As you may (or may not) have noticed, I haven't written in a while. From Jamaica, to coming home and realising I had to move to launching Gem Stone Love, and trying to get to grips with what is and isn't happening in my day job - I just haven't had the time.
I have been keeping up on my hair regime and I'm still making things left right and centre - most recent addition being a pomade with beeswax.
But unfortunately I'm going to have to leave blogging alone for a little while :( :( :(
I'll still be around but it will be in full Gem Stone Love capacity - you can catch me at any of the places below explaining it all like my name is Clarissa or something.
I really appreciated everyone who read and Google+ posts and I'm hoping you'll stay in touch and follow me on my new journey. This blog is staying open as there may just be room for me to return later. But until the next time...
www.gemstonelove.co.uk
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Twitter @gemstonelondon
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Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 August 2017
Sunday, 14 May 2017
Over moisturising
It is possible to over moisturise black hair. I've done it before and like a fool I did it again.
About 2 weeks ago my hair was perfectly protein and moisture balanced, had I paid attention to this I would have taken note and realised that I should have used a little moisturising conditioner and a little protein conditioner as I don't have any premixes.
I didn't and it left my hair feeling gummy and was way over-stretchy. It's ok now though, due to a adding protein, every night and really taking time with my hair - I got over it without too much breakage.
And now I can do the baggying again - why do I love this so much? It's nuts but it works, putting that moisture on and sealing it in to steam with my shower cap works wonders for making my hair soft. Then I put the protein in right before I seal.
In fact when my hair was balanced a few weeks ago, I left the baggy on with a durag to slow air dry it. Usually I put a bit of oil on the ends to stop frizzing but I just didn't need to at all. Will have to remember that.
Here's to the shower cap!
About 2 weeks ago my hair was perfectly protein and moisture balanced, had I paid attention to this I would have taken note and realised that I should have used a little moisturising conditioner and a little protein conditioner as I don't have any premixes.
I didn't and it left my hair feeling gummy and was way over-stretchy. It's ok now though, due to a adding protein, every night and really taking time with my hair - I got over it without too much breakage.
And now I can do the baggying again - why do I love this so much? It's nuts but it works, putting that moisture on and sealing it in to steam with my shower cap works wonders for making my hair soft. Then I put the protein in right before I seal.
In fact when my hair was balanced a few weeks ago, I left the baggy on with a durag to slow air dry it. Usually I put a bit of oil on the ends to stop frizzing but I just didn't need to at all. Will have to remember that.
Here's to the shower cap!
Saturday, 8 April 2017
Baggying for moisture
Baggying is something that I have seen on many a blog for years now, and yet for some reason I just never paid any attention to it. Maybe it was because I wasn't sure when it would be appropriate to do it. As with most new fantastic products, they're probably great but if you use it at the wrong time, when your hair isn't ready, then you're not going to get the right results.
Baggying is when you put a shower cap or sealed plastic bag over your freshly moisturised but unsealed hair in order to keep the moisture in. I think it goes a little deeper than that actually, or at least for me any way.
I used to use mane n tail detangler religiously. At first I used to put way too much on because I was impatient, I eventually realised by accident (distracting phone call) that when you put it on and leave it to work - not immediately trying to comb or finger comb your hair - then the hair is actually much more agreeable, I didn't have to fight with it nearly as much and didn't have to use as much detangler.
The same applies to my standard leave in (water and conditioner mix in spray bottle with essential oils). My night process was to spray some the hair and scalp - I don't oil my scalp - and then finger comb, apply hair oil sealer and style for bed. This works fine at the beginning of my stretch, I don't need as much leave in or sealer. But at the end of the stretch, it just doesn't work, leaving me frustrated and running my hands through my hair too quickly, pulling out hair's from the fragile demarcation line. So I end up using more and more leave in, leaving me with wet hair, and then it's so wet you feel like it needs to dry a little before putting the oil on. As a night time routine, this gets really annoying as my hair is at this stage for about a month.
With baggying however I've found that giving my roots, scalp, and ends a nice light spray when I come home in the evening, putting the shower cap on while I cook, read, meditate; by the time it's time for my night time routine, you can feel the moisture is on the inside of the hair rather than just sitting on the outside. My tight and rough roots are flexible without feeling weak like that over moisturised feeling.
I don't have a lot of time in the evenings as I work pretty far away from home so the shower cap is only on for just under 2 hours. Even when I had a couple of evenings out this week, I still got the benefit from only keeping it on for 30 minutes while I showered and got ready for bed.
