Detangling - without distressing my tresses

Cyclomethicone is a silicone found in a lot of leave in conditioners. If you haven't seen it listed then you've definitely seen Dimethicone. Dimethicone is the one that you need a SLS shampoo to wash out as it builds up on the hair. Cyclomethicone on the other hand is a little more friendly, it can evaporate and is easily washed out with co-wash.

I have a bottle of Cyclomethicone because I use it when making lotions, it adds a really good silky feeling without leaving your skin feeling oily. So of course, knowing that worked, I tried putting it in my leave in conditioner (JASON mixed with water and essential oils). The first few times I put too much in and my hair just wasn't liking it. It felt consistently dehydrated.

Then I made a dry oil body spray using oil and Cyclo, so I thought a touch on the hair might work to detangle - no, no it doesn't.

It was only on Sunday after I washed my hair and realised that my hair is now needing assistance in detangling again, (is it growing faster is it just me? I have been religiously adding Rosemary oil to conditioner...) I thought maybe if I just put a couple of drops on my hands and in between my fingers and run it through my hair as it's air drying, that might work. And I think it did, detangling was very easy, so much so I think I used too much Cyclo even then. I had used 3 drops, next time 2 will do for my whole head, as the next morning I had to add more moisture.

I like this. Where I had been on an all natural products kick for years, I did miss that slick feel. But also and weirdly, I used my ElastaQP shampoo for relaxed hair and moisturising conditioner, they used to be my staple before Green People; I realised I had some conditioner left so thought I'd just use those and my hair was not happy at all. It felt really coated and sickly for want of a better word. Clearly either my hair or my fingers got used to the Green People set pretty damn quickly.

Anyway, I'm glad I got the Clyclomethicone game right, if my hair is growing at the speed I think / hope it is now that I'm taking care of it, I'm going to need it. I'm also going to need to become friends with adding a little extra Jojoba oil when styling in the morning, the hair isn't dry but I do know I should be adding extra oil on places that pulled in any way like with a hair band.


Little by little

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.😍

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.