Overcoming Lazy: year in review

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Year 3 of growth (25 months post final relaxer)

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Wow, I made it to 52 weeks... At points, I didn't think I'd get this far, but after I decided to let go of hair rules and strike a balance between listening to my hair and having fun, I'm getting the hang of it. I just snipped 1/4-1/2" off my hair, but that's pretty much been it chopwise - I still have 4-10" of relaxed ends on various parts of my hair. I have 4-5" of natural roots. As I texlaxed for close to a year before transitioning, it can be difficult to see my line of demarcation, especially in areas where I have a looser texture, like my fringe area and crown.

Mini length check on freshly washed hair! Note the huge mushroom that is my 'fro popping out from under the relaxed tendrils

What do I do? I have a solid list of staple products and hair accessories (post upcoming) that I can use to reliably style my hair week after week. I usually tension blowdry my hair, then bantu knot it for soft waves that last for a few days. When the curls drop, I pin them up or bun. If I have time, I go for a greater stretch with curlformers. I wash my hair on average 2x a week because I find it easier to detangle that way, as well as being more moisturising than the LOC method, which I feel leaves my hair greasy.

If I want to dry detangle my hair with a comb and oil, I do so. If I want to finger detangle with conditioner, I do so. If I want to do it with a comb under the shower, I do that, too! I'm being very flexible - anything to get me through to the next wash day.

Here's an example of my tiny coils, where I finger coiled some hair, then pinned to stretch and these were the results the next day. Most of my hair is like this. I've also cut the few bits of relaxed and texlaxed hair remaining at the back of my nape off. That's how I judge my growth accurately.

I henna - which I have noticed has definitely made changes to my hair texture. My 4c curls are less tight, but in a way I think only I would notice. However some now seem to be more of a 4A texture. The greatest change is in my fringe area, which has always been looser. However, I now have S shaped curls there instead of coils that clump heavily, which is strange. There's not much shrinkage there either whereas the rest of my hair shrinks 70% or so. I love the tint though, and my hair is so much stronger.

Red tint under strong light from henna

I think as the time comes for me to transition chop, I will switch to protective styles, but right now, I'm enjoying the easy length while I have it! I used clip in hair extensions for a while, but as I continue to transition, I dislike synthetic/added hair more and more because with my natural volume it makes my hair waay too big.

And just a comparison - this is 4 months growth progress from 26/08 to 24/12!!!:

xx Lam

Friday, December 25, 2015

Lessons learnt (Transition talk)

As my transition continues and I fall more in love with my coily hair, the more I realise that this is definitely the right path for me. However, I would never have been able to realise this if it wasn't for the healthy relaxed hair practices I learnt over the course of a year from so many bloggers. This has allowed me to go into the transition with the best quality hair possible, meaning that there is less frustration with regards to various issues. I'm going to break a few of them down in this post.

My hair type (and I don't mean 4c)

I have baby fine, fragile but voluminous hair. I'm not sure if it's dense, but it sure is hard to get through. From relaxing and flat ironing, I learnt what exactly my hair can take before it starts to give up. If I hadn't started my healthy hair journey with learning to look after what's already on my head, I probably would have used a lot more heat and caused more damage to my new growth.

Patience (at least a little)

I think it's pretty obvious that I am not the most patient of people. I was determined to transition to texlaxed and just... didn't. And yet, I have definitely seen progress, even with the small amount of patience I have been able to apply. Imagine me trying to learn patience going straight from unhealthy relaxed to natural!

Stretching

This has been vital. The longer I stretched, the more I was able to see the resilience and versatility of my natural hair. The 4-6 month stretches I did allowed me to slowly become used to handling my natural hair in preparation for the final stretch - transitioning. I learnt how to tension blowdry among many other ways of keeping my hair from tangling. I also started to fall in love with the cute curls, which is important when making the switch to natural.

Moisture and protein

I think we all know about why this is important. I was able to find through trial and error the best way to balance this for my own hair. That means that my natural hair will have the best elasticity possible.

Length retention

I got over my fear of scissors while relaxing (in fact, became quite snip happy) which means that when I need to trim in order to keep my hair in good nick, I will.

Product junkieism

I tried so many products! But recently, I've whittled them down to my current staples, which means that there'll be no wasted money trying the next big thing. I don't care if something is organic and made just for naturals, just if it works on my hair.

Texlaxing

Originally, this was a way to get more volume. I didn't like how limp my hair appeared and seeing so many texlaxed bloggers with luxurious hair made me want to be like them. Again, this allowed me to start seeing the versatility of hair that wasn't bone straight and helped me transition my mindset from one of pin straight to voluminous and fluffy. Additionally, I have 4 inches of texlaxed hair which means that there's not such an abrupt demarcation line between relaxed and natural. This (especially recently) has been a godsend.

Henna

I learnt about this recently, and it's been a game changer. A healthy way to dye my hair, as well as providing thickness to my fine strands and also smoothing my demarcation lines (I have noticed some mild texture change, especially in my texlaxed hair and fringe section).

So all of this goes together to show that I should be able to have a much smoother transition than if I had tried this nearly two years ago when my mindset was in a completely different place and I had different priorities. My relaxed hair journey has given my natural hair a brilliant fighting chance.

xx Lam