I am also using a small amount of protein every other night though - during the sealing process, I believe that keeps the balance.
Some people manage to baggy overnight, I have no idea how, after the 90 minute mark my scalp screams give me air! But if it works then it works, it's probably a little different if you have a lot of natural hair. I've also seen some worries that it would cause the hair to smell, I haven't had experience of that personally, smell as far as I know is caused by bacteria, the essential oils in my leave in and sealer put a stop to that pretty darn quick.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the growth in a couple of weeks when I relax again. I haven't worn my hair down once since February, but my friend had commented that it looked like it had grown. It probably just looked healthier / thicker as result of all the new growth and moisture that's in side the hair, but I do believe/hope that I have retained more hair this stretch. I won't be trimming again until the early Autumn. I went from 1 trim a year to 2 trims for the past 2 years and I really think that's part of the reason why I haven't seen much improvement, about an inch left me each time. I hardly ever have split ends but my hair does grow at different speeds all over my head so that would be the reason why it was levelled out quite so severely.
Pretty big breakthrough for me, it might have seemed obvious but sometimes you have to learn for yourself.
Baggying is when you put a shower cap or sealed plastic bag over your freshly moisturised but unsealed hair in order to keep the moisture in. I think it goes a little deeper than that actually, or at least for me any way.
I used to use mane n tail detangler religiously. At first I used to put way too much on because I was impatient, I eventually realised by accident (distracting phone call) that when you put it on and leave it to work - not immediately trying to comb or finger comb your hair - then the hair is actually much more agreeable, I didn't have to fight with it nearly as much and didn't have to use as much detangler.
The same applies to my standard leave in (water and conditioner mix in spray bottle with essential oils). My night process was to spray some the hair and scalp - I don't oil my scalp - and then finger comb, apply hair oil sealer and style for bed. This works fine at the beginning of my stretch, I don't need as much leave in or sealer. But at the end of the stretch, it just doesn't work, leaving me frustrated and running my hands through my hair too quickly, pulling out hair's from the fragile demarcation line. So I end up using more and more leave in, leaving me with wet hair, and then it's so wet you feel like it needs to dry a little before putting the oil on. As a night time routine, this gets really annoying as my hair is at this stage for about a month.
With baggying however I've found that giving my roots, scalp, and ends a nice light spray when I come home in the evening, putting the shower cap on while I cook, read, meditate; by the time it's time for my night time routine, you can feel the moisture is on the inside of the hair rather than just sitting on the outside. My tight and rough roots are flexible without feeling weak like that over moisturised feeling.
I don't have a lot of time in the evenings as I work pretty far away from home so the shower cap is only on for just under 2 hours. Even when I had a couple of evenings out this week, I still got the benefit from only keeping it on for 30 minutes while I showered and got ready for bed.
I am also using a small amount of protein every other night though - during the sealing process, I believe that keeps the balance.
Some people manage to baggy overnight, I have no idea how, after the 90 minute mark my scalp screams give me air! But if it works then it works, it's probably a little different if you have a lot of natural hair. I've also seen some worries that it would cause the hair to smell, I haven't had experience of that personally, smell as far as I know is caused by bacteria, the essential oils in my leave in and sealer put a stop to that pretty darn quick.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the growth in a couple of weeks when I relax again. I haven't worn my hair down once since February, but my friend had commented that it looked like it had grown. It probably just looked healthier / thicker as result of all the new growth and moisture that's in side the hair, but I do believe/hope that I have retained more hair this stretch. I won't be trimming again until the early Autumn. I went from 1 trim a year to 2 trims for the past 2 years and I really think that's part of the reason why I haven't seen much improvement, about an inch left me each time. I hardly ever have split ends but my hair does grow at different speeds all over my head so that would be the reason why it was levelled out quite so severely.
Pretty big breakthrough for me, it might have seemed obvious but sometimes you have to learn for yourself.
Friday, 10 March 2017
Protective styles - making it work for me
A minute on protective styles.
I was supposed to write about Hair oil next but I'm not really feeling it. - The topic not the oil, the oil is fabulous.
I am now learning to embrace protective styles. And I have to get a bit deep and explain why it took me so long.
I relax my hair because I like variety, there are numerous hairstyles that suit my rather strong featured face that I can do with relaxed hair. I can and did canerow my own hair for several years but I found it tiresome and really uninspiring. Also my hair wasn't very long then so that also didn't give me much room for manoeuvre unless I added hair extensions.
