BAA Challenge Month 6

Checking in

 

Month 1 on the left month 6 on the right:

Month 4 Styles

Here are some of the styles I did in Month 4.

BAA Challenge Month 5

So I officially passed 4 months since my BC on September 22, which was cool. Hard to believe it’s been 4 months since I cut off my relaxed ends! I still haven’t had a day of regret. So it’s time for my 4th check-in for the BAA challenge (don’t be confused by the “Month 5” I started with 1 instead of 0. . . this challenge ends for me in December, but I think I may still track my monthly progress every 6 months).

Pictures over the jump :o)

My Advice To Transitioners

I often find myself being asked for advice by friends about transitioning and my routine as a natural, or reading posts on forums asking for advice and not having the motivation to type it all out.

My personal transitioning journey actually started about 4 months after my last relaxer. I usually stretched my relaxers out that long (a habit I picked up going to undergrad away from home --I didn’t trust just ANYBODY with chemicals, or scissors for that matter, near my head-- so I had to wait until I got home on break which was usually about 4 months apart at a time) ,  but when it was time for me to get a relaxer I didn’t really have the money, and I didn’t really feel like going through the pain (my head always itched when it was relaxer time, and so I always scratched, and we all know what happens when you scratch), and my hair was growing wonderfully without it. I’d been thinking about going Natural for a while, but I kept putting it off for arbitrary reasons, so one day in October 2009 I decided to just stop getting relaxers. I called my stylist and told her what I was planning to do and tried to get a little advice, I don’t remember what she told me, but it wasn’t much. I do remember her telling me that she thought I’d only need to go about a year after I told her I wanted to just grow the relaxer all the way out (like my mom did) instead of doing a Big Chop. And thus began my journey.

The first thing I did was start doing some research. I don’t know WHY exactly I decided to do research. Probably because I was excited and since I wasn’t working at the time I had plenty of time and nothing to really fill it with. The first site I found was Nappturality and then I started spending a lot of time on CurlyNikki. I used the message boards on these sites to reach out to other transitioners as well as people who were already natural for advice. I had no idea how to do my hair since I never REALLY styled it before. I’d just flat iron it after I washed and blowdried it every two weeks, then it would just end up in a ponytail or just straight down until it was time to do it again. Knowing what I know now I cringe at that routine. Eventually I got myself together, started co-washing every week and letting my hair airdry in twists, I deep conditioned weekly and mostly kept my hair in protective styles. I also clipped my ends about once a month since I was going to be cutting them all off anyway (when I was relaxed I HATED getting my hair trimmed with a passion, I was focused more on length than hair health. I’m glad I got over that.

So anyway, my advice is fairly simple:

Aussie Moist 3-Minute Miracle Preview and Some Randomness

So I wanted to see what was different about the 3-minute Miracle vs. Aussie Moist Conditioner and did a compare and merge in MS Word 2007. Here’s what it gave me:

Water (Eau) , Stearyl Alcohol , Cyclopentasiloxane , Cetyl Alcohol , Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine , Dimethicone , Ecklonia Radiata Extract (Australian Sea Kelp) , Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice , Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil (Jojoba) , Glutamic Acid , Fragrance (Parfum) , Bis-Aminopropyl Dimethicone , , Benzyl Alcohol , EDTA , Methylchloroisothiazolinone , Methylisothiazolinone , Ecklonia Radiata Extract , Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil (Jojoba) , Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice

Generally it looks like the same ingredients with different amounts. This should be interesting, I’m looking forward to seeing how it stacks up against the Biolage Hydra Therapie Ultra-Hydrating Balm. . . both only take Three Minutes. I’ll try it out this week, if I like it, it may become a permanent fixture. It’s kind of nice not having to take 15 minutes or more to DC, especially when I’m in a hurry.

I also went to the health foods store and got some Aloe Vera Gel (the smell is horrible to me) to try out. I’m thinking of adding it to my Shea Butter mix, but I might try to come up with a new shea-loe mix since my Shea Butter mix is pretty awesome to me as it is. Decisions, decisisons.

Oh, and I’ve been 100% relaxer free (as in no more chemically straightened hair) for over 4 months. YAY!!! I’ll do a post sometime soon with the styles I did last month since I did try to switch it up a little on the styles.

Matrix Biolage Hydra Therapie Ultra-Hydrating Balm Review

So, someone sent me some of this to try and yesterday I decided to give it a whirl. This isn’t a product I’ve used more than once at this point, but I think I have enough to try it again next week. Overall, I like it. . .

Twist-UpDo on Dry Stretched Hair

So I decided yesterday that I wanted to try to come up with a new protective style, and I’ve always wanted something else to do with twists besides just twisting them. The above is what I came up with.