The gripped ponytail - handle with care

I used to live in ponytails. Back in the day when I was still very unconfident about my hair, and had no idea how to style or take care of it. Everyone either had longer looser curled hair that was much easier to just fling in one, or wore weaves, so I didn't have much variety to get ideas from.

So when it came to any kind of 'going out out' the decision for how to do my hair was "which ponytail to put on?" Not how do I style it. I had quite a range, and I always wore them well. I wore them well, my hair line did not. My hair line was not a fan of ponytails. The ends of my hair that I put in a strangle hold hair band was not a fan of the ponytails.

I could get quite obviously why my hair line suffered. But I didn't know what to do about the ends of my hair - I was young and not nearly as well read on the subject as I am now. The ends of my hair suffered because I was tucking them in after the forth tie around. I also didn't realise the importance of making sure the hair I was putting under stress - where the band met the hair, should be even more cared for. Because it wasn't seen, I didn't think I needed to do anything with it.

Yesterday I went to an amazing fancy dress party as Uhura from Star Trek. I have exactly 1 ponytail in my possession that I've only worn 3 times in 3 years, 2 of those at fancy dress (first one was catwoman - I looked fantastic and it had nothing to do with the hair...).

This time though, I have learnt, thoroughly what I'm supposed to be doing when I use a ponytail. I made sure to soften up and massage my scalp all over, paying particular attention to my temples. I dampened my whole head with my leave in conditioner, not dripping, but enough for you to feel it. Then I worked on the banded area, re moisturising that section and my natural ponytail to the end. I added just a spray of protein, and sealed my whole head of hair. Adding a little extra oil to the banded area and ends. I also put oil on the hair band for good measure.

I left the ends out, rather than tucking them in and put my gripped pony tail on as usual. When I took it off last night (this morning) I quickly loosened the band, and added a touch more water and oil to the banded area, ends and temple (with a quick massage to the temple as I could feel the pull even though I was careful). Then wrapped my head and somehow managed to sleep while the younger ones were still enjoying drunken karaoke in the living room.

This morning, a touch more water and oil to the hair in general and my hair is fine. Once upon a time, my hair after a ponytail night felt like straw. Not any more.

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!

Grey Hair

Apparently no one knows why we get grey hair or more accurately, why we stop producing the melanin that gives hair it's colour.

The old wives tale of it being related to stress has yet to be proven. I can fully believe however that a stressed individual will possibly be exhibiting behaviours that aren't conducive to 'normal' hair growth like not eating well, smoking etc. But the idea that it's a direct link still is a bit far for me. Primarily because I have grey hair.

I've counted a grand total of 5 'white' hairs. One really long mama, one about an inch, and the rest are in my temple hair. All of which are in the same front left quadrant of my head. Friends can't see anything from the back. When I first told my niece (same age as me) that I had them about a year ago just casually in conversation, she was stunned and thought I must be super stressed. I'm not, and I wasn't. If my hair colour was directly related to my stress levels I would have had a full head of white hair when I was 21.

Biologically, my fathers side all had grey hair in a front quadrant from what I imagine was a relatively young age, 40 ish. My issue is, when should we actually expect to get grey hair? Does anyone even no anymore? I had a couple of grey hairs coming and going since I was about 16. I've never dyed my hair, but a lot of young girls do obviously. Could more people be getting grey hair in their 20's and we just don't know because we artificially change our hair in one way or another all the time?

There was a lady on the train with her son yesterday, she must have been 37 at a high push. She had a good inch of grey roots showing against dyed brown hair. And I thought, lets just say she's a normal every day person who is relatively healthy, if she really has gone fully grey, are most people grey? Or at least is it much more common at a much earlier age than we actually know?

As far as I know it doesn't seem to be a problem for men, they look distinguished as they get older. I don't know what men think of women with grey hair, surely if your face and your general mannerisms still reflect your age (or the age you feel), how much of a big deal is it? And also how you wear your hair as well. My white hairs are still good quality hairs so my hair styles still rock, is it that some people's grey hair loses it's manageability or is it that people give up caring for their hair in the same way once it goes grey? thus then making you old (the rusty dusty kind not my granny still looks amazing in her church dress and wig kind).

I have a lot of questions as you can tell. I don't know if I'll ever get answers for them. I've never been drawn to dying my hair and it doesn't entice me now, always a possibility that could change in the future but I like to think it won't, mostly because I don't know if my fine hair can take a relaxer as well as hair dye.

Also it isn't lost on me that age and aging keeps popping in my head with my milestone birthday coming up. I like to think as long as people keep getting my age wrong in both directions, I'm probably doing ok.

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.

The first wash after relaxer

And... I still have hair. So I used JASON aloe vera conditioner to do my mid week co wash. Where I'm still not used to not having the bone straight feeling, my hair felt a little weird before the water hit it, slightly wavy and a tiny bit frizzy at the back. But the water just sorted everything right out. I added 1 drop of Rosemary essential oil to the conditioner as usually about 10 days after a relaxer I have a terribly dry flaky scalp that I need to condition several times to get rid of the dead skin. I didn't actually have a dry scalp but I thought it doesn't hurt to pump up the conditioner a bit.

Towel dried the hair, no need for the diy leave in spray as it's already moisturised. Put my hair oil in finger combed and did 2 long twist rows. The hair feels fuller I can't tell if the rosemary was necessary or not but I feel better for adding it rather than leaving it out.

This is how good I was feeling.

It's pretty weird weather in London at the moment, with all the various storms and annoyingly windy weather. I did catch up with my natural headed friends yesterday though and thought well if they can do it - and look good while doing it, I need to man up a tad.

As I write this it's Sunday and I'm sitting with the conditioner in for a while. I had to do a pre poo with a olive and sunflower oil as I was out late last night and neglected to sort out my hair before bed. I know better why don't I do better? Currently using Green People Moisturising shampoo and conditioner. I think it will be a week of hats to work again and twisting it up in a grip at the back. As protective styles go it's easy and still looks good so I'll keep going with that.

Going to start reading the Science of Black Hair by Audrey Davis-Sivasothy again. A fantastic book that taught me pretty much everything I know and started me on my natural products journey many years ago.

Now off to do a cool rinse and finger comb (yawn).

Next post will be about my much loved DIY hair oil.