So for a while, I've been thinking of further ways to reduce my breakage. Just before I started wanting to grow my hair in earnest, I dyed my ends a reddish colour. It turned out a lot darker than I wanted, but I think this has actually ended up being to my benefit because the hair dye would have damaged my hair more if I'd got the colour I wanted. But I'm sure that the quality of my hair has decreased because of this so my journey has also involved catchup for the colouring (which I do not regret, by the way!).

I've always been one to wear buns, and I attribute that style and box braids (more recently) to allowing me to keep my hair a good length for the six or so years it's been relaxed. But no matter how little manipulation I use when putting my hair up in a bun, I'm always cognisant of the twisting and tension that goes into a nice looking bun on my shortish hair.

But when I was cross-wrapping my hair for the night, I realised that I could just use a less tight version of that as a hairstyle! It keeps my hair off my clothes and I like the way it looks (it also means my hair doubles as a hat in keeping my hair warm!).

I now have a daily, short term (one week) and long term (six-eight weeks) low manipulation/protective hairstyle! That's this pin-up style, two big twists with extensions and long box braids. I'm very happy with that.