Straight roots with no heat!

Since I've had multiple holiday parties these past few days, I wanted to try to do something new with my hair. I also wanted my hair to look longer without using heat. 

After searching multiple tutorials on YouTube, I found a method that would stretch my curls almost straight with no heat! It was just what I wanted. 

First I washed my hair and combed out my knots with my denman. Then I used a boar bristle brush to brush my curls out. Finally I wrapped my hair around my head and secured with pins. After drying, my hair was very stretched! 

Here are the results! 

After a couple days, it looked nice and wavy. 

It was such a great new style and my hair looked so long :) loved it!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

Monthly Goal Check!

This is my 5th monthly goal check, and once again, the month flew by!!! It was a successful month again, so I will go over everything and then list my goals for Dec 15th - Jan 15th :)

1) continue with my 7 days of inverted method. Check!

2) birthday hair! I want to make my hair look really nice for my birthday :) no heat allowed though! Check!

3) do a 6 month review and check up on my yearly challenges.  Check!

Okay, I checked off birthday hair even though I was kind of lazy about it and only put it in a high bun, but it still looked super cute so I think that definitely counts. The inverted method is working great, so I will continue that in the future. I haven't officially measured my hair since October but I can tell that it has definitely grown. Finally, I did my 6 month review and it helped me see how well I'm doing and how far I've come since my haircut.

braid out with a stretched out curl :)

My goals for this next month will be:

1) Continue Inverted Method Challenge!

2) Try at least 1 new style with hair

3) Make a YouTube page with a video on hair growth tips.

Well, my goals are a little more ambitious for this month. I am officially done with my semester at school, so I will have time on my hands to try out different styles and maybe post a Youtube video. I want to make a YouTube page to accompany this blog and now that I can see visible results, I know people might be interested. The style that I'm thinking of trying is a bantu twist out. I am excited to see how it goes!

Happy Healthy Hair Journey! How is yours going? :)

50th Post!

This is my 50th post for my blog! 50 posts later, and I'm seeing amazing growth, health, and strength in my hair :)

June 2013                                         Nov 2013

HHJ :) #longhairdontcare (soon)

Wash day

I did my wash day a little earlier this week since my normal day is going to be hectic. I've been doing a lot of braid outs lately, so I decided to leave my hair alone to dry for this wash day.

First I prepood with olive oil and left it in for one hour. Then I rinsed it out and did my normal wash and finished off with finger detangling. My hair wasn't that tangled and I had very little shedding which I was happy about! 

To dry, I clipped back my short bangs and left the rest down to air dry. Then I added some moraccan oil to seal. It's my newest part of my product collection and it is fantastic!

After a couple of hours of air drying, my curls looked great! 

I'm glad that I didn't stretch them out this time because even though this method gets a ton of shrinkage, the curls are gorgeous :) 

6 Months!!!!

It has officially been 6 months since I cut my hair! May 29th feels like forever ago, and I may as well be a different person from who I was then. I knew very little about taking care of curly hair. I only knew of flat irons, curling rods, and relaxers. Now I know so much about keeping my ends healthy and keeping the frizz to a low level. I will go through my yearly challenges to give an update.

1) No Heat.

This one has been the most pleasant surprise. I have not touched a flat iron or even a blow dryer in six months and my hair is singing because of it! It is also thick and strong and I know that has to do with the minimal heat usage.

2) No Relaxers

I can't believe I ever put them in my hair in the first place. The only thing it did was make my hair look longer but I will never use it again and compromise my pretty coils.

3) No Hair Dye

Very little urges with this one. I like my dark brown color now.

4) No tight ponytails or styles

Loose braids and buns have been my best friends.

5) No dry (bristle) brushing

Haven't done it at all and not missing it!


So far I have conquered my challenges and I will go into these last 6 months strong with the same energy I had on May 29th. Here we go!!!

My 6 months in photos:

May 29th day of cut

Another before picture with my straight and bleached ends

before and after!

Coils!

2 months later- getting longer!

4 months later

6 Months and Counting!!! :) 

HHJ Ladies xoxo

Funny

I had a dream the other night that I was blow drying and straightening my hair! Lol. After I freaked out that I was ruining my yearly challenge and started crying. I think it's safe to say I'm going crazy if this is considered to be a nightmare for me these days... Smh. 

I still can't believe I've gone 6 months without heat. My hair is certainly thanking me for it and I'm glad I made that decision. 

Work Shirt Update

Remember this?

6/12/13

7/10/13

<<--And then this happened??

Well Here are some updates 4 months later :)

11/15/13 Gonna have to start measuring it in terms of the Leopard!

Now my curly hair goes to the top of the A without even stretching!!

I love progress pictures- they inspire me to keep going at it and baby my hair so it can grow nice and long :) hope this gave you some inspiration too!! 

HHJ! xoxo

Monthly review!!

Wow, another month already!!! I can't believe it, in a few weeks it will be six months! Yay :)

I did pretty good with my goals for this month. I will review each one.

1) Try the inverted method for 7 days this month. Check! 

2) continue daily protective styling. Check!

3) maintain healthy scalp with tea tree oil and rinsing out all of my conditioner. Half check! 

So I completed all of my goals. The last one, I've maintained a healthy scalp but with my new shampoo rather than the methods I thought. 

My goals for this next month are:

1) continue with my 7 days of inverted method. 

2) birthday hair! I want to make my hair look really nice for my birthday :) no heat allowed though!

3) do a 6 month review and check up on my yearly challenges. 