I understood the need for protective styles after reading The Science of Black hereafter known as(TSoB). I introduced some styles where I could but I mostly struggled because I didn't feel like I looked pretty if I didn't wear my hair down be it straight or with the use of god given flexi-rods. There I've said it out loud. I felt like I looked like a child with big canerows going to church. It didn't feel effeminate to me whatsoever. Because I'm not a big makeup wearer I felt my whole face just looked plain and invisible if I didn't have my hair to add some razamataz to it.
But now several years on and oh so many expletives towards low self esteem later, that's how I've mostly been wearing my hair since the beginning of this year. I stretch for 9 weeks and during the winter when the weather is frightful, there's not really much point in attempting to wear your hear out. But as I have restarted my journey I thought it best to really look at what I was doing again, and see if I should be doing something differently or regiment it a bit more.
Towards the end of my stretch I became very good friends with the 2 large canerows. Alternated parting on the right and left every week just in case I was pulling to hard at the temple hair. I did feel like I pulled on the hair way too much but with a lot of new growth and that weird end texture your previously relaxed hair gets when it knows it's time to re do it; I just needed to make sure everything was in place. All in all I think I'll give myself an A for effort but not for out come, the style looked good but I needed to prepare my hair MUCH more before I handled it so much. And I canerowed it fresh every morning and lightly at night.
But now with my fairly fresh hair, it's all about the flat twists. I started off doing the single twists because the texture it gives me hair really works for me and makes a simple grip at the back style effortless whilst still looking like I put effort in. But as I am useless at pinning curls on a second or third day, I had to redo all of those single twists every night, which is rather more handling than I should probably do on my fine hair. I'm not sure if flat twists are actually less handling or not but their certainly quicker. Another bonus is that with the twists, I have the choice to do them tight or puffy, very weirdly for me I'm rather enjoying the puffy, they're about an inch up off my head (that's a lot for me) and that extra length / depth / direction works with my strong jaw line. Although I did realise I needed a new set of go to everyday earrings to work with my wearing my hair up nearly all the time. I have ordered them today and I'm a little in love.
I think after all this it's about finding what works for you. I felt so pressured to do what every one else was doing that I never really gave myself a chance to enjoy my hair and my hair type for that matter with my hair length on my head crowning my lovely face.
I'm going to start enjoying my hair again, and I do expect great things from it. Just changing my product line up like I did years ago had nearly an immediate effect. Now I'm not saying I expect to have waist length hair by Christmas; but I will be expecting length that's healthy because I darn well worked for it.😍
I was supposed to write about Hair oil next but I'm not really feeling it. - The topic not the oil, the oil is fabulous.
I am now learning to embrace protective styles. And I have to get a bit deep and explain why it took me so long.
I relax my hair because I like variety, there are numerous hairstyles that suit my rather strong featured face that I can do with relaxed hair. I can and did canerow my own hair for several years but I found it tiresome and really uninspiring. Also my hair wasn't very long then so that also didn't give me much room for manoeuvre unless I added hair extensions.
I understood the need for protective styles after reading The Science of Black hereafter known as(TSoB). I introduced some styles where I could but I mostly struggled because I didn't feel like I looked pretty if I didn't wear my hair down be it straight or with the use of god given flexi-rods. There I've said it out loud. I felt like I looked like a child with big canerows going to church. It didn't feel effeminate to me whatsoever. Because I'm not a big makeup wearer I felt my whole face just looked plain and invisible if I didn't have my hair to add some razamataz to it.
But now several years on and oh so many expletives towards low self esteem later, that's how I've mostly been wearing my hair since the beginning of this year. I stretch for 9 weeks and during the winter when the weather is frightful, there's not really much point in attempting to wear your hear out. But as I have restarted my journey I thought it best to really look at what I was doing again, and see if I should be doing something differently or regiment it a bit more.
Towards the end of my stretch I became very good friends with the 2 large canerows. Alternated parting on the right and left every week just in case I was pulling to hard at the temple hair. I did feel like I pulled on the hair way too much but with a lot of new growth and that weird end texture your previously relaxed hair gets when it knows it's time to re do it; I just needed to make sure everything was in place. All in all I think I'll give myself an A for effort but not for out come, the style looked good but I needed to prepare my hair MUCH more before I handled it so much. And I canerowed it fresh every morning and lightly at night.
