Braid out and dinner

Me and my hubby went out for dinner with some friends last weekend.  This is an annual (Restaurant Week) event that we all look forward to, and I thought a special hairstyle was in order.  So I did a braid out. Here's the result.  We love eating out during Restaurant Week, because all the participating restaurants go all out with their menus, at great prices.   I had lamb chops cooked in a spicy guava sauce.  Delicious! Accompanied by a glass of Chardonnay and finished off with Raspberry cheesecake.

My aha! moment

Last night I sat contemplating all the fuzziness that was going on with my hair.  Between the new growth and the slippage, my hair was just looking untidy.  Especially at the front.  I thought "What's stopping me from twisting the roots with gel and letting it set?"  After all this is how many other lockers retighten their hair.  So this is exactly what I did.  I twisted my little fuzzy locks with Jamaican Mango and Lime Firm Locking Gel.  After each lock was twisted, I clipped it down with one of those silver hair clips that you use with magnetic rollers.  If you relax your hair or relaxed your hair in the past, you will be very familiar with these clips.  I did this with all the locks at the front.  After this was done, I spritzed my hair with a little water and let it set overnight.  This morning when I took out the clips, my hair was looking very neat.  This was my aha! moment.  An easy way to freshen up my look without retightening in my usual way.

Dry Hair Fix

So after reading a couple of blogs where some of my locked friends have unlocked their hair and discovered very dry and damaged hair, I have decided to really go all out to make sure my hair is well conditioned and moisturized.  The downside to conditioning my hair, is that I have more slippage, especially around the edges.  However, I am willing to live with this.  Here is a picture of my freshly washed and conditioned hair.

Here's another pic of me out at dinner with my fading soft spike set

Locks at the beach in August, and in desperate need of retightening

Dry Hair

A couple of days ago I was doing a braid-out hairstyle, and while I was undoing the dried braids over the bathroom sink, I noticed that my hair was breaking quite badly.  There were lots of little bits of broken hair all over the sink.  I was very surprised at this.  I had never noticed this before, because I don't usually comb my hair over the bathroom sink.  I wonder how long this breaking has been going on.  I am guessing that the reason for the breakage is that my hair must be quite dry, even though it doesn't feel particularly dry to me.

Today I decided to treat my hair with a mixture of Jamaica Mango & Lime Island Oil and Olive Oil.  I damped my hair with water and saturated all my locks with the oils.  I put on a plastic cap for a few hours and then washed and conditioned my hair. I will watch for any further breakage over the next few days.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my hair is dry.  The summer has been very hot, and I spend much of my day in an air conditioned office, which is quite dry.  So my poor hair is paying the price for this.

End of Summer

The summer is almost over, and this makes me sad.  It is so lovely to be able to wake up a little bit later in the mornings, because the kids are not going to school.  All the extra-curricular activities are on a break. No carting the lids all over the place to do this and that.  And lots of people at work have taken vacation leave, and that means my work load is a bit lighter too (less people around to harass me).  We took our family vacation at the beach this year, and that meant a week of lying on the beach and doing nothing all day long.  I was able to read 5 books during this time.  Wonderful holiday!!

Today I got my hair retightened by my consultant, and boy did I need it. Six weeks ago I retightened it myself, and I don't like to do it very tightly. So by the time another six weeks passed, it was a real tangled mess of new growth. Here's a picture of my freshly retightened hair.

My hair is continuing to do its thing. Growing pretty fast.  As I promised myself, I have not coloured my grays for a long time now.  I am still learning to embrace them.  Reluctantly.  I will explore the possibility of using henna, instead of the commercial dyes.  I understand that the henna is supposed to be gentler on the hair. We'll see.

My hair has been locked for 3 years and 9 months now.  I still have no regrets.  Every now and then I fantasize about undoing my locks and rocking my loose hair.  In reality, I don't think I will really do that. Yet.

Summer Time

Well the summer is indeed in full swing, what with the sudden afternoon rain storms which breaks the sweltering heat. My hair has now grown long enough to feel very hot against my neck, so for the last couple of weeks I've been mostly wearing it in a pony tail.  Yes, I can now call it a pony tail, instead of a pony puff.  Ha! Ha!

When I want an easy crinkly look, I lightly spritz my hair with water before going to bed, and plait it in four big plaits.  Because it is so hot, it dries easily overnight.  In the morning I pull out the plaits and finger comb.  This is the result.

I have also been using black castor oil on my scalp on a regular basis, in the hopes of thickening up the thin spots.  The hair right at the top of my head is so very thin.  And the thinness becomes painfully obvious when I get a retightening done.  I guess there isn't much that I can do about this, besides creative styling and praying for a miracle.  The other "complaint" I have with my hair is that the hair at the back has a texture which makes my locks loosen and unravel really quickly.  Even after 3 and a half years of being locked, these locks at the back are not truly locked up yet.  Weird huh?  I wonder if they ever will?

I have decided to stop covering my grays for a while.  Hopefully forever.  I'm not sure if I am ready to embrace all the gray hairs at the front of my head, but the colouring process is very drying, and it is really tough on my hair.  Each time I colour my hair, it takes a couple of weeks for it to recover from the extreme dryness that occurs.  Hope I can live with the ever increasing quantity of grays!

Happy summer holidays everyone.  Stay safe. Keep cool.

I am publishing this picture to show the real length of my hair, without any crinkles or curls.

My locks are now three years and five months old, and are really growing fast at the moment.  I am about to cover my grays again, but this time I am going to try Clairol Textures and Tones,  instead of Dark and Lovely.  The Dark and Lovely makes my hair much too dry.  If anyone has any experience with the Textures and Tones I would love to hear about it before I apply it to my hair.