A months growth!

I'm going crazy right now because my hair has grown like crazy in less than a month! Looking at the two pictures side by side is too crazy!!

The first is from my haircut and the second is today (length check)

March 13, 2013

I was feeling really discourage about my hair today. I wasn't impressed with my relaxed ends, my growth seemed so much shorter than other people's.

Anyway, today was wash day and wow... I feel so much better :).

Here's a picture that inspired me to keep going.

Transitioning Styles

I typically put my hair into 6 or 8 big flat twists and curl the ends with a flexi-roller set. Then I put my hair into a bun the next day with a style I learned off CurlyNikki.com, seems to be working for me and keeps my hair moisturized all day. I bought a phenominal Avacado and Olive Oil oil and so far it's amazing! It's my new favourite product, I put in an ample amount under my deep conditioner every wash and co-wash, and use 2 pumps per twist every night. It's phenominal, detangles and softens my hair in an instant! So until further notice, I'm obsessed with this stuff.

Also on a side note, I'm adoring going natural. I've never seen my hair so healthy and full. No split ends. Barely any breakage. Less shedding. Overall I couldn't be happier. Now I just have to wait until my hair grows enough that I can get rid of all my dead ends and I'll be happy forever :)

Here are some pictures of my transitioning styles and how I twist my hair:

Transitioning update (8 months)

So, the transitioning is going pretty good. Usually I've been wearing my hair air died in a bun each day.

Buuuuuut, good thing is I found a new hairdresser!
It's like finding a perfect hair product! Especially for mixed girls, finding a perfect hairdresser or hair product is like findin a needle in a stack of needles (Spencer Reid reference)
Usually a hair dresser only knows how to do either white hair or black hair, and unmmmm... I'm obviously in the middle. So I told her I'm transitioning and I want to slowly chop off my relaxed ends. SO we took 3 inches off. My hair is shooort as hell but I'm ok with it. I have a hairstyle for the first time in a while and I'm keepingy hair healthy.

Anyway here's the updates since last time:


(pictures every wash - once a week and the day of the cut)

Transitioning my hair

So I've decided to make the big decision to transition my hair to it's natural state!

I have to say I'm ridiculously excited :) I haven't seen my hair completely natural in years. This blog is dedicated to logging my natural hair journey, and also to get out every thing I want to say about my hair (which is a lot) without driving everyone in my life crazy!

Let's start with some background information:

• My mother is Finnish and my dad is Jamacian so that made for some pretty difficult hair when I was little.
• My dad's hair is pretty typical black, dark and coily. 
• My mother's hair is blonde and she has HUGE waves in her hair that typically look frizzy. (This made her hair really cool in the 80's and 90's)
• For the most part my dad took care of my hair when I was little, but he treated it like he would that of a black child so it wasn't taken care of properly.
• Every week he would wash and blow-dry my hair.
• When I started to age (9 - mid teen years) we began cornrowing my hair and using braid in extensions - At this point my hair was down past my shoulders almost half way down my back.
• Eventually I started relaxing my hair when I was 13 and this is where the ridiculous damage began.
• I started dying and relaxing it all the time and in the same year I decided to cut it all off. Chopped it to just above my shoulders (read: worst decision of my hair life).
• After that my hair never recovered,  I basically beat the crap out of it, straightening it all the time, constantly dying and relaxing it in an effort to look more like the white girls around me.
• When I was 16 I discovered clip in extensions. I started out small with only 3 rows, but by the time I was 21 I was using a full head of single clip extensions. 
• When I was 20, LARGE chunks of my hair fell out. a 3 square inch section of my hair fell out at the nape of y neck and the entire bangs part of my hair  looked like it had been attacked by clippers!
• I found out later that this was due to my hypothyroidism, and stress.
• Finally - in an effort to save whatever hair I had left, I took my extensions out in September of 2012 (21).
• I wore only 4 extensions at the front of my hair to cover the part of my hair that had fallen out the previous year.
• I didn't relax my hair for two years before my last in July of 2012. 
• And in January of 2013 I decided to go natural!

Gone are my day of extensions and relaxers! No more dying and straightening and frying my hair! 

And all of the sudden I've fallen in love with my natural curls! I had no idea my hair looked like this and that I would love it so much.

So, time to now document from now on with pictures! 

 So this is where I started - wanting to grow out my hair without really changing anything... I believe this was around September 2012.

 Straight out of the shower December 2012. At this point I'd been using Lush's New! (to stimulate hair growth) for about 2 months.

 This was January 28th, the day I decided to go natural - my relaxed ends air dried.. Sooo not a good look.

Jan 31st - trying to document my new growth. At this point I'd never seen my new growth this curly and long before. 

 February 6th with deep conditioner. My hair started falling out crooked in early January. And in February I decided no more heat!

February 6th, 2 inches of new growth. Exactly 7 months post relaxer. 

After a night of wearing twists in my hair - the brushed out results. At least I know I don't have tooooo bad of a shrinkage problem.

My hair measurements as of February 7th, 2012:

Left side: 14 1/2"

Right side: 13'

Bangs: 7" 

New growth: 2"

My regiment is 2 women's 1 a day multivitamin (with biotin), Lush New! shampoo bar once a week. An olive oil hair mayonnaise (need to find out the real name) once a week as a deep conditioner, and twice a week to co wash. Mixed chicks deep conditioner once every wash. Mixed chicks leave in conditioner every time hair is wet. Olive Oil leave in conditioner every night, along with marrocan oil every 2 days. 

Along with this, I'm trying a more balanced diet and my hypothyroidism pills should help stop my hair from falling out.

Hmmm.... not sure what else I can document today, but I'll try to take pictures and document growth every week when I wash. 

- Jam :)