It’s easy to fall into a hair slump. I do it often. But what helps me through is taking pics to document my hair journey. Seeing how far I’ve come always encourages me. I like looking at 6 month increments. It’s enough time to see progress, (& the effects of a change in my regimen), but not too much time has elapsed if corrective action is needed. So since I’m in a hair slump, I decided to look through my pictures, and I wanted to share what I found. Enjoy 🙂
I’ll start from the beginning, when I first noticed something was not right with my hair.
For those who don’t know my hair story, in a nutshell, I had a regimen before this, it was just extremely damaging to my hair, lol. I used to relax my hair every 6 weeks. My hair eventually thinned out drastically and wouldn’t hold a curl (or any style). Every time I got a trim/cut, instead of growing out the cut, my ends would split even further! So I decided about a year ago that I was going to learn what it meant to take better care of my hair, and get the thickness and length I had before!
The first picture below is after a fresh cut a day after a relaxer I gave myself. Doing my own relaxers for about 7 years led to a lot over-processing, so this was one of the last relaxers I gave myself. At that time, I had no clue that my hair was so damaged let alone why my hair was so damaged. At this stage, my hair was extremely limp.
The below picture is probably 8 weeks after a relaxer, that I believe was the last one I gave myself. In March 2011, with the help of Healthy Textures, I learned the basics of healthy hair care and began to stretch my relaxers every 3-4 months (done by professionals only). I also cut out all heat at this point (unless I was at a salon), so I stopped flat ironing/curling, and only air-dried. With a no-heat regimen, a lot of my styling was random. The above is a bantu-knot out. You can see that my damaged hair barely held any type of definition, so yes, styling was difficult. I believe I washed once a week and co-washed once a week during this stage. Deep conditioning was my savior!
Sept 2011
5 months later, I saw great progress. I achieved my old level of thickness (although as you moved down the length of my hair it thinned out since it was still the damaged hair from before). The picture below is a day after my last relaxer. I loved how healthy my hair was becoming. My styles were a lot more defined at this stage, and I began to dread the first 4 weeks after a relaxer because my hair was always so flat. I loved the volume, thickness, and styling options that came with my natural hair. So I decided to fully transition to natural.
Sept 2011
So here we are, 6 months after my last relaxer (going strong!), and although I’m not fully natural, the relaxed ends that are left are relatively healthy (compared to the more over-processed ends that I’ve cut off). I can achieve definition in styles that even 3 months ago would’ve been impossible.
The past 6 months haven’t been easy, but I must remember the progress. Looking back, it’s all been worth it 🙂
Happy journeying!
~TS
Related articles
- My Hair Story: A Love-Hate-Love Relationship (curlstories.wordpress.com)
- My Healthy Natural Hair Journey (missashanii.wordpress.com)
- The Key to Every Journey…The Ability to Adjust (curlstories.wordpress.com)
curlstories 
Girl hang in there your story is a little similar to mine. I, like you, would stretch my relaxers from every 6, then to 8, then to 10, then to 14. I did a little longer each time just to test myself and my hair. I loved the thickness, and i also lived on Phyto hair vitamins. Wow my hair was growing in so nicely. I then stopped taking Phyto because a 3 month supply was like $50 and i wanted to see if my hair would grow at the same rate, plus i wanted to save more and try a more realistic method that i could stick with longer. Anyways my story goes on, that’s my i decided to blog and take pics about my hair’s ups and downs.
And your posts are so helpful 🙂 is your hair keeping the growth rate from when you were taking your vitamins? Or has it slowed a bit? Maybe vitamins will help me at least get through the transition. I feel like I’m stuck at 2″ of new growth!
My hair gree ALOT faster with the Phyto. My hair grows really slow now. I have been stuck at the same lenght for several months now. I keep thinking its because of me being anemic and my iron levels have been always low due to my Fibroids. Heck i think i should blog about it. Lol.
*grows…length. Sorry i turned off my auto correct. Lol.
Congrats on your transitioning. I agree that taking photos is a great idea. People do it while on a weight loss journey and it reminds them (us) of where we’ve come from. it stands to reason that it would be as helpful for tracking your hair journey.
Absolutely! Sometimes you feel stuck, then you look back at pics and see great progress 🙂 very encouraging.
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