The inverted method went really well last month and my hair feels longer than it was last month although I won't know for sure until February. I'm going to start off my months with a week of that because it makes my scalp feel really good. 

I also want to do a braid out and leave my hair down for my bday. I can't wait to see the healthy shiny curls shine for my 22nd :) 

Still can't believe that on the 29th it will have been 6 months! Looking forward to it :) 

Comparisons are Cool

I took this photo back in June and it was my infamous "healthy curls" pic. Now 5 months later and my hair has been growing like a weed!

#change #longerhairstilldontcare #weed 

5 Months!

It's a little past the exact 5 month mark but yay 5 months!!! Almost halfway through the year! Next month, I will do updates on my yearly challenges.

This past wash day, I decided to focus on clarifying. I purchased Head & Shoulders Clean Scalp formula and even though it has lauryl sulfates, I am sacrificing because I am tired of the dandruff. My scalp already feels cleaner so I will work this into my regimen at least once a month. Today I combed through my hair with my denman and then put some coconut oil on it to seal. It looks very thick and healthy so everything is doing well. My bangs are super short now which is weird but it was for the best. I usually just clip them out of my face since they look like puff balls.

I really can't wait to start seeing some real length. I'm getting better with patience; school is helping me keep my mind off of my hair. I can't fall back into the pattern of staring at the roots and willing it to grow. For now, I just gotta live day by day and continue on with my 3 month protective styling challenge. This week, I will keep my hair in two braids for the whole week. I will do this every time I clarify and brush with denman. Hopefully the tangles stay away!

Adieu Heat damage, Adieu

All these years I've been fighting these beautiful curls. Out of the ashes come life. 

No more heat damage!

Today, on impulse, I cut off all my heat damage from my bangs. It was more than I thought going into it but I'm glad I did it! It was annoying to me that it refused to curl so I finally chopped it. I finally feel like I'm 100 percent natural now that the straight strands are gone :) 

I clipped my bangs down because they were sticking straight up but where the clips are is how long they are now.

Love my curly cues sticking out :) #nomorestraight

All the heat damaged strands! Didn't realize how long it had gotten. Glad to be rid of it.

A pic of my hair texture. Loving my natural curls :) #teamcurly!! 

Day 1 of Inverted Method

Today I did the inverted method for the first time! What I did was massaged Tea tree oil into my hair for a minute and then held my head upside down for 4 minutes while I listened to music. When I finally lifted my head, I was a bit dizzy but it was simple and kind of relaxing! 

It forced me to take 4 minutes and just breathe. I even touched my toes and got a good stretch in. 

So far, the 3 month bun challenge is going well. The buns are making my hair super stretched though and I'm not complaining about the length it's giving me when I take my bun down. Here are some pics! 

My roots have never been this flat in my life!

My hair looks so long from the side

Here is a quick update on my bangs. I am slowly trimming off the heat damaged ends but the new growth is coming in strong and pretty :) 

The oil I massaged on my scalp for stimulation before the inverted method.

Finally, a picture with all my hair brought to the front. Can't wait to compare this someday with my longer curls. For now though, this length is amazing to me! 

God provides, and patience is key :)

Happy HHJ ladies <3

Review of Monthly Goals and New Ones!

I'm a week late but another month has gone by and time is flying! I was a little discouraged to do this blog post because I didn't achieve 3 of my 4 goals but disappointment is part of the journey and I am learning from all experiences, good and bad.

However!

Even though I didn't achieve most of my goals, I still had a hugely successful length check so I'm not too upset :)

my crazy awesome curls :)

Nonetheless, I will review my old goals, tell you my experience with each and then go onto to making new monthly goals!I will start with the one I achieved!


Do not look in look in the mirror to check for length (after washing hair). Check!
Take my vitamins everyday. Fail.
Scalp massages once a week. Fail.
Work on eliminating flakes on scalp. Fail.


Even though I failed 3/4 of my goals, I have some positive news for each! I read up on biotin and realized it won't be doing much for my hair growth. What I should be more concentrated on is eating healthy and taking vitamins in general and not hair specific. If the rest of my body is healthy, then my hair will reap the benefits! So I will take biotin here and there but won't make it a huge part of my regimen anymore.

The whole month, I suffered from flakes on my scalp and could not figure out why they weren't going away even with my ACV rinse. Then I realized that the flakes were probably product  buildup from leaving my conditioner in. Today for my wash day, I rinsed all of my conditioner out thoroughly and then applied leave-in conditioner on my ends only and I am already seeing improvement! There are no more flakes! It truly was just conditioner build-up.

Since I am doing protective styles everyday, I don't need to use as much conditioner to style my curls. This might be a nice break for my scalp and will help it get clarified and healthy.

Finally scalp massages are something that I had no time or motivation for. I will make it more as a pampering activity to treat my hair with once in a while when I'm feeling stressed.

NOW onto new goals!

1) Try the inverted method for 7 days this month!

2) Continue daily protective styling.

3) Maintain healthy scalp with tea tree oil and rinsing out all of my conditioner.

I confess, I am very excited to jump on the inverted method wagon. I don't believe in the claims that it grows an inch in a week; however, I think stimulating the blood in my scalp for one week every month might help especially with the cold weather coming. The inverted method is massaging an oil into your scalp and then hanging your head upside for 4 minutes. By doing this daily for 7 days in a month, my hair might be able to reap some benefits!

Hopefully this month will go better than the last! Looking forward to my length check in February and continuing my Healthy Hair Journey!!

xoxo

Boom

Progress.