Happy Again

So I went back to my colourist today, and she fixed the unsatisfactory colour job from last week.  I love my colour again.  It is back to my natural dark brown, with none of the greys showing.

It struck me today how far my hair has come.  My locks are now just about 2 years and 4 months old.  I started with really short locks, and if you have been with me from the beginning of my journey, you may remember when my hair looked like this:

Sore Head

I had my re-tightening done today. 
Note to self: DO NOT wait for more than four weeks before getting hair re-tightened!
How many times have I said this?  But I had intended to do my own touch-up re-ti at home, before the professional one.  I last had my hair done about 5+ weeks ago, and that is just too much time between re-tightenings.  I had so much growth and tangling of the new growth, that it was very painful to get it all sorted out. My poor head is still quite sore.

Last week I did my colouring to cover up my grays again.  My colourist and I agreed that the last time, my hair looked too black.  I actually liked it for a few days, but it really looked too dark and unnatural on me.  So this time she decided to tone it down a bit.  Well, it went too far the other way this time.  It is too light on the crown, where the texture is different, (and far less dense), from the rest of my hair.  So on Thursday I will get the colour corrected.

Braid Out

I braided my hair on Saturday morning after I washed it.  I wanted a cute hairstyle for an event in the afternoon.  It was a damp, cool day, so air drying was out of the question.  I used the hairdryer, but it still didn't dry completely.  Anyway, for the event, the crinkles were there, but they flopped by the next day. This is what it looks like 2 days after.  My hair has really grown fast over the last three weeks since I had it re-tightened.  There is a lot of new growth, and I am not sure I can wait until my next scheduled re-ti in  another 3 weeks. I may have to do it myself in the interim.

Pipe Cleaner Set Part 2

So here are the pictures of the Pipe Cleaner Set.  These pictures were taken after the curls had several hours to relax.  When I took out the pipe cleaners this morning, I can only describe the curls as "frantic"
or "angst ridden".  They were TIGHT.  So the next time I try this set, I will put more locks on each pipe cleaner, so that the curls will be more relaxed.  I am quite happy with the result.

By the way, I am now down to one last remaining baby lock.  I just lost another one during the washing and setting process.

Pipe Cleaner Set

This evening I decided to try setting my hair with pipe cleaners.  It was quite easy.  I bent the pipe cleaner in half.  At the "fold" end I made a little loop.  This loop will prevent the hair from slipping off the end.

Then I started rolling the hair from the loop end, making sure that I covered the ends of my locks with the rest of the hair while rolling.  Then I secured the roll by bending the ends of the pipe cleaner. I am looking forward to seeing the result tomorrow.  It certainly feels much more comfortable than the soft spikes that I usually use.  I am anticipating a good night's sleep.

You can see from the photo that I couldn't get all the ends tucked under properly.  I'm not going to sweat this however.  I will post pictures when I take out the pipe cleaners tomorrow.

Update on New Locks

Of the five new locks that I got a few weeks ago, only two have survived.  I don't even know when I lost the others.  I guess they just unraveled during or after a washing.  Oh well. I tried.

Helping Myself

Yesterday I decided to do my own re-tightening.  I bought the Nappy-Lock tool some long time ago, but I haven't used it recently.  I did the front of my head quite easily, in a few hours, but I did not have the energy to do the back.  Truth be told, I still cannot do the back of my head, without creating a mess.  Because I can't see back there, I tend to get locks tangled up with each other.  I also fixed some locks that were bunching and I sewed in some loose strands of hair that had slipped out of locks, using Dewdrop's method