My Current PS!

For those not used to hair lingo, PS means Protective Styling, which is one of the techniques you ought to adapt when you are trying to grow your hair to retain the length that you are growing. Why protective styling? Its very necessary if you want to retain moisture in your hair, avoid unnecessary manipulation that can lead to breakage and splitting of your hairs or friction on your clothes ( I bet you've always wondered why most people never cross shoulder length hair....well, its a lack of this).

I learnt early on in my hair journey to protect my ends which are very susceptible to breakage as they are the weakest parts of my hair.
At the moment I am 11 weeks post relaxer and have a lot of new growth. Now while I love my new growth, it is giving me a headache at the moment as washing my hair is a pain and I have to be really careful manipulating my hair. To protect it, I decided to have braids done, which aside from being PS also provides protection and is a low manipulation style.

When you have braids on, please do not ignore your hair. Remember to treat it the same way you would with your real hair, which in my case requires:

• Moisturising and sealing with my mix every day (infusium, aloevera juice, coconut oil all mixed in a spray bottle). Avoid spraying your roots so you don't have to deal with build up
• Washing weekly
• Deep conditioning every week
• sleeping with a silk scarf

I will update with how I wash and deep condition with braids on during the weekend.


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The beginning!

I began my hair journey in May 2013.

It just happened that I had fixed a weave for a month and then decided to retouch my hair at 8 weeks. After having it relaxed, I found my hair at shoulder length which I have to admit I hadn’t seen in years. It felt so good seeing my real hair at that length and I decided I was going to enjoy my own hair for once. I was fed up with constantly spending so much money on buying human hair, losing my front hair and having my stylist do so much to my hair that in my heart I knew wasn’t right for the hair and so I took my hair into my hands.

                                                             May 2013
Now anyone who knows me from my early years might say I’ve always had good hair, because in both primary and secondary school, I had thick natural hair which was pretty long. But with years of unhealthy hair practices such as relaxing hair on same day I take off my weave or fixing a weave same day I took off weave, overlapping relaxers and retouching every four or six weeks, coloring my hair at my every whim, my hair was suffering. Also, I was losing hair from the front of my hair especially in the area where I had always had my center parting which has always been my major hair style.

Shoulder length May 2013

My hair was slightly damaged and not as thick as before and yet, it had managed to get to shoulder length.

That day in May, I made a promise to myself to take better care of my hair , practice protective styling, find the best products my hair likes and  to do intense research to know what was best for my hair to be healthy and thrive and to create a regime for the purposes noted.

I went on the internet and read all about hair till it became my obsession. Not a day goes by when I do not read at least three articles on hair. I also bought books on black hair such as The Science of black hair by Audrey Sivasothy and the 5 Hair Archetypes by Sharifa Barnett. I read a lot of hair books for knowledge sake and visit a lot of hair blogs and forums. 

By my next relaxer in August 2013, I was amazed to find my hair at Armpit length.

                                                   Armpit Length September 2013
I am slowly discovering what my hair loves and various techniques that work for my hair. This blog is to help others out there understand their hair and get to know that with knowledge, right products and techniques, your hair can grow very long! It’s also a way to account for my hair and a diary of my Journey!