Heat Training Hair – Session 2 Posted by admin on July 25th, 2010
My first week went by quickly and uneventfully and before I knew it, it was heat training day again. I was feeling brave so I decided to wash my hair in just the 8 braids below:
As soon as it touched water, my hair reverted like crazy! It seems the ghd’s low temparature of 180 just aint enough to heat train!
I made a huge error in judgement however, I figured that since I’d already had 1 session, I would undo each braid to apply conditioner, comb through then rebraid when usually I just apply the conditioner on the braid without undoing. That decision cost me more trouble I care to think about. Last week, I chopped off most of my single strand knots but I was shocked at how many more appeared after this wash. NEVER AGAIN! Until my hair is heat trained, the braids stay put until my hair has air dried.
I broke out my old babyliss straightener and heat trained at 220(428) degrees. 20 passes this time because I mean business! Again I did not heat train my crown and front section because I already like the curl pattern it has. Straightening took forever to finish and my arms hurt so I hope my next wash shows some tangible results.
Here is a pic of my hair straightened:
When I tried to run my hands through my hair, the strands were snagging and kind of getting caught on each other because of the ssk’s. I attempted another search and destroy mission to get rid of the ones that I could find and after cutting off about 20 of them, I threw in the towel and decided to call in quits, its just too stessful to keep taking scissors to my hair. It may be better for now to just leave them there and find a way to live with them. I doused my ends in plenty of coconut oil to basically lubricate so that the strands would slide off each other in spite of the knots. It worked!!
My hair is sort of greasier than I would usually like it but at least I can live with it until I I get to BSL and I can start trimming back the ends. That won’t be for another 6 months or more so I’m not holding my breath!
Pic of my hair with the coconut oil, it’s a bit flatter:
Looking forward to next week . . .
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Heat Training Hair – Session 1 Posted by admin on July 18th, 2010
I did my first heat training session on Thursday. It was an interesting experience. I washed and conditioned my hair on Wednesday evening, I was going to deep condition but my 11 month old daughter wouldn’t let me! My hair was already straightened from the week before and I had no intention of detangling so I washed it in the little braids below.
I let the braids air dry and even though they had shrunk alot, there were no tangles! On Thursday morning, I used my blow drier to stretch my hair out and smooth the ends in prep for straightening.
I BOUGHT A GHD, THE WORLDS BEST STRAIGHTENER! Sorry to yell there but a ghd deserves some noise!! I finally bit the bullet and got it during a shopping trip last weekend so I couldn’t wait to use it.
I parted my hair before begining because the top and front sections of my hair grows out in waves rather than curls like the rest of my head, so doesn’t need to be heat trained. I only did 2 passes of the styling iron on these sections. The rest of my hair had 15 passes (eek!) but the ghd did an excellent job of it at 180 (356) degrees and it had a lot of swing and bounce but was full of body. Ghd’s don’t go above 180 (356) because according to their research, temparatures above 180 don’t get the hair any straighter, they just damage it. I’m not sure what difference the temparature will make because brittanic16 did 20 passes at about 230(450) to get the results she did.
Blow dried parted hair:
Straightened hair:
Just for comparisons sake, here is how my hair looks freshly washed with no product and this is the picture I shall refer to to see if the heat training is working. I took this picture about 2 weeks ago.
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I am going to begin heat training my hair! Posted by admin on July 9th, 2010
After a few days of hell with my hair I have decided that heat training is definitely the way forward for me. I did a wash and go a few days ago and while it looked cute, the detangling session after that was like no other! For the first time in my natural hair journey I got a knot that I was not able to detangle with my comb. I was so annoyed but I had to eventually take the scissors to it to get rid of it. It wasn’t a large chunk of hair or anything but I still didn’t like it.
After this disaster and almost swearing off wash and go’s I decided to do a braid out to ’stretch’ out my hair. Now my wash and go’s have never looked that different from my braid outs so I don’t know how I expected the results to differ, and they didn’t. When I was detangling my braid out after a few days wear, lo and behold, another knot that I wasn’t able to remove. I am extremely patient and I will work on a knot for ages in the hope of saving a few strands but this particular breed of knots I’ve been getting are like no other. Only scissors are able to get rid of them!
Take a look, these pics were taken a few days apart:
Braid Out
Wash and go
Not much of a difference huh? I’ve tried rollersetting before but I dont get hair that I would be willing to wear outside the house and I can only wear braids and twists for so long. In frustration and looking for a solution to these major knots and single strand knots, I hopped over to youtube searching for nothing in particular then came across this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEMRX8KkWCQ
I’ve been following Brittanynic16’s hair on fotki and I was impressed with her progress, she’s got some beautiful hair! She’s had relaxed hair before but says that even though she got to bra strap length, she also experienced a lot of breakage.She prefers heat training.
After doing a lot of research about it I found out the following:
1. Heat training is not heat damage
2. It reduces styling time because it reduces the ‘bulk’ of thick hair
3. It controls or even eliminates single strand knots
4. If done properly, plenty of curl will be left in your hair so you can still wear natural styles
Based on this I am sold. I would never put chemicals in my hair again and I still want the option of wearing my curl out when I want without them costing me length during the detangling afterwards.
I will post pictures of how my wet hair looks before I begin the process next week and how it looks after I have achieved the results I want. It should take about a month to two months in total. Looking forward to it!
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Wash and go, my own hair Posted by admin on July 6th, 2010
Just a quick update, I was missing my own hair after a month of weaves etc so I unleashed it and did the classic wash and go. I simply washed and conditioned my hair and applied some eco styler gel while in the shower (no combing). Look at the comparison from my wash and go when I first went natural! It still shrinks terribly though!
2009
2010
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Afro Kinky Curly Lace Wig Posted by admin on June 20th, 2010
I finally bit the bullet and ordered a lace wig! Yes, it’s an afro kinky curly one from a lovely Chinese vendor called Rex, got his website address from BHM. Anyway, I ordered it in 1B, 14 inches with light brown lace. To tell you the truth, I was torn between ordering the wig or the afro kinky curly hair from real hair exclusive (which I hear is also really good). In the end I figured that it would be easier to buy the wig instead. I had no intention on wearing it ‘correctly’ as a lace wig should be worn, glued onto the hairline. I always intended to sew it in either at or behind my hairline. The hair is gorgeous and an excellent match for my own hair so I was really pleased.
I decided to glue it down to begin with anyway just to see how it would look. I don’t think my application was great and it only lasted 24 hours because I got the bond wet the following day! It looked good though and I rocked it when I went shopping but I don’t think the adhesive thing is for me in the long run.
Here is wig now sewn in behind my hairline. I have left about 1/2 an inch of my perimeter out all round.
After 3 days however the wig was tangling and shedding like crazy. I was just not feeling the length of the hair so I did the obvious and chopped it! I LOOOOVE it now, its so easy to manage and co-wash. I don’t even really need too detangle it any more which means that it is no longer shedding. My own hair is longer than the wig at the back so I just wet it and allowed it to shrink up, and who said shrinkage was a bad thing! The coloured bits at the front is my own hair, I was going to colour the wig too but I think it looks ok like this so I won’t bother.
Anyway, I really love it now, its like having my own hair out without my damaging hands causing breakage. A word to the wise, if you want to buy either kinky curly or afro kinky curly hair, be advised that it is very high maintenance, even higher than your own hair if you are a natural. I think that shorter lengths would be advisable unless you want to spend hours a day working on tangles and end up with a bald wig in a couple of weeks!
Mini update: This is the hair styled as I usually wear it.
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