20%) and rosemary oil (5%).

A typical wash day (updated and added to My Hair Regimen):
0) The night before: I prepoo my hair with coconut oil - softens up and conditions the hair in prep for detangling! I then use my applicator bottle with my Hot Oil mix to oil my scalp. This is left on the whole night until morning and it leaves me with super moisturised hair.
1) I detangle before anything: I fill in my spray bottle (with detangler & a little water) as my detangling liquid. I finger detangle. After detangling a section, I twist it up in mid-sized twists.
3) I shampoo my hair in the twisted sections to keep my hair from retangling. It's disaster otherwise.
4) Then I dry my hair with a shirt, apply conditioner and leave it for 30 mins-1 hr
5) After that I rinse it all out and with a final cold rinse and I am done.
6) I apply my leave-in and seal with almond oil. I apply castor oil to my ends and let it air dry into beautiful curls with a twist out or bantu knot out. This helps it to stretch out for any style during the week.