But now with my fairly fresh hair, it's all about the flat twists. I started off doing the single twists because the texture it gives me hair really works for me and makes a simple grip at the back style effortless whilst still looking like I put effort in. But as I am useless at pinning curls on a second or third day, I had to redo all of those single twists every night, which is rather more handling than I should probably do on my fine hair. I'm not sure if flat twists are actually less handling or not but their certainly quicker. Another bonus is that with the twists, I have the choice to do them tight or puffy, very weirdly for me I'm rather enjoying the puffy, they're about an inch up off my head (that's a lot for me) and that extra length / depth / direction works with my strong jaw line. Although I did realise I needed a new set of go to everyday earrings to work with my wearing my hair up nearly all the time. I have ordered them today and I'm a little in love.
I think after all this it's about finding what works for you. I felt so pressured to do what every one else was doing that I never really gave myself a chance to enjoy my hair and my hair type for that matter with my hair length on my head crowning my lovely face.
I'm going to start enjoying my hair again, and I do expect great things from it. Just changing my product line up like I did years ago had nearly an immediate effect. Now I'm not saying I expect to have waist length hair by Christmas; but I will be expecting length that's healthy because I darn well worked for it.😍
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
Introduction
Having undergone a dramatic "only natural products kick" 3 years ago, I think I've now gotten to the point where my hair is really decently healthy. It has grown during that time but mostly the last 3 years have been a process of growing out the really bad hair. Now it's time for the real journey.
I've been looking at blog's on and off and doing lots of my own study, but recently hair care / growth has not been a priority. I don't think I gave up as such, it was just a lonely place really especially as very few people I know are as into hair as I am, much less diy hair, and then the much much less to non existent - not a weave / wig wearer.
Just to make the point up front, I have nothing against wig's or weaves. Most of them look absolutely stunning, and then there's the obvious fact that tucking your hair away in those long winter months will really help. I just don't like them on myself. I used to wear a lot of clip in ponytails back in the day, which then of course ate at my hair line something horrid. But I just can't get over the idea of A, not being able to feel my own hair everyday or B, wearing a wig knowing that if the wind blows I'll be at best self conscious.
So what's a girl to do? This year was the only of the 3 years that I didn't see the noticeable hair growth I was expecting on after trim day (Christmas time - once a year because of an unintellectual phobia). Now in February I realised that that part of the journey was over, and actually yes, this length is nice and manageable (framing the face) but actually, I want long hair, I've always wanted long hair. Not crazy long just a decent bra strap length.
But how do I do it? Who do I talk to about it?
I again looked on line and found a few blogs or chat rooms last updated in 2008, all American so using primarily American products and - things are different in different weather. I have a good hair dresser who is a good friend but she is much more fond of weaves and wigs. So, on one blistery Saturday morning I thought I'll write a blog, I'll learn with me, and I can remember the things that went well and not so well. And if there is anyone else out there thinking like me, maybe we can learn together.
Welcome, enjoy, sit back, lean in, comment, learn, teach, grow with me.
I've been looking at blog's on and off and doing lots of my own study, but recently hair care / growth has not been a priority. I don't think I gave up as such, it was just a lonely place really especially as very few people I know are as into hair as I am, much less diy hair, and then the much much less to non existent - not a weave / wig wearer.
Just to make the point up front, I have nothing against wig's or weaves. Most of them look absolutely stunning, and then there's the obvious fact that tucking your hair away in those long winter months will really help. I just don't like them on myself. I used to wear a lot of clip in ponytails back in the day, which then of course ate at my hair line something horrid. But I just can't get over the idea of A, not being able to feel my own hair everyday or B, wearing a wig knowing that if the wind blows I'll be at best self conscious.
So what's a girl to do? This year was the only of the 3 years that I didn't see the noticeable hair growth I was expecting on after trim day (Christmas time - once a year because of an unintellectual phobia). Now in February I realised that that part of the journey was over, and actually yes, this length is nice and manageable (framing the face) but actually, I want long hair, I've always wanted long hair. Not crazy long just a decent bra strap length.
But how do I do it? Who do I talk to about it?
I again looked on line and found a few blogs or chat rooms last updated in 2008, all American so using primarily American products and - things are different in different weather. I have a good hair dresser who is a good friend but she is much more fond of weaves and wigs. So, on one blistery Saturday morning I thought I'll write a blog, I'll learn with me, and I can remember the things that went well and not so well. And if there is anyone else out there thinking like me, maybe we can learn together.
Welcome, enjoy, sit back, lean in, comment, learn, teach, grow with me.
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